asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many shooting incidents there have been in Northern Ireland in each of the years since 1969 in which legally held weapons were used by their owners against the security forces.
| 1972 (from 1st August) | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 (to 3rd Maach) | |||||
| Shotguns | … | … | … | 62 | 97 | 69 | 8 | |
| Rifles | … | … | … | … | 243 | 370 | 313 | 17 |
| Pistols-Revolvers | … | … | 184 | 237 | 236 | 17 | ||
| Machine Guns | … | … | 25 | 35 | 33 | — | ||
| Rocket Launchers | … | … | 3 | 7 | 4 | — | ||
| Mortars | … | … | … | 2 | 12 | 14 | — | |
| Ammunition (rounds) | … | 73,355 | 68,067 | 62,269 | 2,811 | |||
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many rounds of ·22 ammunition were sold in Northern Ireland in each of the last 10 years;(2) how many shotgun cartridges were sold in Northern Ireland in each of the last 10 years;(3) how much ammunition for bullet-firing weapons, other than ·22, was sold in Northern Ireland in each of the last 10 years.
This information is not available from official sources.
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many shotguns, rifles and handguns, respectively, were stolen in Northern Ireland in burglaries in each of the last 10 years.
This information is not readily available and could not be obtained without disproportionate cost.
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many shooting incidents there have been in Northern Ireland in each of the following years—1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974—in which the security forces were involved.
It is not possible to provide this information.
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many shotguns, rifles, automatic pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, other weapons, etc., and rounds of ammunition were recovered by the security forces from the IRA in Northern Ireland in each year since 1969.
Records relating to particular organisations were not kept before 1st August 1972. Since then the figures are as follows:
Records were not kept before 1970. The figures from that year are:
| No. of Incidents | |
| 1970 | 67 |
| 1971 | 1,485 |
| 1972 | 7,669 |
| 1973 | 3,371 |
| 1974 | 1,904 |
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many shooting incidents there have been in Northern Ireland in each of the following years—1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974—in which legally held weapons which were stolen have been used against the security forces.
Statistics are not available for years 1969 and 1970. In the period 1971–74, legally-held weapons stolen from their owners were identified as having been used on 16 occasions against the security forces.
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what estimate he has of the type and calibre of weapons most commonly used for assassination in Northern Ireland.
The most common calibres are 9 millimetres, 0·38 inch and 0·45 inch.
asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many legally held rifles there are in Northern Ireland.
14,281, excluding air weapons.