A total of 131 weapons and ammunition lots handed in during our two weeks firearms surrender, including 22 viable firearms and over 2000 rounds of live ammunition.




The Force joined with other UK police forces to take part in the Nabis firearms surrender, which ran from Saturday 20th July to Sunday 4th August. The number handed in this year exceeds the 122 hand-ins during our last surrender in November 2017.


The surrender was designed to give people in possession of firearms an opportunity to hand them in. It also extended to giving people a safe disposal route for antique, replica and decommissioned firearms which could be capable of being reactivated and used for criminal purposes.


The hand-ins included:

• • 22 viable guns,
  • 36 air weapons.
  • 9 blank firers including an Olympic 38
  • 19 imitations and de activated items
  • 17 lots of ammo – including at least 2000 viable rounds, mainly .22 and 12 gauge.
  • 23 items of miscellany including crossbows, pellets, blanks, an ornamental shell form a Harrier Jump jet; toy guns and home load ammo accessories

Detective Superintendent Richie Salter said: “We know that firearms – whether real, deactivated, air weapons or imitations, have the potential to fall into the wrong hands and be used to cause fear or intimidation.


“We have a commitment to our communities to protect them from criminals and criminal behaviour and by getting rid of weapons such as this helps us to fulfil that commitment but is not the only thing we are doing.


“Every single day our officers are doing proactive work to remove guns and other potentially lethal weapons from our streets as part of our ongoing pledge to tackle serious and violent crime, disrupt criminal activity and put those making other people’s lives a misery behind bars.



“I would like to thank members of the public who supported this surrender and handed in their unwanted or unused weapons for safe disposal.


“I would also continue to ask people that if they know where weapons are being stored or who is using them to let us know so that we can take action.”


Anyone with information about who is using or storing weapons in their area is asked to DM @MerPolCC, call 101 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.