Panorama: Season 2018, Episode 28

2018 - 28: Legal Weapon

Panorama investigates how antique guns are being brought into the UK perfectly legally and ending up in the hands of criminals. Panorama buys two handguns, one in America, carrying it through customs, and the other from an antique guns fair in Birmingham. Under current legislation it is legal to buy and sell guns provided commercially manufactured ammunition is no longer available. But criminals are home making ammunition for these antique weapons and then using them to kill. Gloucester gun dealer Paul Edmunds flooded the streets of Birmingham and London with antique guns as well as modern guns passed off as antiques. These weapons have been used in multiple murders. Now West Midlands Police and the National Ballistics Intelligence Service are calling for a change in the law to close this loophole.