UK survey shows one in ten affected by gun crime

More than one in ten people in the UK have been personally affected by gun crime or know someone that has within the past five years, according to a new report published this month.

The survey by the Control Arms Campaign – a coalition involving Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) – found that more than 80 per cent of people in the UK fear guns coming in from overseas and ending up on British streets.

Other results revealed by the survey, based on a random sample of 1,000 adults aged over 18 who were interviewed by telephone, included:

• Almost one in six people in the UK have seen a gun that they understood to be illegal.
• Nearly 40 per cent live in fear of becoming a victim of armed violence.
• 60 per cent of people think it is too easy to get a gun in the UK.

The survey also showed that the majority of people want tougher controls on the arms trade, with 86 per cent of those interviewed calling for stricter international controls on weapons exports.

Barbara Stocking, Director of Oxfam GB, said: “The easy availability of guns is causing death, destruction and instilling fear across the world. This threat is also strongly felt in the UK. Our research clearly shows that people want stricter arms controls to protect themselves and people in other countries. It is about time that governments took heed and agreed to regulate arms exports.”

The number of people affected by armed violence in the past five years was highest in London (16 per cent), where more than half the respondents (52 per cent) worry about becoming a victim of armed violence.

Across the UK, people from low income backgrounds worried most about becoming a victim (48 per cent) – almost 10 per cent higher than the national average; 21 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women had seen a gun that they understood to be illegal, with the overall highest figure (20 per cent) in London and the east of England.

The survey was also undertaken in five other countries – Brazil, Guatemala, Canada, South Africa and India – which found that on average, 30 per cent of people had been the victim of gun crime or know someone who had been in the last five years. That figure rose to more than half in Brazil, Guatemala and South Africa.

The Control Arms Campaign is calling on governments to agree to adopt tough controls on the arms trade through an international Arms Trade Treaty and to set up global principles to regulate the sales of weapons and stop them being sold to conflict zones, human rights abusers and criminals. Campaigners hope the results of the survey will encourage progress on tighter restrictions on the arms trade when government representatives from around the world meet at the UN conference on small arms and light weapons in New York this week.