Clause 42 - Possession of air weapon or imitation firearm in public place
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
9:10 am
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I shall certainly come to that issue. I assure the hon. Lady that I do not intend to omit anything from my analysis of both sides of the argument, but I was planning to address her point later because it is more relevant to the next group of amendments. This group of amendments relates to clause 42, which is headed, ''Possession of air weapon or imitation firearm in public place''.
It is important to recognise what is—or is not—being achieved under current regulations. It is worth recalling that, under section 19 of the Firearms Act 1968, which is the foundation of firearms legislation,
''A person commits an offence if, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse (the proof whereof lies on him) he has with him in a public place a loaded shot gun or loaded air weapon''.
There are no ifs or buts: it is already illegal to have a loaded air weapon in a public place. That ought to be adequate, and I contend that it is adequate. That is the law, and the penalty for breaking it is a fine of up to £1,000.
It is interesting that in the five years to 2001—the most recent year for which we have figures—the number of successful prosecutions fell dramatically. I am not using the figures in a partisan way. In 1996, there were 575 successful prosecutions for carrying a loaded air weapon in a public place; that number fell to 540 in the following year, and although 1998 saw a marginal increase to 589, the numbers fell to 458 in 1999, 383 in 2000 and 360 in 2001. There were more than 200 fewer successful prosecutions in 2001 than in 1996, and more then than in 1997.
The law has not changed, but the incidence of use has increased. We should therefore be looking for some other reason why the number of prosecutions has decreased. We do not necessarily need to change the law, which is what the Government propose to do under clause 42. There seems to be no justification for that, because the law is clear: it is an offence to carry a loaded weapon in a public place.
Young people are the subject of the next clause. Under section 22 of the 1968 Act,
''it is an offence for a person under the age of seventeen to have an air weapon with him in a public place, except an air gun or air rifle
which is so covered with a securely fastened gun cover that it cannot be fired.''
Let us put the two provisions together. No one under 17 can have a loaded air weapon—indeed, no one can—in a public place, but if someone does have an air weapon, it must be in a securely fastened cover from which it cannot be fired. The only people who will be affected by the Government's proposal are those who can manage to fire an unloaded weapon from within a secure gun case. It is as simple as that. There is no real logic in changing the law when it is, rightly, already so tight.
We also need to consider the evidence of whether banning reduces crime. Anyone who has looked at the statistics on gun crime, and practically every Member of Parliament, knows that the proportion of gun crime committed using handguns has rocketed in the past few years, despite the fact that the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 banned all handguns. It is impossible to draw an analogy between the availability of legally owned guns and their use in gun crime.