Gun crime in Sheffield

I can remember people talking about a shooting which occurred in the East House pub around 1959/60, where a man, who was apparently mentally insane, went berserk and started shooting, indiscriminately, at anyone in sight.

I don’t know the exact figures but he killed and maimed some innocent people.

My point is, that was a one-off incident and was talked about for years.

Now fast forward to the 21st century and it’s like there’s one every week.

It won’t be long before we start seeing signs on our outskirts saying ‘Sheffield, twinned with Dodge City, ‘I would like to know how these people get the guns into the country in the first place?

I remember me, my wife and two boys on coming home from Majorca in the early ’90s. I had just sent our hand luggage through the X-ray machine when this Spanish guard says: “Can you run that bag through again?” So I did.

He then gets his gun out and says: “Just what I thought, there’s a gun and a knife in there.”

He told me to open the bag very carefully. We were scared to death until we found out that our sons had bought two presents, one,a cigarette lighter in the shape of a gun and an imitation flick-knife.

My point is, how are people getting hold of these weapons so easily?

Ted Fowler

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