British Gun Turn-In: Heavy on Air Guns, Low on Ammunition

Image from bristolpost.co.uk
 England promoted a national firearms amnesty/turn-in during 2017. In Bristol, 313 “guns” were turned in, along with a whopping 120 rounds of ammunition!

That is one round of ammo for every 2.6 “guns”. I put “guns” in quotes, because only 186 of the 313 items were actual firearms. Most of those had no ammunition for them.  Here is the breakdown. From bristolpost.co.uk:

A breakdown of the guns handed in…

• Flare 3
• Shotgun 80
• Rifle 25
• Air weapon 96
• BB gun 14
• Pistol/Revolver 81
• Starter pistol 11
• Slaughtering gun 2
• Stun gun 1

More than 35% of the guns (110) are air-guns (BB guns are air-guns).  That is a higher percentage than what I observed in Australia during the 2017 gun amnesty., in that country. The number of air-guns I saw during the Australia amenesty amounted to a bit more than 25%.

The ammunition turn-in at Bristol was underwhelming. I wonder how many actual firearms turned in might have been kept if the owners had ammunition for them.

The article shows how significant the lack of ammunition is. To create a scary hypothetical, the author has to dig deep.

A .38 revolver was turned in.

Separately, a bag of .38 ammunition was turned in:

“For example, a .38 revolver was surrendered and, separately, a bag of live .38 bullets. The two combined would have been a lethal weapon that could have fallen into the hands of criminals and caused significant harm or death.

The implication is that almost none of the guns turned in had ammunition turned in with them. That fits the given numbers.

The U.S. has over 400 million guns. No one keeps track, but during the four years of the .22 ammunition bubble, approximately 20 billion rounds of .22 ammunition was sold in the United States.  Most was stored, not shot. I do not have an estimate for centerfire ammunition, but it would be in the multiple billions of rounds.

It is not unusual for a single firearm aficionado to have 50,000 rounds of ammunition.  Private gun owners in the United States could easily possess a 100 billion rounds of ammunition or more.

The United States will not be following Australia or England anytime soon.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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