Derbyshire Police say they are concerned that the number of firearms incidents and seizures of weapons has more than doubled in the past two years.

Between April 2001 and April 2002,110 firearms including replicas and shotguns were seized by Derbyshire police compared to 53 the year before.

The force says the number of incidents where armed response vehicles attended has also risen from 149 to 253 last year.

Community police officers have said the increase is very disturbing.

Sgt Mick Barker from Derbyshire Police said: "A lot of the gun culture is related to the drug culture which affects much of our society.

"In this day and age you have got a young element in society that thinks it is 'cool' to carry a gun.

"You can see the sort of tragedy this leads to in Birmingham and Nottingham and I don't want to see that happen here."