9.47 Table 5 in Annex A to the Green Book shows the principal weapon involved in notifiable offences recorded by the police in England, Wales and Scotland in 1994. When handguns were involved they were proportionately less often fired than shot guns. The same general picture is provided by statistics relating to the use of firearms in incidents in England and Wales during the years 1992-94. However it may be noted that none of them were legally held. Although the numbers are comparatively small it is perhaps worth noting that out of 16 instances when handguns were fired in notifiable offences in Scotland in 1995 a fatal result occurred in one case and injury in 10 others.
All firearms are by definition lethal weapons.
However, it is possible to give some comparison between single shots from different types of firearm. Kinetic energy depended on the velocity of the projectile and its weight. The velocity depended on the amount of powder which was used. This was affected by the shape of the nose of the bullet and the part of the body which it struck. For the same velocity a larger bullet would cause more damage.