gjduk posted on June 15, 2009 18:24
After reading an acticle on the Scotsman which can be found here http://news.scotsman.com/politics/SNP-pledge-to-use-new.5364682.jp, who appear to be big supporters of the SNP, as they seem to publish alot of information about them. I thought I would have a look into airgun related incidents in the UK and how much of an effect they have on UK life. So to start off this little investigation I have compiled some stats from 2008 about airgun related incidents.
There are estimates of that there are 3 million to 4 million airguns in the uk with only 12 reported incidents in 2008 that is a 0.00039999999999999996% incident rate, and here is the list of those incidents:
1) Attempted murder by a drunk depressed mother on her own son, existing laws worked and was charged and convicted.
2) A woman threathed to kill husbands mistress with a BB Gun, again existing laws worked and was charged and convicted to a 3 year community order.
3) Drunk ex-husband threatened estranged wife with an air pistol, once again existing laws worked and was
convicted to 12 months.
4) A man pointed rifle out of a bedroom window and shot at a neighbour and his son (with no injuries), and the man already had 35 previous convictions and was sentenced to 3 years.
5) A man fired twice at an his ex-girlfriends new boy friend, was convicted to 3 years
6) A man who collected airguns and crossbows assaulted his wife and pointed an airgun at a police officer, he was charged with firarms offences, but he was found not guilty of them, but was found guilty of common assault.
7) A former Tory councillor threated a woman who he was possessive and overbearing towards and held up and airgun, and threatened to "Deck her if she was a man", he was given a 12 month suspended sentence and a restraining order.
8) A drunk son threatened his mother with an air rifle and hit her with the butt of it, and took her bank card, he was given a 120 days in prison, suspended for 18 months, and was given a 18 month supervision order.
9) A man of 20 years old turned up outside a 14 year old girls house who he had been seeing for about a week, and was armed with an air rifle and a sword, he was drunk and threatened to slit her throat and burn down her house, he was convicted and given a 12 month sentence in a young offenders institute.
10) A man pointed a loaded air rifle at his wife after learning of their childs paternity on the Jeremy Kyle show. he was given an indeterminate sentenance for public protection.
11) a man shot his wife while he was drunk, and was convicted and jailed for 3 1/2 years
12) A man shot his wife in the shoulder after a row, and was given a nine month suspended sentence after admitting assault and causing actual bodily harm
There may be more than this on the police statistics, but I do not have access to these at the time of writing this, I will have a look at getting these to make the figures a bit more complete, but this is a collection of incidents related to airguns from the Gun Control Network, who are one of the main anti-gun organisations in the UK.
Apart from the incident rate been very low even when compared to cars for example, in 2006 there were 3201 road related deaths in 2006 according to WhatCar, and there are over 33 million cars on uk roads again according to WhatCar which gives us a 0.0097% incident rate, and that is already higher, than air rifle related incidents, and that does not take into account all car related incidents such as normal accidents.
To clarify my points I will hunt down a list of other related incidents and post these at a later date, such as the use of screwdrivers, and kitchen knifes etc, and maybe we will see a better picture of how little air rifles are used for commiting a criminal act.
For now this will do, it sets the scene that putting in additional laws in the UK (mainly in Scotland) to stop the ownership and use of airguns for such a little amount of incidents, is too costly and more than likely would not stop the type of incidents above from happening, as they would more than likely find another way of achiving the same task.
I would love to hear you comments, or if you have additional information then please do forward it on.
Till next time