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Skorpion machine pistols (courtesy independent.co.uk)

“Seven people have appeared in court over the UK’s largest ever seizure of guns that were allegedly smuggled into Britain on board a motor cruiser from France,” independent.co.uk reports. “Officers seized Czech-made assault rifles and Skorpion machine pistols stowed in bags along with silencers and 1,000 live rounds of ammunition during the operation on the River Medway, in Halling, Kent.”  I’ve deleted the number to increase the dramatic tension and, yes, OK, force curious readers to make the jump (gotta pay the bills). And the answer is . . .

Twenty-two!

The operation to track the vessel from Franc involved the NCA, the Border Force and the National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC), the NCA said in a statement after the seven were charged with criminal offences.

Graham Gardner, deputy director of the NCA, said: “This was an extremely significant seizure, the largest of its kind in the UK. I’ve no doubt that these weapons would have ended up in criminal hands and it goes without saying the risk they would have posed to the public.

“We are still in the early stages of a significant investigation which will continue for some time. Through the excellent work and action taken alongside Kent Police we have made a huge step in protecting the public in Kent and further afield.”

While the antis could point to this piddling pistol intervention as a sign of just how well UK and European gun laws are working, you and I know better. Criminals get guns. Period. One of the major ways the UK keeps firearms-related crime down: they lock up the bad guys for a long time. There’s a lesson for anyone interested in reducing the gang-banging gun crime that accounts for the majority of America’s firearms-related homicides.

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64 COMMENTS

  1. can’t lock up gangbangers for gangbanging related crimes. the demographics don’t play well to the voting populace in those areas.

    • Actually, can’t lock up the gang-bangers because we’re too busy locking up people for non-violent offenses or just generally being poor.

      • err, most of those “nonviolent” fellows are gangbangers who have plea bargained down more serious charges. Here is how it works. Pick up some Mikey Brown type for possession and discover outstanding warrants for armed robbery and offer him 18 months for possession to clear the docket. A better idea is take the time to put Mikey away for armed robbery.

        • “put Mikey away for armed robbery.”

          Mikey was put right where he needed to go. Criminals owe a debt to society not putting society in debt.

      • Fine, let all the druggies out. Just make it instant that if a druggie gets shot in the commission of a violent crime (tests positive for cocaine, meth, etc), that no charges will be brought against the shooter.

        • I’m pretty sure that shooting someone who is committing a felony is called “justified homicide”, which is not a crime, and nulls the charges of discharging a firearm in public as well. The charges are brought when the criminal’s crime is disputed as actually happening or not. I like the idea about drug testing the body, though.

  2. They caught some dumb criminals and only confiscated 22 guns.

    Think how many guns the SMART ones are getting through (or have already gotten through).

  3. So they got 22? Does this mean 22 thousand got thru? What about rpg’s?

    Every time I see a story about a load of dope being siezed I wonder how much got thru.

    • “Every time I see a story about a load of dope being siezed I wonder how much got thru”

      Or how much was “lost” on the way to the evidence locker.

  4. How long is “a long time”? It seems that BGs who break, enter, beat and rob only get a couple of years, while homeowners who fight back get seven.

  5. 22 is the largest ever? A lot of people have more then that in their home here. 1,000 rounds? I have more then that in JUST 5.56. It seems britten is ripe for a takeover by an armed military.

    • Oh wow. I hadn’t thought about that. I have more than that many as well. And over three times that much ammo… or at least I DID before that boating trip last weekend.

    • That’s right; a small, privately owned boat with a handful of guys is quite literally capable of physically moving enough materiel into position over night that a full-on military response would be required to dislodge it. Not unlike Mumbai, India (in more ways than one). Good thing they have a ridiculous police state security apparatus to detect anyone making such plans…or is it that Her Majesty’s territory simply isn’t worth the trouble of taking by force anymore?

    • Given the shaky-knees, pants-wetting fear that the Brits seem to have about anything gun-related these days, the magazines are probably being kept inside a metal box, welded shut, a minimum of ten miles from the guns, lest those evil thing load themselves, leap into the guns, and start mowing down Her Majesty’s innocent subjects. These are the people who will clear an entire block when someone finds a corroded old .22 cartridge in a ditch. I’m surprised they didn’t evacuate all of southeast England when they saw a thousand rounds all in one place like that.

      I like how the Independent’s article makes sure to mention it was “live” ammunition. Of course it is, jackass. Why the hell would anyone be smuggling in dummy ammo?

  6. What a bunch of amateurs. A group in Australia brought in over 200 Glock pistols through the postal service.

    This made me wonder how many other groups are illegally importing firearms and how many have entered the country. The Greens clearly don’t to know because they immediately change the subject whenever the topic of illegal firearms imports are mentioned.

  7. Rofl.

    “The operation to track the vessel from Franc involved the NCA, the Border Force and the National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC)…”

    What do you suppose the odds are that the ratio of agents involved to guns recovered is > 1 for this “largest ever” super-significant double probation recovery op? Funds well spent, I’m sure….

    I bet that dude in CA with the 1200 guns and 2 tons of ammo is rolling over in his grave.

    • It was 8+ tons last I read. And that’s after all the “responders” filled their every pocket, crevice and void with .22lr

    • I have to say that these goons at least have good taste. They should have hidden the guns in a hidden compartment built into a steam engine boiler, though (Trinity reference, showing how Her Majesty has been putting down resistance to much fanfare for centuries)

    • That was my first thought when I saw the picture. I only have two Vz. 58s, and one of them is a Century, so it doesn’t really count.

      I doubt the Brits will sell these to Czech Point, so they can import them to us.

