Gun crime is an alarming issue that is of increasing concern in the district, so news that police in Bradford have brought down the number of gun shootings by a third should be welcomed.

Shootings doesn’t just mean people actually being shot – in police language it’s “firearm discharges”, in other words a weapon being fired, whether there is a target in the sights or not.

Ownership and use of firearms is rightly extremely restricted in our society. Despite this, over recent years, there does seem to have been an escalation of the number of incidents of shootings in our city. Most have fortunately been without casualties, but any gunfire in a public area is extremely disturbing.

These new figures from the police are a very welcome step in the right direction.

And it does not seem to be accidental – the police last year launched Operation Sabredale to specifically target gun crime which has taken many weapons out of the hands of criminals, as well as confiscating drugs and clawing back the proceeds of a life of crime such as high performance cars and luxury homes. Long may the successes of this operation continue.

It is, of course, important to stress that our perception of crime is not always the same as the reality – shootings are still uncommon enough to make the headlines, and frightening as they are we must remember that we are not living in some wild west frontier town.

It is still the case that most gun crime is contained within the criminal fraternity, and attacks on innocent people are rare. Rare, but not unknown, and any efforts to take guns off the streets and make the city safer for us all must be applauded.