The statement from the Home Office issued on January 22, 2004, was unambiguous. “From today”, it stated, “those in possession of an illegal firearm will receive a mandatory five-year prison sentence.” Other ministerial declarations left the impression that such a term was the minimum, not the maximum, that those who carried guns to support criminal activity might expect when punished. Yet the reality, as we report today, is somewhat different. Officials concede that the five-year tariff is not yet the norm. Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Chief Constable of Merseyside, is more blunt in his assessment. In his view, based on local and national evidence, some, if by no means all, members of the judiciary have not taken either the letter or the spirit of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 sufficiently seriously. As a result, the efforts of the police are being impeded.

Some of what has occurred is the consequence of cock-up rather than conspiracy, although this is hardly an encouraging explanation. When the original Act was passed with some fanfare under David Blunkett, it was assumed that the sentence of detention in a young offender institution for those aged 18-20 would be repealed, as would the statutory prohibition on imposing a sentence of imprisonment upon that age group. If that had been the case, then all offenders caught with firearms could have had that five-year prison term handed down to them. As matters transpired, however, these crucial provisions were not dismantled and the Court of Appeal argued later that the five-year penalty could not be applied. It took a fresh statutory instrument and a full three years before the process of a uniform minimum sentence began to take real effect last summer.

The impact of this confusion and delay has, nonetheless, been to blur the impact of the message. It was precisely the extension of gun use from older career criminals to younger ones that convinced ministers and Parliament that additional legislation was desirable. There are strong reasons to suspect, though, as Mr Hogan-Howe implies, that a culture of zero tolerance towards guns has yet to be established. Ministers might see the five-year tariff become the rule but few observers believe that it will become a minimum punishment and many conclude that it will be undermined by charitable parole arrangements and excessive time knocked off for good behaviour.

The Chief Constable is right to contend that the law must be tougher in theory and in practice. His force is dealing with an explosion in gun use among the young, most powerfully and tragically represented by the murder of schoolboy, Rhys Jones, seven months ago. It is, Mr Hogan-Howe acknowledges, difficult to prevent the creation of gangs but it is an imperative to prevent firearms becoming part of their competition for territory. Heavy prison terms can serve as a disincentive.

For that reason, all those involved in the criminal justice system have to redouble their efforts to ensure that the law is implemented along the lines of its original intent, and not in a nominal manner either. It is also worth considering the Chief Constable's contention that those who discharge a firearm in the course of a crime - whether as a “warning shot” or with a more malign intention - should be certain of a minimum ten-year term of imprisonment. There is again value in exploring whether the sentences placed on those who deal in illegal weapons should be far more severe than they are at the moment. The Chief Constable insists that gun crime is now his “number one priority”. It must be for the law too.