Replies

Executive Summary
1.1 This report summarises the results of an enquiry conducted in August-October 2000 at the University of Durham into what appears to be the increasing presence in criminal incidents in Britain, and in some other countries, ever more sophisticated replica firearms, newly manufactured involving an impressive level of detail, to resemble well known models of weapons (especially handguns and pistols) produced by gun manufacturers in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and other countries. The concern is to raise a series of connected issues:
(a) the issue of what constitutes a replica firearm, given the almost identical appearance of many replicas currently on the market and serious handguns of the kind that have been outlawed in Britain by the Firearms Act of 1997; (b) the question of what these increasingly authentic looking `replica weapons' (especially those which cannot be fired) are for. Is it realistic to suppose that replicas have any real use in sport? Or, does their essential function (whether `blank firers' or airguns) lie in their capacity to imitate? What is the relationship between the growth of the replica firearms market and the troubled condition of masculinity, with its fetishism of violence?

1.2 To investigate these and other questions, four focus group-style discussion meetings were held with staff employed in Durham by major national banks and other financial institutions, with a group of police officers undergoing training at the Police National Training Centre in Durham, staff employed by the local Wine Cellar retail outlet and a group of students of the University of Durham.These sessions were organised around the display, under appropriate supervision, of six pairs of `real' and `replica' firearms provided for this exercise by the Operations Division of Durham County Constabulary, and also taped the hour-long conversations which each `gun recognition exercise' produced.

1.3 Of the four groups involved in this exercise, only the police officers in training were able to identify the weaponry on display as `authentic' or `replica' more accurately than if they had been making an entirely random choice (i.e. 50 per cent accuracy). The chances of accurate identification were not significantly improved by a second `round' in which the pairs of firearms were on display for longer than 30 seconds - as against the five seconds' display of the firearms on the initial display.

1.4 The responses of our group discussants to these weapons, and to information provided to them about the increasingly frequent use of replicas in armed robberies, revolved around four themes, each of which are discussed at greater length in the body of this report:

(a) Astonishment at the existence and the scale of this market, coupled with a concern that these issues (notably, the carrying of a look- alike handgun) could and should have been tackled in the Firearms Amendment Act of 1997.
(b) A cynical view of the motivation of the gun manufacturers, in placing so much energy into the creation of market for such consumer items.
(c) An exploration of a range of different explanations as to the motivations that might lead people to acquire such replica weaponry in the first instance. These might range from the way in which some young people might acquire such weapons as a part of their search for respect in particular localities or cultures to the kind of collecting urge which is sometimes apparent amongst army veterans (and evident in the so-called `re- enactor' markets in replica weapons from the Second World War) and
(d) An almost unanimous view as to the serious dangers which this unregulated market represents - for example, for police officers in the course of their work (responding, as they often must, to incidents on the assumption that they involve a real rather than a replica weapon) or for employees of banks and other financial institutions (in respect of the trauma involved in being targeted by any kind of unidentified firearm). A particular concern was with the impact which the increased provenance of replica weapons might have on calls for the arming of the police in Britain, with all the negative consequences which this was thought to have for recruitment and retention of officers.

2 In a second dimension of this research, an attempt was made to try and understand how the increasing availability of replica weaponry might be a function of strategic innovation on the part of the gun trade itself. Particularly following the work of Tom Diaz (1999) on the America gun industry, the concern here was to see how gun manufacturers grasped the challenge that was beginning to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s (a reduction in consumer demand, especially for old-fashioned western style weapons). The encouragement given by the gun trade in subsequent years to the carrying of weapons by private citizens for purposes of self-protection (a campaign especially targeted at women) and the constant pressure on law enforcement bodies themselves constantly to upgrade `the stopping power' of their weaponry were both very significant aspects of gun manufacturers' energetic search for new markets. So also can we begin to see the development of new partnerships between firearms manufacturers, sporting gun producers and distributors, and toy manufacturers (based in different parts of the world) as examples of the industry's dynamic search for new markets. Enquiries with the Department of Trade and Industry and H.M. Customs and Exercise in Britain suggest that the value of the import trade into Britain has increased by some 52 per cent between 1997 and 1999.There is an urgent need for more in-depth investigations of this particular import and export market as a measure of the gun trade's own creative activity in trying to underwrite its own future.

3.1 The Report concludes with a brief overview of various initiatives currently being undertaken by national governments, in the name of the more effective regulation of the new market in replica firearms, and a discussion of some of the arguments which will inevitably be raised against an outright ban of such weaponry (and, indeed, against any further move towards regulation of the private firearms trade between sovereign-consumers).

Ian Taylor and Rob Hornsby
27 October 2000.