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LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair today backed tougher laws targeting gun crime after a slew of teenage murders in London that have provoked soul-searching about the state of society.
The fatal shootings of three youths this month in the south of the capital have sparked a huge political response and widespread debate about whether the killings reflected a general malaise in the nation at large.
Blair said while gun crime in Britain, and London specifically, had fallen, tougher sentences for youngsters found carrying guns would help police clamp down on gangs.
"Is it a general state of British society, British young people? I think it isn't. It is about a specific problem, within a specific criminal culture to do with guns and gangs," Blair told BBC television.
"There is a particular problem which is that the minimum 5-year sentence that we have introduced for illegal possession of a firearm does not apply to those under the age of 21 and we've got to lower that age ... down to the age of 17," he said.
Home Secretary John Reid said last week he had asked his ministry to look at ways of strengthening legislation and sentencing for gun offenders.
Fatal shootings have been falling in Britain. According to Home Office crime data there were 97 people killed by shooting in 2001/02, 68 in 2003/04, 75 in 2004/05 and 50 in 2005/06, the lowest total for seven years.
But the fact that all three of those killed this month in London were under 17 has shocked the country.
Labour's Harriet Harman, MP for Camberwell and Peckham, south London, said gang members were getting younger and they have greater access to guns.
"Whereas four or five years ago it might have been fist fights amongst the gangs, now it's more likely to be guns," she told Sky News. "There's a new availability of guns -- guns being available on the internet, imitation guns being adapted."
Knee-jerk response
Billy Cox, 15, was shot dead at his home in Clapham in south London last week. That murder followed the shooting of schoolboy Michael Dosunmu, 15, in his bedroom in nearby Peckham on February 6. Three days earlier, James Smartt-Ford, 16, was gunned down at Streatham ice rink, also in south London.
A man in his 20s was shot in the leg early on Sunday in Harlesden, west London. Police said he was treated in hospital, where his injuries were not said to be life threatening. Another man in his 20s was shot dead on Saturday in east London.
Blair said gang membership should be taken into account when offenders are sentenced and that those prepared to give evidence against gangs should be given proper protection.
The Conservatives welcomed Blair's call for tougher sentences but said it was knee-jerk reaction to headlines and that the underlying causes needed to be addressed.
"The issue here is the circumstances they grow up in, the broken families, and that's not confined to any one sector of society and the massively rife drug culture," said Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis.
"That's right across the board. That isn't just black youngsters, it's black, brown, white, Asian, Caribbean you name it," he told Sky television.
"The problems have been growing for a decade. They've been warned for years and they've only reacted when we've had a headline," he said.
- REUTERS
