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 | | Friday, 1 March, 2002, 09:30 GMT London's 'lawless gun culture'  Deliberate fake guns should be banned, says the MP London is suffering from a "lawless gun culture" and people living in the city are becoming increasingly frightened of gun crime, a Labour MP has claimed. Hackney MP Diane Abbott says the government must increase sentences for people caught with firearms. Ms Abbott said in a debate in the House of Commons that deliberately designed imitation guns should be banned. Ms Abbott said people were "frightened of waking up to find a corpse outside their house, frightened of being caught up in a gun fight.
"What kind of community are we? What kind of people are we becoming when young men hold their lives so cheap and they risk death? What sort of community are we becoming?" "I know as someone who lives in Hackney, represents the people of Hackney, has a young son... what fear this whole issue of gun crime is genuinely breathing into the hearts of Londoners." 'Heavy penalties' Home Office Minister Bob Ainsworth said the government was "determined to counter" gun crime in the capital. He said measures were being taken to tackle the city's drug trade, particularly cocaine, which was often directly related to gun crime. People caught with guns faced "heavy penalties, including life for the most serious offences". The Metropolitan Police's Operation Trident was one area where gun crime was being actively tackled with more than 150 incidents, including murder, investigated, 130 firearms recovered and 442 arrests made last year. | |   See also: Top England stories now:  Links to more England stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||
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