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184 weapons and ammunition
handed handed in during firearms surrender
MERSEYSIDE Police have had a total of
184 weapons and lots of ammunition handed in during the force's 2 weeks firearms
surrender, including 37 firearms. The Force joined with 5 other Police Forces to
take part in the 'Give up the Gun' firearms surrender, which ran
from Monday, 4 April to Monday, 18 April 2015. It was designed to give people in
possession of firearms an opportunity to hand them in. It also extended to
giving people a safe disposal route for antique, replica and decommissioned
firearms which could be capable of being reactivated and used for criminal
purposes.
The hand-in included:-
► 20 handguns / revolvers.
► 17 shotguns / rifles.
► 30 imitation / deactivated weapons .
► 52 air weapons.
► 14 blank firers/starting pistols.
► 29 separate lots of viable ammunition including over
750 shotgun cartridges.
► 15 other ammunition (pellets/bb's etc).
► 7 items miscellaneous.
Assistant Chief Constable Nikki Holland said:- "We are extremely pleased
with the results of the surrender and the firearms that the public have handed
in and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their excellent
response to the surrender operation. Our commitment is to protect the lives and
livelihoods of the law abiding members of our community and I want to reassure
people that we will continue our fight against those who are involved in
criminality and who continue to make other people's lives a misery through
firearms, drug dealing and serious and organised crime. The surrender has run
alongside the pro-active work that we do every single day and we will stand
shoulder to shoulder with the community in our pledge to disrupt criminal
activity, take guns off our streets and put the people responsible behind bars.
I am delighted to see that the public have heeded our message about surrendering
firearms, weapons and ammunition so that they don't fall into the hands of
criminals and used to cause fear or intimidation. In just a 2 week period a
substantial number of viable weapons and a large quantity of ammunition has been
handed into Police stations across Merseyside. Just removing 1 weapon from our
streets means that there is 1 less chance of it being used to seriously injure
or kill someone."
If you know of people involved in illegal firearms call the MSOC gun crime
hotline on:- 0800 230 0600 or the confidential Crimestoppers line on:- 0800 555
111. Merseyside Police will act on all information provided in relation to gun
crime.
The last firearms surrender carried out by Merseyside Police resulted in 126
hand-ins.
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