There is violent crime in the UK, but it is at the level where even the majority of the leadership of the police forces throughout the UK will, when asked about whether the general police force in the UK course should be armed, will say No. Most police forces in the UK do have what are called 'armed response teams'. In the highlands and islands of Scotland I don't even think they have even one of these 'armed response teams'. If they do I have not been able to recall if they have ever been deployed. There have been incidents such as the Dunblane massacre in 1996 in central Scotland. This led to the law restricting the ownership of concealed firearms. There are areas within rural Scotland where there is no recorded violent crime let alone violent gun crime what so ever. These areas tend to be areas where everyone knows and relies on each other such as Island communities. But generally if you are going to be murdered in Scotland it will be with a knife and it will be in the inner cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee.

There is a level of gun crime in the UK and there is also a debate about how to tackle the problem. There have been a number of incidents in London and other English regional cities where the gun crime appears to be linked with young black criminal gangs. In the news media, these gangs have been associated with the so called 'US gun culture' which is prevalent within certain forms of American based music (if one can call it that) called 'Rapping'. In the UK in 2004 there were 70 gun related fatalities mostly in England.