Kill off the gun trade

GUN crime is soaring in lawless Britain, with a 20% rise in reported incidents last year.

Knife attacks have been getting most of the headlines recently, but the increasing use of firearms in our country is just as frightening.

Now the Daily Star Sunday has revealed how easy it is to buy cheap weapons abroad.

They shoot blanks, but criminals know how to adapt them to fire real bullets. It only takes a few minutes.

Then they can be imported into the UK using established smuggling routes via the Netherlands.

There are clearly many reasons for the boom in gun crime.

But it is certain that there would be far less of it if the firearms were more difficult to find in the first place.

That means closer co-operation with our European neighbours and better checks at European ports. Not likely at the moment.

We can also tighten up procedures at our own ports. Somehow, in the post-Brexit chaos, we don’t feel that is going to happen either.

So in the end it comes down to British bobbies and detectives sniffing out illegal weapons.

The trouble is, the number of police officers fell to historic lows as gun and knife crime rose last year.

There is something we can do, however. Employ more cops, gather more intelligence, prosecute more crooks and encourage the courts to put them behind bars.

It seems simple. And it is – spend more cash chasing crime, get less crime.