INTRODUCTION

There is a growing concern about the extent of gun possession and use among criminals in the United Kingdom. A recent publication from the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) reported that criminal possession and use of firearms had increased since 2000 and estimated that that there could be anything from 200,000 to 4 million illegal firearms in circulation. It also noted a concern among the police and the public about possession and use of firearms and the high cost of criminal firearm use for the judicial, prison, health, and police services (NCIS, 2005). There have also been several well-publicized reports of gun crimes in the media including the case of two young women killed in Birmingham who were believed to have been the victims of crossfire between rival gangs (Barker, 2003). Another report concerned a drive-by shooting in which the police estimate that more than a dozen shots were fired (Casciani, 2003).

One problem in assessing the scale of gun possession in the United Kingdom is that there are no routinely collected data on the topic. There are some national data on the use of firearms in recorded crime and some data on seizures relating to firearm offenses and subsequent arrests. However, there are no national statistics on the number of illegal guns in circulation or the number of criminals who possess illegal guns. As a result, little is known about firearm use within the offender population.