Police in the United Kingdom seized the country’s largest stockpile of illegal automatic weapons ever, all traced back to the Slovakian gun store that provided the guns used in the Charlie Hebdo and supermarket shooting by extremists in Paris. The National Crime Agency secured the guns after they were smuggled from eastern Europe to France, then across the Channel and on to Kent. The NCA described the 22 Kalashnikov-style rifles and nine machine guns as “mass casualty weapons.”
Rob Lewin, head of NCA specialist operations, told The Guardian, “We can only speculate that some of these weapons would have been sold to whoever had the means to pay the asking price.” Authorities are investigating a possible link between organized crime gangs in the UK and terrorists. It just goes to show that, with law-abiding British citizens disarmed, the worst of the worst don’t seem to be having any trouble finding guns.
