LONDON -- On New Year's Eve two teenage girls seeking fresh air from a party in Birmingham were killed in a shooting incident. Over 30 shots, some by a submachine gun, were fired in what seems to have been a shootout between rival gangs. The incident has led to demands that the crime of possessing an illegal weapon should be punished by a mandatory five-year prison sentence and that further curbs be placed on the import of gun replicas that can be quickly altered into real guns.

The media in Britain have raised fears that the gun crime and gang problem will soon rival that of Chicago and Los Angeles. Britain does indeed face a serious problem over guns, but the situation is nowhere near as bad as in the United States, where the gun culture, aided and abetted by the National Rifle Association -- which to many in Britain seems not just mistaken but evil -- seems to be an accepted element in society and where gun-related crimes are far more frequent than in Britain.

Various explanations are given for the growth in crimes involving guns. One plausible reason is the climate of violence and the gun culture depicted by television programs and cinema films, glamorizing the possession and use of guns, largely but not entirely stemming from the U.S.