Firearm ownership and intentional firearm death rates in high-income countries.

Source Global Firearm Deaths (Toronto: Small Arms/Firearms Education and Research Network 2005), www.ryerson.ca/SAFER-Net/issues/globalfirearmdeaths.html; also United Nations (UN) the Eighth International Crime Victims Survey, 2000. Prepared by the Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 2003, http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysisicvs/data.php

Total Firearms Offences England and Wales 

The total number of firearms offences in England and Wales is decreasing. 

Graph awaited

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UNITED STATES

SHOOTINGS (March/April 2009)

• Four Police Officers shot dead by parolee in California
• Seven elderly people shot deat at a North Carolina Nursing Home
• Six people (including 4 children) shot in an apparent murder/suicide in Santa Clara California.

PRESIDENT OBAMA - GUN POLICY

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama was largely viewed as grounds for hope from those concerned about the problems of gun misuse in the United States.  

His administration has now released a list of priorities on the official Web site of the president, whitehouse.gov. This policy outline addressed gun policy in two areas:

• "End the Dangerous Cycle of Youth Violence: Obama and Biden support innovative local programs, like the CeaseFire program in Chicago, which implement a community-based strategy to prevent youth violence and have been proven effective. 
• "Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent."

SCOTLAND

Figures from Scotland's chief statistician showed that 211 people were killed or injured by a gun over the year, down from 248 in the previous year. Of these, 38 victims were under 10-years-old and 46 were aged between 11 and 15 Crimes involving guns and fatal shootings have fallen over the year. Scottish police recorded 1125 firearm offences, a drop of 11% on the previous year.

Airguns accounted for just over half the total, leading to renewed calls on Westminster to allow a licensing pilot in Scotland.  Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "People are crying out for action to tackle firearms, to get them off our streets and out of the hands of dangerous individuals.  "This is action that I've been trying to take and I will continue to press the UK Government to let us take action. I want to pilot an air weapon licensing scheme which will immediately start to address the problem of air weapons which are used irresponsibly and held unnecessarily."

There were four murders, 33 attempted murders and 61 robberies involving guns. The report also showed an increase in police detection at 64% of crime involving guns, up from 58% in 2006-07. Strathclyde Police dealt with more than half of all recorded gun crime.

Mr MacAskill said the problem "is not going away" and highlighted the Irish example of licensing air weapons as one way to tackle gun crime. He said: "It wouldn't solve problems overnight but it would be a step in the right direction.  A standard, simple threshold to determine when a licence is needed seems to be common sense to me. While the need to have a valid reason to own a weapon is, in my view, entirely justified."