Fight The Power

At last, the Much Respect Coalition is organising. Meaders reports :

RESPECT for Youth – Stop Criminalising Young People
RESPECT for Hoodies and against ASBOs!
RESPECT call for young people, youth workers, trade unionists, and pensioners to unite to stop criminalising our young people

JOIN THE PROTEST AGAINST THE HOODY BAN
SATURDAY 25TH JUNE 1PM ELEPHANT & CASTLE SHOPPING CENTRE
MEET 1PM NORTHERN LINE EXIT OF TUBE - FOLLOW SIGNS FROM THERE.

Meanwhile the evil Evening Standard is demonising those same young people.

Teenage gunmen are responsible for a huge surge in shootings across London.

Police say they are arresting teenagers with loaded guns as young as 16, while one community leader told the Standard there were now 14-year-olds carrying guns.

The teenage gunmen are suspected of being behind a rise of as much as 146 per cent in gun crime in some London boroughs in the months since April, during which Met Police figures show a 10 per cent rise capital-wide.

Boroughs recording the worst rises include Haringey, up 146 per cent since April to 69 incidents, compared with 28 in the same period last year. In Lambeth, the number of offences rose by 70 per cent from 36 to 61; in Islington, offences were up 93 per cent, from 16 to 31; in Wandsworth, they rose 88 per cent from 17 to 32.

Senior police officers point to a "chaotic" spate of shootings in April. In Lambeth there were 48, compared with 14 in April last year.

Scotland Yard claims the numbers of incidents are now falling following a blitz against the gunmen, with covert armed operations and raids on suspects.

In a Brixton initiative police seized 11 guns in seven days last week.

Chief Superintendent Martin Bridger, Lambeth's borough commander, has asked people to call him direct with gun crime intelligence. He has already received more than 60 such calls this year.

Mr Bridger said: "The average age of young people in gun crime is around 16,17 or
18. They are getting younger - it is a worrying trend."

They must be making their stories up. Everyone knows that making handguns illegal has cut gun crime. Hasn't it ?