LONDON (AFP) - London suffered a fresh gun killing when a man was shot dead in a street in the east of the capital, as the murders of three teenage boys in 11 days continued to make headlines. Scotland Yard said Saturday an armed unit was sent to the Hackney district at 5:34 am (0534 GMT) after receiving reports of shots being fired, and found a man on the ground injured. The victim -- a black man in his 20s -- was taken to hospital but pronounced dead just before 6:00 am, a spokesman said. The domestic Press Association news agency said the man was sitting in a car at the time and two black men were seen running from the scene. The killing will be investigated by detectives from Operation Trident, the Metropolitan Police's specialist unit set up to deal with gun crime within London's black community, it said. The teenagers' deaths in south London have prompted fears that a gun culture among black youngsters in inner city areas is spiralling out of control and questions about its causes. Meanwhile in Manchester, police said Saturday that two teenagers and a man were shot and injured in two separate incidents overnight. In the first, an 18-year-old was hit in the back in the inner city Moss Side district at about 9:00 pm Friday near where a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed in September last year, provoking a similar outcry to the London deaths. The second, less than three miles (five kilometres) away in the Longsight area, left a 19-year-old youth and a 27-year-old man with arm and back injuries when their car was shot at from another vehicle as they waited at traffic lights. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said none of the injuries was life threatening. The London deaths have led to armed police patrols in known gun crime hotspots. The majority of police in Britain do not carry guns and shootings are still relatively rare. Urgent meetings have also taken place between police, politicians and community leaders to try to combat the problem.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that initiatives to tackle gangs, guns and drug culture would be set out within days.
So it seems that now that they have outlawed handguns, only the outlaws have them. I think I've read that somewhere before 
