TRAFFIC IN REVOLVERS

Evening Star, Issue 20988, 30 December 1931, Page 12

TRAFFIC IN REVOLVERS

CASES OF SMUGGLING REVELATIONS IN ENGLAND. Following recent attacks by armed men on the police and private individuals sensational revelations were made recently of the extensive smuggling of revolvers into Britain. In two cases of hold-ups it was discovered that the weapons had come from America, and had not been purchased from any legitimate dealer in small arras. Special measures are to be taken by the authorities to combat this traffic. Gun-running lias become a very profitable business in the past year or two, and it is suspected that there are now in Britain a largo number of criminals who carry revolvers. There is evidence that the police regulations to the effect that every man possessing a firearm must have a license to use it are being evaded to an alarming extent. That there aro men whoso main occupation is to smuggle revolvers for sale to criminals has boon conclusively proved. The men concerned purchase revolvers abroad, chiefly in France, and sell them at greatly enhanced prices in London and the large English cities. The usual price asked is £lO for a .38 calibre automatic pistol with a packet of twenty-five rounds of ammunition, and this is readily paid by members of the underworld who aro contemplating crimes of violence. The actual gun-running is done by persons of cither sex, who cither go on conducted tours to Paris—to allay suspicion by travelling with a party—or as trippers with day or short-period excursion tickets to Boulogne.