Huge gun haul reported stolen over past decade
NEARLY 230 guns have been reported stolen in Greater Manchester in the past decade.
As well as the risk from such unaccounted for weapons, there is also a growing threat from criminal gangs converting replica handguns sold legally in the UK into lethal weapons in a disturbing homegrown gun threat.
Between 2011 and 2020, 229 guns were reported as stolen to the Greater Manchester Police, with another 16 reported as lost.
That number includes seven reported stolen in 2020, all shotguns, down from 57 in 2019.
As well as this there were two guns reported as lost last year – one shotgun and one other gun – up from one lost in 2019.
Across England and Wales, nearly 5,000 firearms have been stolen since 2011 and another 1,500 reported lost, a Mirror FOI request to the Home Office has revealed.
There are nearly 1.4m shotguns and more than 600,000 other firearms, mostly rifles, held legally in the UK.
Genuine handguns fetch up to £10,000 in the criminal underworld and are the weapon of choice for top-ranking gangsters. But the
National Crime Agency (NCA) said young urban street gangs prefer converted weapons due to their ready availability.
Gun crime in the UK remains low compared with many other countries, but increased 38 per cent between 2014 and 2019, with gangs turning to cheaper converted weapons.
Previously these were made from front-venting blank-firing replicas, which can be more easily converted, and while legal in some parts of Europe are outlawed here.
But in recent months police have seized more weapons converted from the top or side-venting blank firers that are legal here.
Matt Perfect, NCA’s firearms threat lead, said: “Since 2020, 175 firearms examined were confirmed as being converted blank firers.
“Recent indications suggest an increasing number of these are top/ side-venting models which, prior to conversion, may have been sold lawfully within the UK.”
The number seized has surged in the last six months and a string of conversion “factories” have been raided, the National Crime Agency said - with several uncovered in both Manchester and London, according to Mr Perfect.