Violent Crime Reduction Bill

The hon. Gentleman should ask my children—I am not very liberal with them, either. Weapons are a scourge of our time. In some parts of my constituency, young people aspire to criminality and owning guns. Guns and knives are what makes you cool—what makes you the man. However, we need more than legislation to tackle that; we need more work on the ground to change the prospects, future and mindset of those who are so lost that they do not even want a way out. The Bill does not tackle that charter of despair. It deals with some of the important symptoms of what is going on but we need to do more work. I welcome the beginning of parity between knife and gun crime, especially the moves against imitation firearms, which are a growing evil. I remember visiting SO19, where one is put in front of a training video with a gun, put in a position whereby someone runs towards one with a gun, and given a split second to decide whether to shoot or not. I would undoubtedly have shot, but the person was running past to save me from something. We will have to ascertain whether some of the alcohol disorder zone and drinking banning order chickens that we have hatched come home to roost. I hope that the Bill will curb some of the worst excesses associated with guns and alcohol but we all need to put on our thinking caps and consider how to tackle the root cause of the twin evils.