Although Merseyside, gun crime is reported down by 27% and nationally, firearms offences have fallen by 5%, nevertheless London figures remain high.

Joanne McCartney, Labour spokeswoman on policing on the London Assembly, said: "It is extremely concerning and what I'd like to see is some more information on the age of the young people involved"

The ease of availability of converted handguns is indeed a problem as is the fact that this makes them available to younger people

Police and community leaders in the capital say those discharging the firearms and those being shot at are young teenagers involved in "respect shootings" to settle petty disputes with little thought of the consequences although they also observe that more and more such shootings involve a gunshot to the leg, echoing the punishment attacks meted out in Northern Ireland. Detectives say that pointing a gun at the shin or knee is a deliberate tactic to avoid any chance the victim will die, risking a 30-year mandatory sentence.

However Lizzie, maybe you can provide the statistics for your shock/horror statement that youngsters are blowing each other to pieces with shotguns in schools!

In a recent BBC article about scanning school children for weapons their London correspondent points out that

"Schools are not known as hot beds of criminality. None of the reported deaths in London have taken place on school premises and the proposal is for roving arches to be placed in schools occasionally but unannounced."

Just north of Croydon at Merton Further Education College the Met Police and Merton rigged a roving arch up unannounced and monitored everyone coming into the college.
Only one person was stopped with a knife and that was not one deemed to be lethal.
As far as the authorities were concerned this vindicated their use of the arch and say it demonstrated to the student body that knife carrying was not at epidemic levels.

CONEL College in Tottenham, north London, piloted a knife arch experiment in 2006.

The Principal at CONEL College says one of the drawbacks was the perception created by local media that there must have been a problem in the first place.

He added that overcoming this negative PR impact is clearly going to be important.

It is a sad fact that the tiny minority of children who do bring knives into school often claim it is a 'defensive' measure encouraged by the kind of exaggerated headlines and scare stories designed to sell newspapers and grab attention on forums!