Sleeping safe in Florida (aka the gun-shine state)! Concealed carry of firearms by law-abiding Citizens has demonstrably reduced crime over here across the pond! I wish all you good subjects in the UK the best. We hope that someday your long nightmare experiment in gun-control will someday be over and you can start leading a decent safe and secure life again!

David M. Bennett, St. Petersburg, Florida/USA

The statement "guns are bad" is a classic example of 'proof by assertion.' British public schools and universities have done their job by creating a race of Left leaning, subservient subjects.

"An Englishman's home is his castle " is a figure of speech still in use today even though TV Licensing and FAC enforcement have made a mockery of the underlying principle.

It's only totalitarian regimes that cry, "You can’t handle the truth!" Wake Up Britain.

Russell M, Stirling, Scotland

I am not sure which is the larger surprise. 1./ That ministers covered up the truth about rising gun crime or 2./ that anyone is suprised that gun crime is rising. Law abiding members of the Responsible Firearms Community in Britain Australia and here in Canada have always known that when you disarm the law abiding public, only the criminals have guns.
When Canada started down the road to it's flawed 2 billion dollar gun registry, we knew that the gun crime would follow that of England and Australia. Our politicians bent the statistics obtained from the RCMP so badly that, then Commissionaer Murray sent a leter to Parliament demanding they cease attributing the Statistics to the RCMP as what was being said was false.
Meanwhile in the much maligned USA , The vast majority of the States now allow law abiding citizens to have Conceal carry permits. The cries of streets awash in blood has not held up as violent crime rates dropped an average of 30 % as the criminals move on.

Jim Hill (RCMP, ret.), Fletchers Lake, NS, Canada

Washington D.C. banned gun ownership by law-abiding citizens in 1976. Since then, the city's murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent. In 1998, D.C. had a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000, while across the river in Arlington Virginia, where gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is much less ‘regulated’, the murder rate is 1.6 per 100,000 (FBI, “Crime in the United States”, 1998)

Vermont has the country’s most relaxed rules regarding firearm ownership by law-abiding citizens and has one of the lowest crime rates in the country (#48 out of 51 states). DC has the toughest rules and has the most violent crime in any of the states (US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004).

Sound familiar to the UK ? Criminals don't obey gun possesion laws in the same way they don't obey the law against rape or murder. Removing the rights of the law-abiding to defend themselves simply gives protection to the criminal to carry out their crimes unchallenged.

Neil, Austin, Texas

The UK has psychologically emboldened criminals by not allowing decent people to carry weapons for their own defense.

You have a failed society and a failed government.

Learn the lesson that we have finally learned here in the US - conceal-carry laws, and guns for home defense saves thousands of innocent lives every year.

50% of the counties in America had no death by firearms in the past year. The next 25% had one death by firearm in the past year. Of the remaining 25%, 3% of the counties had 70% of the dezths by firearms. These 3% of counties in which these deaths occured had the LEAST percentage of private ownership of firearms.

When the populace is armed the filth are afraid.

Bella Reeve, Cherry Hill, US, NJ

How's that whole "Fewer guns = Less crime" experiment working out? From across the Atlantic, it appears that the criminals have weapons and law-abiding citizens are prevented from defending themselves.

It also appears that you have an explosion in violent crime, since the criminals have nothing to fear from the intended victims or your "justice system".

Good luck.

Mark, Erie, PA, USA

Criminals, including violent ones, respond to risk. If you want to reduce the chance that you will be shot, increase the chance that a criminal who tries to shoot you will be shot.

The more honest citizens that carry concealed guns, the lower witll be the murder rate, other things equal.

Robert Ferguson, West Palm Beach, USA/Florida

Some people here have mentioned that more money should be spent on the youth. How about parents spending more time being parents and the government keeping their noses out of families?

Anne, US, A

Well I take great comfort from being told that there isn't really a problem in UK, but then I have just migrated to Australia. It is about time the government stopped spinning this 'overall' crime is down line. A tough measure doesn’t mean a gun amnesty it means making criminals and gangs scared to carry guns. It seems they aren’t...

Malcolm, Thankfully Oz,

The difficulty is that the rise in gun crime cannot be simply resolved through one approach and the reason teens are picking up guns comes from so many underlying factors: family breakdown, lack of role models, resistance to the curriculum, desensitization from increased exposure to violent images -news/film/music videos/reality-internet uploads...

