To add some statistical flesh to the most eloquent passage above, about gun crime in the UK, I have taken the liberty of supplying the most recent data from the British Governments Home Office statistical bulletin for England & Wales 2007.
In the year ending June 2007 the following Firearm offences took place.
57 Fatal Injuries - up 8% on 2006
424 serious injuries - down 12% on 2006
2,491 slight injuries - down 28% on 2006
5,020 threats - down 6% on 2006
1,901 no injuries - down 20% on 2006 (no threat or injury? possesion is a crime in UK)
9,513 Total
The total above can be further understood by looking at the types of weapon used.
Shotgun = 590 offences
Handgun = 4,191 offences (includes converted replicas)
Rifle = 61 offences
Imitation firearm = 3,317 offences
Unidentified firearm = 1,269 offences
Other = 954 offences (mostly cs gas, pepper spray & paintball guns)
Total = 9,513
Approximately 40% of the weapons used in the total number of crimes are not subject to gun control (replicas, paintball, cs & peper spray).
It should also be noted that as posession of a firearm is illegal for the majority of people, an injury caused while, cleaning or leisure firing could result in conviction and contribute to these statistics, as would being found in posession, or threatening someone with an imitation or paintball gun.
As this data is now quite old I have updated it with newer info and changes regarding imitation guns at ~ If imitation guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have imitation guns