Police chief calls for new guns to have 'DNA' stored to cut killings

Published on Saturday 27 February 2010 19:20

SCOTLAND'S most senior police officer has called for compulsory ballistic fingerprinting of every gun made.

Stephen House, the chief constable of Strathclyde, said he believed every new firearm should be test-fired to get a record of the unique striations, tiny scratches, the rifling on its barrel leaves on bullets.

House, whose force covers half of Scotland, believes such a measure, as part of an overhaul of UK gun laws, would help to quickly establish the origins or legal ownership of every weapon used by criminals. He said: "Effectively you would be storing the DNA of every firearm. It is CSI stuff really, but it would mean that you could match every bullet to a gun and every gun to an owner."

Police across the UK already have a fairly straightforward database of striations on bullets used in gun crimes. House believes such a database could be quickly, easily and cheaply expanded with information compiled from test-firings by manufacturers or dealers.

Scottish police find such evidence particularly useful because guns – which are extremely rare north of the Border – are often used again and again by criminals.

Gangsters in other jurisdictions usually dump a weapon after it is fired. In Scotland the commodity is too scarce to be thrown away.

Ballistic fingerprinting is currently being vociferously opposed by the gun lobby in the US, where tens of thousands of people die from gunshot wounds every year. The technique can be used to identify almost any firearm, except shotguns.

In Scotland there were just two shooting homicides in 2008-9. Most such killings are carried out by organised crime groups. Most recently a known gangster Kevin "The Gerbil" Carroll was shot dead in his car in the car park of an Asda superstore in the Glasgow suburb of Robroyston.

House said: "Some want to paint a picture of gang wars with firearms and streets awash with firearms. I would certainly challenge that. There are more people poisoned to death than shot to death with firearms in Scotland.

"If firearms are so easily available – ask yourself this. Why is that when Gerbil was shot in Glasgow that the weapons were not thrown in the Clyde? If there are so many guns around how come criminals hold on to them for so long. It's not affection, is it?

"They know they are dangerous and can be linked to them by an analysis of the bullets."

Although House stresses how rare guns are, his officers are recovering a real firearm every week. Yet both he and the Scottish Government believe the real problem north of the Border is air weapons.

Yesterday he added his voice to politicians' demands for a blanket licensing regime for air guns. The SNP has been demanding that the UK Government either imposes such restrictions on the weapons or devolves powers for Holyrood to do so itself.

The Calman Commission – the body set up by Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to look at constitutional reform – had recommended Scotland get the power to license air guns.

House said: "It is not for us to say whether anything should be devolved or not. I know the SNP is keen to have the powers to do that. Frankly that is a political debate I don't want to comment on. But I do think we should have new legislation on air guns, whether it comes from Whitehall or Holyrood doesn't matter to us."

Police are particularly worried that many unlicensed light air guns are being "uprated" to be more lethal, effectively becoming indistinguishable from real weapons.

House, meanwhile, would also like to see new legislation introduced to make it an offence to possess guns with the intent to supply, an offence that would mirror the law designed to stop drug dealing. Again, he is relaxed over which legislature should introduce such laws.

All gun laws remain reserved to Westminster. Yesterday, Scottish Labour's justice spokesman, Richard Baker, said he was sure UK authorities would welcome House's contribution to the debate.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We have pressed the UK government time and time again to let us take tough action as soon as possible on air weapons. The transfer of such powers to the Scottish Government was agreed in principle in the UK government's response to the Calman Commission and First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister seeking the immediate transfer of these powers.

"Once these powers are transferred, the Scottish Government plans to deliver an airgun licensing scheme as soon as possible.

"At the moment firearms legislation is a matter for the UK government.

"The Scottish Government believes that all firearms legislation should be devolved so we would be able to take any action necessary to make our communities safer."