Blank-firing guns handed in

Cheshire Constabulary is supporting a month-long amnesty.

The operation is intended to secure blank-firing guns which can easily be converted into weapons.

The four-week amnesty campaign to remove Top-Venting Blank-Firing (TVBF) firearms from Cheshire’s streets, and prevent their use in criminal circles, ran from Monday 3 February to Friday 28 February.

In their original and legal state, TVBFs have a fully blocked barrel designed to discharge only blank cartridges.

However, recent testing from the National Crime Agency has found that TVBF brands Retay, Ekol, Ceonic and Blow can easily be converted with household tools into lethal weapons and have been responsible for at least four homicides across the UK in recent years.

Even in cases where the weapons have not been converted, they have been used in relation to crime, with many of the weapons that have fallen into the hands of criminals having had their typically bright-coloured exteriors painted black to imitate real firearms.

Following the conclusion of the amnesty, these weapons are now illegal to possess in England and Wales. Anyone found to have any of the TVBFs could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

In Cheshire gun-related crime remains low, however, throughout the amnesty, several of these now-illegal firearms were handed into police, including:

• x4 Retay handguns handed in at Crewe police station
• x1 Retay handgun handed in at Wilmslow police station
• x1 Retay handgun handed over to officers at Blacon police station

Since being handed over, these weapons since been made safe by specialist officers within the Constabulary and will be destroyed, permanently preventing them from falling into the wrong hands.