In the past week, I've hit on a couple of examples of just how poorly UK gun control laws actually control firearms for those determined to have them.

The two examples are just two examples, of course, but I don't spend my day monitoring gun crime in the United Kingdom.

I actually have a life.

No, these stories just came to me in a regular news feed. That's why two stories in a week stand out, because those don't normally show up in my feed. I tend to focus on the US because, well, that's where I live and that's where most of you, my beloved readers live.

Yet the UK's failures to keep criminals disarmed is fascinating. Especially because it's not just those two incidents, either. 

In fact, in one region, gun seizures are up significantly.

More than 150 guns have been seized by a new crime unit set up in the West Midlands – a rise of 25 per cent on the previous year. In the same period the number of guns being fire fell by a little over 25 per cent.

There 92 firearms discharges compared to 126 the previous year. And an even bigger fall from the previous year compared to this – down more than 40 per cent, from 161.

West Midlands Police is putting the success down to a new Major Crime Unit set up last year. It has both proactive and reactive teams ready to fight the most serious of criminals,

A spokesperson said: “Our efforts to tackle serious and organised crime in the West Midlands are united under the banner of Operation Target. Split into proactive and reactive teams, our Major Crime Unit was brought into force as part of a major reorganisation of West Midlands Police last year.

“Proactive teams gather and develop intelligence to arrest those involved and serious crime and build cases which see them put behind bars for years.”

It hailed several ‘major successes’ which include:

• Teenager jailed for five years after handgun found in bedroom in Handsworth ;
• Gunman facing jail after shotgun and drugs found in car in Great Barr ;
• Violent armed robbery gang jailed for combined total of more than 54 years for raids in Erdington, KIngstanding, West Bromwich and Birmingham city centre.

Now, I often talk about context, and I'm not going to ignore it here. It's much easier to have a 25 percent increase when you're starting from a low number like West Midlands was. Further, this is a region with a population of nearly 3 million.

Chicago, it ain't.

But the increase in guns recovered is interesting even if lower than what we might see here in the US because it's not relegated to West Midlands.

In London, nearly two and a half hours away, Mayor Sadiq Khan is under fire for a 20 percent increase in "gun and knife crime."

Now, to hear American gun grabbers tell it, our own issues with violence have everything to do our relative lack of gun control, but the last time I checked, the UK hasn't exactly started handing out Uzis on street corners.

They still have the extensive gun control laws that many anti-gunners want to see imported to American shores.

Despite that, criminals--including teenagers, apparently--are still getting guns without any significant issue and they've seen an increase in violent crime as well. It's almost like people drive the violent crime rate an not objects that have no will of their own.