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The Prime Minister's wide ranging summit and North-West UK tour will have highlighted that there are no quick fixes to the growing problem of gun crime.

Most of the gunmen including those growing minority under the age of 19 are totally callous, valuing lives cheaply, including their own. The older notorious gangland mafias on our streets promoting their culture of violence often furnish the drug habits of celebrities and businessmen in the city and their corporate institutions.

Targeting the supply, demand, manufacture and distribution of drugs should be a key priority and the drug seized assets including those of celebrities and city workers should be distributed back to the grass roots of our communities for more meaningful work.

The shooting and killing of sixteen children in a Dunblane primary school in 1996 provoked wide-reaching parliamentary reform to gun laws in the United Kingdom. By 1997 the private ownership and possession of virtually all handguns had been outlawed and furthermore there was a tightening of the licensing regime for all other firearms.

More recently legislation under the new Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 includes making it illegal to manufacturer or sell imitation or replicas that could be mistaken for real firearms, this includes strengthening sentences for carrying such weapons and tougher manufacturing standards, but, in my view nothing but a total ban will do.

Legislation is important but not the only requirement; questions still remain as to whether the UK has the capacity to dry up the supply and manufacture of deadly firearms, when it clearly has no estimate or concept of the current numbers in circulation.

My experience tells me that it is far harder to obtain ammunition or bullets than it is the firearms themselves, thus the focus on forensic ballistic evidence is probably a realistic part of the solution.

The Observer (Sunday Feb 18th 2007) comments in its 'Leader' article, that there has been a jump in the use of guns in public places, but fifteen years ago this was already a routine occurrence in 'Black neighbourhoods' and events.

I remember dodging the bullet at the Leeds Caribbean Carnival during this time, as gangs from "Gunchester" - as Manchester was affectionately known – sought to gun down their target from an equally criminal Leeds gang as part of their illegal imported drugs war. These men of violence had no regard for the children and families in attendance that day.

I don't recall, as a result any sustained mainstream media attention or focus, so as to highlight the moral unacceptability of this crime. What has changed is the increasing use of guns in public places by a minority of young people under the age of 19 and it is sad and unacceptable that these young people glorify in this mindless activity. Does it take the routine murder of children in their homes for the media and wider society to take notice?

Prior to these recent shootings of children, which reflect the changing nature of this type of crime, the current financial year had already witnessed 13 Operation Trident type murders and a significant number of attempted murders and despite police reporting of such, very few of them were covered by the mainstream media.

The media focus plays an important role in helping us to develop an anti gun culture and public appeal to rid these 'men of violence' from our streets, thankfully, at least, the community commitment to end gun crime will last long beyond the current headlines.

Indeed, very little credit is given to the community, parents and families who have led much of the response in tackling the brutal gangland gun murders. In 1996/97, a group of concerned community activists from across London, including myself organised and campaigned hard for change.

We established the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group and started to meet with Commander Hugh Orde as he was then known (now the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland) and Detective Chief Inspector Steve Kupis as they were part of the limited policing resources made available to us.

It would be fair to say that they tried their best against a lack of political will and leadership. They were also the first two police officers that community activists really trusted to take the matter seriously in the general climate of distrust, at the time, between the Black community and the police.

It took the Metropolitan Police Service and the Home Office four years until July 2000, to agree to equip a dedicated Operation Trident Unit, consisting of at least 200 specially assigned officers. Given the successes of this new policing response, it is clear, greater respect, resources and support is required for grass roots community, youth and faith organisations that clearly do so much with so little.

The reality is that whilst gun crime remains a small proportion of overall crime, it creates a disproportionate affect on Black communities and has done so, for far too long. In the absence of alternatives, a culture of violence and fear has fuelled amongst a minority of young people a culture of guns and weapons.

If it was left to the police alone, they would still be using 'criminal informants' largely imported from Jamaica, in their attempt to solve these murders.

The use of some informants breached the Home Office's own guidelines, which stated in 1993 '…The need to protect an informant does not justify granting him immunity from arrest or prosecution…', indeed such informants were often left to commit serious crime and operate as though they were above the law as in the case of Eaton Green, whom whilst informing was dealing crack and using his gun and although arrested never charged.

You can imagine the fear that the Black community had of such people. Indeed such policing strategy led to the fatal murder of Marcia Lawes at the hands of the brutal criminal 'police informant' Delroy Denton who although arrested was never prosecuted for the rape of a 15 year old schoolgirl.
Denton raped and stabbed Marcia Lawes, slashing her throat 18 times. In fact, the routine beating of women was the usual norm of such 'police informants'.

The community indeed were convinced that such people had the backing and the protection of the police, which contributed to the failure of the trust in organisations such as Crimestoppers and belief that the police themselves were involved, via 'cutting deals' in drug distribution to the Black community.  As far as the Black community was concerned, this was a clear example of regulation and control.

Execution style murders such as those of mothers Avril Johnson and Michelle Carby, who in two separate incidents across London, were shot at 'point blank range' at home signified the notion that women and children were no longer beyond the limits of 'mafia style' shootings.

In fact, a significant proportion of victims have been black women – Connie Morrison, Lorna Morrison, Natasha Derby, Laverne Forbes, Pauline Peart etc - 95% of female gun shot cases are Black.

And as though we weren't convinced of this worrying trend; the shooting of 7 year old Toni-Ann Byfield so that she wouldn't identify her father's killer; the shooting of 14 year old school girl Danielle Beacon as she returned home with friends from Nottingham's Goose Fair and the Birmingham girls Latisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, concentrated our minds.

Some women however, also play a more sinister role, whether coerced, forced or willingly act as the 'criminal mule' of these ruthless gun wielding murderers, whilst many others have courageously provided crucial evidence as witnesses.

Child care legislation has long established the requirement for statutory agencies to protect children and young people from crime and from the fear of crime a fact which would be particularly relevant in this current climate of violence.

Yet the proportion of persons under 18 years of age accused of violent gun crime is rising, standing at 26% from April 2006 to December 2006, this relates to 98 accused aged 10-17 out of a 380 total persons accused for gun-enabled crime.

In response, as part of the deterrence the police would like the age lowered from 21 to 17, for a 5 year mandatory sentence for carrying a firearm, the Prime Minister agrees, yet many question, as articulated by Professor Rod Morgan the former chair of the Youth Justice Board, whether prison is the best place for young people. The Prime Minister may yet run into trouble as international law states that young people under 18 should be treated differently from adults in relation to sentencing.

Then there is the question of increased surveillance in targeted areas and amongst gangs and the effective use of such tools as 'stop and search'.

In a recent report from the police on terrorism it became clear that out of 8 million Londoners approximately 23,000 people have been stopped under section 44, yet only 23 of these people have been arrested raising concerns about these stop and search mechanisms, effectiveness and charges of 'racial profiling'.

This raises questions about quality and the extent of community trust and confidence generally, it is after all the community that we rely on for the necessary intelligence to solve and deter these gun murders.

The current nature and issue of gun crime is complex, too complex to apportion blame to any one agency, but in addition to informed political leadership and media focus nothing less than a sustained multi-agency commitment in real partnership with communities and families will bring about its end.

Claudia Webbe

claudia.webbe@gmail.com