  8. 1,000 live rounds, you say? Thankfully those poor little critters were rescued. Now I hope they can be rehabilitated and released. Wildlife smuggling must end!

  9. The Brits found 22 firearms in a boat? Oh the irony … I had 22 firearms until I lost all of them on my tragic boating accident.

  10. The UK is an island nation with vast areas of completely open shoreline. Smuggling has been traditional and highly efficient activity for hundreds of years. Whenever you have long stretches of open coastline you have smuggling. With the right money and connections anything can go in and out. I’m not sure who the UK Border Force was trying to impress but it surely wasn’t the people who live in the UK’s coastal villages. They know better.

    • Or maybe they did take a lesson from LAPD, and they only found 22, plus one for each officer to take home…

  11. So, are they going to at least part the things out, or just dump them in the Channel like the old days? I don’t suppose they’d last long enough in the salt water for some enterprising divers or magnet-fishers to have a go a few weeks after the televised press event?

  12. Idiot americans should be more worried about their 3rd world hellhole called country.

    Idiot americans are too stupid to know that they’re nothing but sheep to the gun-lobby who has a stranglehold on their government.

    We brits do not want your obsolete right to kill.

    We brits don’t want your 15000 murders and 30000 suicides a year.

    We brits enjoy the freedom to be safe and not to be killed by some dafty nutter with a gun.

    https://dispellingthemythukvsusguns.wordpress.com/

    When you look at crime figures for murder, for example, then the US has about 5 times as many murders as the UK. In the UK we count a lot more crimes as being violent – even those crimes in which no physical violence is involved. Just threatening violence is a violent crime. Personal theft is a violent crime – even if no physical violence occurs. Comparing like for like the US is at least five times more violent than the UK.

    • Rofl If we wanted your island we’d have taken it away from you along time ago……. you don’t got guns you don’t get a vote…..

      Quiet subject the citizens are talking!

    • Interesting idea. How about comparing UK to the Czech Republic and Switzerland – both have lower murder rate than UK, and in both these guns could be purchased legally, as long as they were semi-auto. In Switzerland with a little effort, people may own them in full-auto, the same in the Czech Republic, with a little more effort.

      Oh, did I mention that in the Czech Republic, these guns (in semi-auto) could be even legally concealed carried for self defense.

      So what comes out if we apply your logic regarding accessibility of firearms and murder rate to the UK-Czech Republic and UK-Switzerland statistics instead of UK-US?

      • True. We (Czech republic) do have only CCW, but that one is shall-issue once you pass the tests and law obligations. I visited Britain in 1998. I liked it very much. Nowadays, I’m not so sure anymore.

    • Slight issue, friend: you’re comparing straight numbers, not per capita. Even after you compare the equivalent violent crimes (armed assault, etc.), you’re about one and a half times as likely to be violently attacked in the UK.

      • The UK has historically had a lower murder rate than the U.S. but, after the 90s gun laws, the murder rate has increased from around .8 to 1.2 per 100k. If guns laws reduce murder, why did the rate increase? Or maybe “Stormfront Willy” (that post was mysteriously like a Stormfront Willy post) has problems with identification of the root cause of problems.

        • Total bollocks. The actual number and rate of homicides in England and Wales for the last thirty years was:

          1982 = 557 (1.12)
          1983 = 482 (0.97)
          1984 = 537 (1.08)
          1985 = 536 (1.07)
          1986 = 563 (1.12)
          1987 = 600 (1.19)
          1988 = 547 (1.09)
          1989 = 521 (1.03)
          1990 = 554 (1.09)
          1991 = 622 (1.23)
          1992 = 581 (1.14)
          1993 = 566 (1.11)
          1994 = 633 (1.24)
          1995 = 662 (1.3)
          1996 = 586 (1.14)
          1997 = 608 (1.18)
          1997/98 = 604 (1.16)
          1998/99 = 640 (1.22)
          1999/00 = 671 (1.27)
          2000/01 = 764 (1.44)
          2001/02 = 793 (1.52)
          2002/03 = 942 (1.79)
          2003/04 = 772 (1.46)
          2004/05 = 780 (1.47)
          2005/06 = 708 (1.33)
          2006/07 = 712 (1.33)
          2007/08 = 734 (1.36)
          2008/09 = 640 (1.18)
          2009/10 = 608 (1.11)
          2010/11 = 636 (1.15)

          And that big jump in 2002/03? Solely down to Harold Shipman’s 172 victims being included in that year. Ditto the 52 killed in the 7/7 attacks in 2005/05, although even then the total managed to be lower than the previous year.

  13. I remember back in the 90’s watching a show about the US war on drugs… at that time cocaine was popular and the DEA reports were estimating the smugglers were successfully importing TONS PER WEEK. Yeah, I almost fell over thinking about that one, TONS PER WEEK of cocaine entering the country. 22 guns is not smuggling it’s just some tourists wanting to party for a weekend in Birmingham. Tossers.

    • I agree, I love my VZ. If you want to see a show that uses a lot of VZs, check out Strike Back. They actually do gun fights pretty well for a TV show.

  14. 1000 rounds for 22 assault rifles and submachine guns. And here in the United States politicians are trying to impose a tax on ammunition. To make those responsible for gun violence pay for it, they say. By which they mean us, completely innocent citizens who exercise our rights, since we’re the ones who actually buy ammo and the criminals just use the ammo that came with the gun when they bought it from the other criminal and never buy more since they only use it once or twice. It’s basically a poll tax scheme.

  15. Funny, those Brits attempted a much bigger confiscation back in Lexington and Concord in April of 1775. I guess that one did not work out so well. So their record still stands at a little number of guns :-). Way to go UK!

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