If control worked, we should expect to see some connection here between it and choice of weapon. We should expect, therefore, to see little use of fully automatic weapons, these having been wholly prohibited since 1937. Use of handguns, these having been merely controlled since 1920, we might see more often. But shotguns, not controlled at all before 1967, we ought to see as the commonest firearm. We see nothing of the kind.
Choice of weapon is determined more by fitness for the job in hand than by theoretical availability.
These figures are not surprising. The law can only control those guns the Police know to exist. How many others there are no one knows. It is generally agreed that these form only a fraction of what remains available for potentially criminal use. If the use of guns in professional crime is increasing, the speed of the increase is almost wholly determined by fashions within the criminal classes.