Gun Crime and Police response – Collected Links

Last Saturday, there was a protest march and meeting in Nottingham. In common with many other cites, there has been a surge increase shootings and gun crime in general. This last week, I’ve been looking further into the situation. Both the reports of the shootings, mostly ‘Black Youth’ and the police response to it.

So much has been written, and I’ll add my ‘nine-pence worth’ in due course. But I have collected these links together as a set, to give an idea of the scale of the developing situation. Read, and be depressed!

American readers, might of course, wonder what all the fuss is about. Shooting folks is normal, ain’t it?

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Gun law : Britain’s police are famed for walking the streets armed with nothing more lethal than a truncheon. But now, for the first time, bobbies on the beat in two violent districts of Nottingham are carrying guns. John Kampfner asks, is this the shape of things to come?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,406343,00.html

US-style gun law comes to Britain – Nottingham police on armed foot patrol after rise in shootings

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,2763,386622,00.html

Operation ‘Real Estate’ [Nottingham]

http://www.eskimo.com/~efialtis/nottingham.htm

Operation ‘Real Estate’ Nottingham response to gun crime: Police Review 17th November 2000

copwatcher

http://www.copwatcher.freeserve.co.uk/armedpolice/index2.htm

Metropolitan Police – Force Firearms Unit (SO19)

http://www.met.police.uk/so19

Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)

http://www.acpo.police.uk

They have produced guidelines and have released the first six chapters of the Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms. available here as PDF

Chapter 1 Introduction

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter1.pdf

Chapter 2 Use of Force

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter2.pdf

Chapter 3 Issue and Carriage of Firearms

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter3.pdf

Chapter 4 Command

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter4.pdf

Chapter 5 Use of Firearms

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter5.pdf

Chapter 6 Investigations and Remedies

http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter6.pdf

Facing Violence: The Response of Provincial Police Forces

A Report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Inspection 1995

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/hmic/fvrppf.pdf

INQUEST’s statistics on fatal shootings can be found at: http://www.inquest.org.uk/policeshootings.html

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Heckler & Koch MP5-Series submachine gun

http://www.waffenhq.de/infanterie/mp5.html

Walther P990 Pistol

http://www.impactguns.com/store/walther.html

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“Cops gun for trouble: Police lose pistols from van” – Nottingham Evening Post – 3 August 1995

“Missing police bullets found” – Nottingham Evening Post – 17 January 2001

“How I found police bullets” – Nottingham Evening Post – 19 January 2001

“Probe after police lose 15 bullets” – Nottingham Evening Post – 3 February 2003

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There are two previous blog entries about all this.

Tash Blog – Mums Against Guns protest and meeting

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_tash_lodge_archive.html#88374768

Tash Blog – Gunshot Surveillance / Location Systems

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_tash_lodge_archive.html#88387459

It was only last week that there was a demonstration by ‘Mums Against Guns’ http://www.mothersagainstguns.net

There has been a rise in the number of shootings lately, both in Nottingham, and British cities at large. It is terrible, and, something must be done! This was the objective of the march and the public meeting.

However, from some of these notes; you might see that the police themselves are more than fallible, in their dealing with the situation. Further, the amount of firepower currently deployed is scaring the blue-blazes out of many of us. Hence I offer you these links, to give you an idea of the scale of difficulties that they, and we are under.

All this is not at all, perculiar to Nottingham. Just as a sample, here are a couple of links to some similar stories on Bristol Indymedia UK http://www.bristol.indymedia.org

top cop speechless as ‘lost’ police handed over [6feb03]

http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3271

Guns in Bristol: [17jan03]

http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2995&group=webcast

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