Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I rise to support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Marlesford. The real nub of the problem of gun crime is that done with illegally held guns. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing earlier that I am correct that the vast majority of gun crime is perpetrated by those who hold illegal weapons. I find that whenever there is a heinous crime involving guns, the Government immediately seem to blame legal holders of perfectly legitimate weapons. Legal owners seem to be almost persecuted by this, but a lot more can be done by the Government to stop the spread of illegally held weapons. As my noble friend said, gun crime is way up now. It frightens the whole of the community, yet the 1996 and 1997 Acts were supposed to put a stop to it. They have had the opposite effect. Last year, when we debated the banning of the Brocock pistol, which had been used in numerous murders, the Government said that they would ban the manufacture, sale and transfer of those pistols. The Gun Trade Association recommended a total ban on those pistols, but when I mentioned the word ““compensation”” to clear all those weapons off the street—none of them has a serial number and there are still 70,000 of them around the countryside—the Home Office threw up its hands in horror and said, ““Compensation? Good Lord, no. We can’t do that.””. Sometimes, if there is compensation when something is banned, the ban works. I fully support my noble friend’s amendment.