It has been reported that soldiers are supplying criminal gangs with guns and ammunition. Eighteen army servicemen have been dealt with either summarily or by army courts martial for theft of military equipment in the last three years, four of which involved the theft of firearms. Among them was marine John Hickman, jailed last year for seven-and-a-half years for stealing a Browning 9mm pistol from the naval base in Faslane, on the Clyde.
There is no evidence to suggest that any guns used in UK crimes were smuggled into the UK by HM Forces personnel from the operational theatres of Afghanistan and Iraq.
A statement issued by the MoD said "The MoD takes the loss of any service weapon very seriously. We work very closely with both the civil police and with HMRC to prevent the smuggling of weapons from operational theatres.
"Any allegations of this activity are investigated rigorously by the appropriate authorities and, should suspects be identified, they would be tried in a court of law and sentenced accordingly."
MoD records showed the number of weapons stolen from the services has risen from six in 2005 to 16 last year. The number lost rose from three to 21 in the same period.
There are always bad eggs in any organisation the armed forces are no different. However, the report only deals with the lose of British army equipment, what I would have thought was more worrying would be the smuggling in of weapons captured during operations. The AK47 and other weapons of that nature would be more of problem because nobody knows how many of these weapons are around. Even in the WW11 soldiers took weapons as souvenirs, it happened again the Falkland war, but in today climate of gun crime it has become very dangerous and is unacceptable.
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