Illegally Held Firearms Taken by British Police Reaching All-Time High as Violent Crime Soars

The National Ballistics Intelligence Service (Nabis), the British police laboratory that analyses firearms seized by officers across the country, is on course to have received an all-time record of weapons in 2018, with a rise in smuggled handguns driving the surge.

The laboratory has received 1,102 weapons in 2017-18, already higher than a previous peak in 2012 when 1,019 guns were taken off the streets by police officers. The rise left Nabis boss Martin Parker to speculate that 2018 may turn out to be a record year.

He told The Times newspaper: “The highest year for us was 2010-11; just under 1,300 submissions.

“Based on how busy the first six months of 2018 have been and predicting the projected figures for the rest of this year, we can expect it to be just as busy, if not more so.”

The paper reported that the rise was down to improved policing methods and determination to sweep guns off the streets, as well as a rise in the number of illegal firearms in the hands of criminals.

As well as the volume rising, the type of guns being used in crime is also changing.

While in the past handguns found on streets were often adapted starter pistols or deactivated weapons brought back into commission, now brand new purpose-made pistols smuggled from abroad are more prominent. There are also higher levels of stolen shotguns — often taken by criminal gangs from farmhouses or clubs — in some cities.

Breitbart London has reported on the rising levels of crime in the United Kingdom, especially driven by a surge of violence in the capital, London. A police crime statistics release made at the end of 2017 illustrated the sudden rise in violence the city has seen, especially in the first year of Mayor Khan’s leadership, with 2,551 incidents of gun crime, representing a rise of 16.3 percent on the previous year.

Other areas of violent crime saw a significant rise, too. Homicides in London rose by 27.1 percent, while robbery went up 33.4 percent, and home burglaries rose by 18.7 percent.

London’s new violent crime task force was heavily engaged over the summer of 2018. Breitbart London reported this month that it had made 1,350 arrests since April, and seized 40 firearms — as well as 340 knives.

Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook