© Copyright 2006 Croydon Supplementary Education Project
Weapon crime: Guns and Knives
Guns, Guns, Guns...are more present than ever. From the "gangy" style hip hop music offering salute to guns and pointing it at the viewer in their music to the gun war in the Middle East, gun violence has spread widely, resulting in the termination of innocent victims and civilians. The Home Office defines gun crime as follows:
"Firearms are taken to be involved in a crime if they are fired, used as a blunt instrument against a person, or used as a threat. types of firearm include air weapons, rifles, shotguns and handguns, as well as CS gas and pepper spray"
The race that gun violence has been associated to the most is.... guess---blacks. It has been seen in the media and also most of arrested gun holders are blacks. Mainstream audiences are re-programmed every second by the "gun-totting" gangster rappers like Snoop dogg and 50 cent, selling CD's and trainers. This has left traces of "people out there pretending or acting to be thugs, and most young black kids want to hook up to this image....they want to be part of it" Darren, Kamikaze Entertainment
Gun-related violence has created racial stereotypes of black people being "responsible for the proliferation of drugs and guns on British Streets" Terrence Sommers, Do you want to be in my gang?(2006). Apparently gun violence rose in Britain in the early eighties by the "first wave of the Jamaican gunmen" Thompson, The Observer (2003)
There are now places that have been labelled "gun crime territory", especially in black neighbourhoods, like Peckam, Hackney and Brixton, just to name a few. Now we have a series of organisations set up to help and protect the black minority from gun crime, like "Operation Trident". Innocent black people are slowly lead to the falsehood of carrying weapons for defense and protection of a loved one. Apart from screw drivers, baseball bats and metallic cylinders etc... knives have entered and excelled to the heighest most used tool in weapon crime.
Young gangs never forget to arm themselves, like the 1950's "Teddy boys", who were famous for carrying flick knives.
Link to the new gameover for knives game
Trident website
A-Z Directory of Community Safety
Crimestoppers
Free confidential drugs info. & advice
Click HERE for more links
Click on the animation to find out