We need facilities THAT ENGAGE young people - table tennis at the youth club (if there is a yc) just doesn't cut it for the teen who sees get rich quick tv and idolises the footballer's paypacket. Where families are in tact, parents are both working long hours to pay for homes and lifestyle with little time to build a sense of community. As the gap between rich and poor widens, status becomes increasingly important.

These young people are choosing to fight for patches of land and material possessions. Hard line policy creates greater resistance. I've never met a violent liberal and I don't want the gun crime figures of the US here!

melissa knight, New Cross, London, England

If we have the official figures, where's the cover-up? In my experience around the country, murders and gun crimes are always reported locally. The failure in taking such crime seriously seems to be in the national media and government opposition. There was a time , in my remembrance, when a shooting or a brutal murder would always be reported nationally. There is a wide-spread belief in the country that the media has been bowing to government wishes on the grounds of political correctness.

Political correctness also affects reporting of international crime. Who, for example, knows that the murder rate in South Africa since 1992, a country that was always being slammed by the media when under white rule, is around half a million?

Lawrence, Liverpool, England

Did anyone honestly think that this government were telling the truth over gun (or any other) creimes? Do they think the government ever tells the truth?
Trouble is Boy Cameron is not a useful alternative: if you want to shoot 11 year olds, then telling you that you will have to drive for another year without a licence is hardly going to terrify you , it is it?

Mike Bibby, St ALbans, England -not EU

the post once occupied by sir robert peel now occupied by "jacqui smith" (who?) says it all, really

pat, rochdale, uk

This is enough for a vote of no confidence in the government and a call for a general election. We are fast approaching the days when ordinary scared citizens are going to arm themselves for protection. When these criminals are caught, they are out in no time. Age is no excuse for leniency. At 10 years, they are old enough to know the difference between right and wrong and if they do not, the parents should be jailed.

B J Deller, Marbella, Spain

Raher than this government rushing to spend 25 billion on an unwanted set of nucular submarines & missiles, which by the way, we are not even allowed to hold the key to fire. Spend this money on services for the youth of this country. Media reports have stated that Liverpool Council closed all other youth services in the city due to budget restraints in 1998. When will this Government start to focus on the needs of its own population, & not keep throwing our hard earned taxes overseas.

si smith, Peterborough, Cambs

It is only the naive who accept the crime statistics currently issued by the Home Office under this Labour administration. Our newspapers are full of gun crime and firearm homicide reports. When did you previously read of a motor cyclist being shot on a motorway, or an 11 year old child being gunned down as he returned home from playing football. Police officers are being taken off our streets and replaced by Community Patrol Offices, who have no powers and emanate from the ranks of the unemployed – figures indicate that CPOs make an arrest once every six years. You only see police officers, when six of them drive past in response vehicles, apparently they are now governed by Safety at Work legislation. When you watch the Crime Watch programme it is remarkable the small percentage of true British faces one sees, who are wanted for crime. At least there are some police officers involved in investigating major gun and terrorist crime – they should be given greater resources by our inept government – the government’s only concern is where their next votes are coming from.

Allen Walker, Ormskirk, Lancashire

look it's real simple. Just make sure the police are better-armed, and the criminals will know they run the risk of being killed. In the USA a criminal armed with a gun knows that if he even turns to face an officer without dropping his weapon he has signed his own death warrant. the very real risk of death is a great deterrant, really....
banning guns to stop violent crime is like banning pencils to stop bad spelling. it's just nonsense.

Ted, philadelphia, USA

This is not surprising. This government has 'dumbed down' everything since it came to power.
'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'. Give us a break!

SRB, Oldham, UK

Smith wouldn't even know what a gun was. I was concerned when I read that she had the position of home secretary she will be completely inadequate. Why did Brown give her the job god help the country if there are more terrorists attacks, maybe the Muslim friends of Labour will sort things out?

Barry Holmes, Christchurch, New Zealand

This Government has been negligently complacent and allowed this situation with your children and youths having access to guns ,on top of which the children/youths are already pretty detached from society and that makes a dangerous mix. If this is not sorted out then I dread to think what life will be like with such a dangerous underclass. This needs to be tackled at social levels as it is the way the children are being raised as much as it is the access to guns. They are being fed a diet of media junk ,like violent video clips on YouTube etc etc and this is corrupting youths in this Country and that then leaves them vulnerable to getting involved with guns. It is not a mind or body healthy lifestyle that children have nowadays.

