'Guns' Destroyed In Worldwide Campaign

1:01pm UK, Friday July 09, 2004

Hundreds of 'guns' have been crushed in London as campaigners call on the Government to tighten controls on the arms trade.    

Parents who have lost children to gun crime used a steamroller to destroy 300 mock weapons in the capital as part of the international Gun Destruction Day.

Thousands of guns are destroyed every year

They are demanding that the Government backs a world-wide Arms Trade Treaty to place legal controls on an "unregulated trade in arms that claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year".    

The demonstration, in east London, was coinciding with events around the globe including Brazil, South Africa and Cambodia.    

Mick North, whose daughter Sophie was killed at Dunblane, said: "If parents like me who have lost children to armed violence can face the gun problem head on, why can't the government?    

"As the second biggest arms supplier in the world Britain has a responsibility to tighten its arms laws.    

"Every day it refuses to do so is another day British-sold arms can find their way into the hands of killers and criminals."    

The Control Arms Campaign, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, have revealed there is now one gun for every ten people on the planet, - that's more guns than cars, an Oxfam spokesman said.    

On average 800,000 guns are destroyed annually but for every one destroyed another ten guns are created, he added.    

The mock guns are being crushed in Bishopgate Goods Yard, off Shoreditch High Street, east London.