The UK handgun ban was never intended to address the illegal misuse of firearms by criminals. It was intended to remove legally held weapons from registered owners and thus prevent any repetition of incidents like the Dunblane massacre, where a legally held weapon was used to kill many young children when the owner flipped out one day.
Addressing illegal weapons illegally purchased to be used during illegal activities by criminals is an entirely different subject altogether.
The insistence of many pro-RKBA people on here that the UK handgun ban has failed because criminals are still using guns shows an astounding level of ignorance if not dishonesty IMHO.
"In 1987 16 people were killed and 15 injured by a previously law-abiding man who ran amok in the peaceful market town of Hungerford. Then in Dunblane in 1996 16 children and their teacher were killed and a further 12 children and 3 teachers were injured by a man who had spent his adult life working with young people and who, in his own words, loved guns. Both were fully licensed gun owners under the existing legislation.
...The overwhelming sense of public grief and outrage, fuelled by the media, the highly effective ‘Snowdrop petition’ and the establishment of the Gun Control Network, prompted the Conservative government of the day to introduce a ban on large calibre handguns in February 1997. The New Labour administration that came into power in May 1997 kept its promise and a ban on all handguns was completed later that year...
Although we have always had some of the tightest gun laws in the world, it is worth noting that pistol shooting was the fastest-growing sport in the country at the time of Dunblane and that there was evidence of a particular growth in gun clubs offering ‘practical shooting’ or ‘combat shooting’ activities. We could legitimately point to the spectre of the American style gun culture in which over 30,000 people are killed by gunfire every year and say to the public that we must make sure we do not go down the American road.
The reform of our domestic gun laws is significant not only because it has meant that around 200,000 handguns were handed in and destroyed but because it sends a clear message about what kind of civil society we want to live in. A statement has been made, a position taken, that guns, particularly handguns, are dangerous and unnecessary and we will all be safer if there are fewer of them...
1. The overall rise in crimes of violence in 2000 was 16% and the rise in robbery 26% so it is true that we seem to be becoming a more violent society generally. This is a matter of great concern to us all. There is evidence that the biggest growth is in street muggings frequently related to the theft of mobile phones.
2. Guns were used relatively rarely in violent crime ie in only 4.7% of robberies in 1999 and 8% of homicides, so the problem is to a very large extent one of non-firearms crime.
3. Handgun homicide figures are very low and since 1980 have fluctuated from 7 in 1988, through to 35 in 1993 and a previous high of 39 in1997. So 42 gun murders in 1999 does not represent a statistically significant increase"
http://www.gun-control-network.org/GRIP.htm
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