there are more gun incidents nowadays. society took a huge downward movement in the Thatcher years. Because of the ruthless way her policies were implemented, for the first time there were lots homeless on the streets. Places like the Nottinghamshire mining villages became the centre for the hard drugs trade - the introduction of which to England was her other crowning achievement. Dealers from Sheffield would come out to places like that to score. Those places had been pretty much unpoliceable before - big tough miners had their own codes of justice. when the mines went, hard drugs took their place. So Nottingham became the gun crime capital of England.

However having said that, if you're not in the drugs business, you have very little chance of encountering anyone with a gun. For most of us life is still pretty much as it has always been. Although its unquantifiably more dangerous for young kids.