Patrick, Brighton, Sussex

As an American, all I can say to Joe in London is, "Hear! Hear!" As the number of U.S. states enacting "shall-issue, concealed-carry" laws (unless the police can prove that you are a convicted criminal or mentally ill or otherwise ineligible to own a handgun, you are presumed to be law-abiding, responsible and the police "shall issue" you a permit to "carry" a handgun, "concealed" on your person), from 5 states to 38, crime, especially gun crime, has plummeted to its lowest point since -- well, since strict gun control, as in England today, was the norm.

As Joe urges, your government should repeal your handgun ban and if it will not allow concealed-carry, at least allow people to be armed in their own homes. If your government wil not do it of its own accord, citizens like Joe should publicly demand that it do it.

Gene, Detroit, Michigan (USA)

If people are allowed to drop guns off at "Neutral Points" to avoid being prosecuted for having one. Will the police test these guns forensically to see if they have been used in previous crimes? If they test positive how will they be able to bring the owners to justice? Will the police have the means to trace these people? because if they don't and the guns do test postitive they will be guilty of a grave mistake.
Regards

Leo, Aberdeen,

This is exactly the right time for the Conservatives to score political points. For too long, Labour has taken advantage of, and sheltered behind "the time value of the truth", which means if they spin out lies for long enough, by the time the truth is known, everyone has forgotten the issue and moved on. That is one part of the reason Rhys Jones is now dead, and I suspect that his parents would not take it as disrespectful to challenge the obfuscation and dissembling of Jacqui Smith and her predecessors. It is high time that opposition parties challenged this government more often, and in the heat of the moment, in order to force them into accepting accountability for their failings. That is in no way disrespectful to the victims of those failings, and could even represent a memorial to them.

Tom, Bedfordshire,

There is a bitter, but in some ways inevitable, irony in seeing how the UK, once pointed at as an example of how gun control works by gun-control advocates here in the US who understand violent crime and gun laws neither here nor in the UK, is now becoming the Western world's poster child to illustrate the extent to which gun control does NOT work. Cliché it may be, but there's a lot of truth in the National Rifle Association's maxim that "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." The real lesson of the gun control experience in the United States is that gun control encourages crime by guaranteeing defenseless victims, making crime safer for the criminal, and therefore more attractive. I've been saddened and dismayed over the last ten years or so as I've watched the UK learn this lesson the hard way. Gun control is not about making life safer for honest citizens. It's about making life safer for crooked politicians, who fear the honest citizens they cheat and lie to.

Phil, Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA

Gun crime may have risen since 1998, but I bet it's declined since 1979. Northern Ireland, anyone?

Tim Saunders, Auckland, New Zealand

DROP OFF ZONES!!

Yet another example of liberal twaddle that will have no effect .
Tough on crime? Wake up.

A teeling, northampton,

Neutral 'drop off points' are not what is required. The problem is that youngsters of a certain age have not only been brought up without decent moral values, they have actually been poisoned by 'indecent' ones gleaned perhaps from films and music lyrics which glorify all that is vile in human behaviour. Even if we could at a stroke change that, we would still have a generation of kids, some of whom are steeped in the idea that violence is cool and fully justified in pursuit of 'respect'.

For those who prey on the rest of us I suggest long terms of confinement in tough, military style prison camps, subject to hard military discipline. However this will only suppress the symptoms of a deeper sickness. We must address the decline in decent values across society, We will have this problem, generation after generation until we do, and this will not be cured by boot camps or any other penal institution.

Tony Volpe, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

The total ban on handguns in the UK, rushed through Parliament in classic knee-jerk fashion after the Dunlaine massacre, as been an abject and costly failure. Compensation payments to legitimate handgun owners cost the UK taxpayer more than £1.2 billion (yes... 1.2 BILLION!) A fourfold increase in gun-related crime since 1998 is testament to the UK government's abject failure to address the real issues that have resulted in today's shameful situation. Repeal the handgun ban and use the license fees to help the police to combat the real problem - the ever increasing use of illlegal firearms by a ruthless criminal minority.

Joe, London, UK

If someone doesn't point out that the government is actually concealing the real figures to amke their record look better tha it really is, then the public continues to be misled.The role of the opposition and the media is to hold those in power accountable for the figures and action to solve the problem -who else will do it?

kay, leeds,

Not to worry Cameron is going to 'mend our broken society', that's nice of him. We all know how the social disaster of ever escalating violence is being fed - if we say why we are racist or unfair to all the poor struggling single mums. Our country is not being run as a society, it's being run as a market place - and it's all about feeding this market.

More mouths to feed and massive social distraction is just fine for the market...just fine...

Do you suppose that those who have structured the market will hang around when the end comes and society has a meltdown?

Dan, London,

Are we at all surprised that they covered up ?. No of course not. This is a gutless, spinless and incompetent Government that has done us no good at all in the 10 years it has been in power. Think back to that time when they played "it can only get better" as they came into power. Sure "only get better" if they played it now then I would believe the words.

Kevin , Woking, Surrey

While children are dying in the streets Jacqui Smith sits in a television studio spouting meaningless statistics and burbling about making the perpetrators sign pieces of paper promising to be good boys. The Police meanwhile are crouched behind trees with speed detectors collecting revenues to fund their own Forces as the Government tightens the purse strings. The courts free paedophiles and hoodlums and jail motorists and pensioner Council Tax defaulters.

I think this ably demonstrates how completely our of touch with the situation at street level these useless martinets are.

For heavens sake DO SOMETHING. Preferably resign en masse.

Pu Li, Guangxi,

How can the police expect members of the public to tell the truth about crimes when they do not tell the truth themselves about crime???????????

sylvia macpherson, wickford , england

To Joshua of London, of course it is exactly the right time for the Conservatives to raise this issue. On your logic it is never the right time if someone is dying every day. It sounds llike you work for the Labour Party and just want to hide the issue, in the hope that nobody notices what is happening to the country!

Anthony, London,

It's now time for the democratic majority forces, individually and collectively, to take control in every street, town and city, everywhere in Britain.

Action this day (and night)!

Terry, London,

"Inaccurate and misleading"? - Not our Government surely? How stupid do these people think we are? Anyone living in a city knows exactly how crime in general has increased, not just gun crime. The figures that are presented by the Government, with denials of any increases in crime, just show how contemptuous our current Government are. We KNOW what's going on, we don't need politicians to tell us. Lawlessness IS here and nothing is being done about it.

Joshua - This is exactly the time to discuss Government lies. Perhaps if these people are uncovered as the frauds that they are, we can look forward to somebody getting a grip. There is no control at the top which is part of the problem.

Judy , Liverpool, england

We expect the politicians to 'spin' but just look at the vacuous comment from the Home Office:

"We remain fully committed to tackling gang culture and gun and knife crime ...."

So, Permanent Secretary, that means another quadrupling of gun crime in the UK over the next ten years does it?

MarkS, Leeds,

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime .....

Big on lies, big on all of us lying...

Please can we get rid of these crooks?

Jeremy Poynton, Fromeville, 51st State

How many dozens of times did Blair and various Home Secretaries stand up in Parliament and mislead the country by saying ' Crime is coming down '. Maybe burglary and car theft have decreased but only through better technology such as burglar and car alarms/immobilisers. Maybe mobile phone thefts have come down but only because so many people own them now and the costs have come down.
REAL, hard core crime has been going up and up for the last ten years but, as ever, this government live in denial. They will produce endless streams of figures to disguise reality from the public.
Just remember; there are lies, damn lies and Labour statistics.

Rick, Greater London, England

The Liberal?

Stop and Search Gone.
Discipline Gone!!
Religion Gone!!
Britishness Gone!!
Family ties gone!!
Communities broken up!!
Law & order gone!!
Crime rules OK!!

The Liberal might just as well have pulled that trigger on 11-year-old Ryes Jones himself.

george deighton, london, UK ?

I really do not think this is the right momemnt for the Conservative party to be trying to gain political points. It shows a lack of respect for the family and a desperation. Why will they never learn?

Joshua, London,

The constant referal to lower crime from statistics fails to detail that 'crime' numbers are now only issued after an 'incident' number has been investigated, and very few 'incidents' are investigated as proven by the number of complaints of lack of attendance to the victims request.
This has also led to a 'failure to report attitude' of many victims of crime.
SPIN IS NOT DEAD
The press does not help with its glorification of violence!

D. Mitchell, Ossett,

I wouldnt mind if the Gvt scrapped the tv licence if we had to pay more taxes to clean our streets up with crime

D paterson, Blackpool, Lancs