ANOTHER drugs war, another shooting, another death. If this was all happening in Manchester, Glasgow or even the States, there would hardly be a flicker of surprise. But the fact that guns are being used more and more readily by young men in Edinburgh is a new and frightening reality.
The latest person to be the victim of gun crime is 26-year-old dad Martyn Barclay whom, according to neighbours in the Inch, was a "nice, quiet guy" who most definitely wasn't one of the scheme's troublemakers.
Whether he was an innocent victim o
f a drugs gang turf war is yet to be revealed, but what is obvious from his death is that guns are easily available to those who want to use them.
And not just replicas, airguns, stun guns or pellet guns – although their usage also appears to be rising and in the wrong hands can be as lethal as any firearm – but real bullet-shooting, illegal guns.
Indeed it's been suggested that some of these rival drugs gangs in the Inch, Broomhouse and Granton have even got their hands on machine guns and automatic weapons like Mac 10s.
Drug wars are hardly a new thing in Edinburgh, but the escalation in the violence being used certainly is. And the most terrifying thing about guns is how easily they can be used – and how indiscriminate they are.
It's one thing for gang members to fight each other with the end result being a horrific enough slashing or stabbing, but it's unusual that any kind of innocent passer-by would become a victim. Guns change all the rules.
Criminal sources talk of how getting a gun in Edinburgh "is no problem" and that drug runners have "access to Berettas and 'Saturday night specials' (small, low-cost handguns], as well as sub-machine guns and hand grenades."
Cost doesn't appear to be an issue for them – especially for the gangs involved in the lucrative trade of cocaine dealing. Apparently you can pick up a shotgun and ammunition for £300, pocket change for those who are making tens of thousands from the sale of cocaine and who will do anything to ensure that cash flow is uninterrupted.
Despite all this, the police claim they are winning the war on guns. Apparently four firearms a week were being handed in to them last year (although they were unlikely to have been owned by the city's real criminals), and despite high-profile shootings, they point to figures which showed a fall in gun crime last year – from 220 incidents in 2007 to 196 last year.
Of course, that is probably all factually correct, but it does little to stem the fear of those who are living in the areas where gun crime seems to be increasing – such as the residents of the Inch, Granton, Broomhouse, Craigmillar, Gracemount, Clermiston, Muirhouse, Penicuik or even the punters at the Maybury Casino, to name just a few of the areas who have experienced gun incidents in the last few years.
There are around 6500 people living in the Inch, the vast majority of whom were probably unaware that they have neighbours involved in the drugs trade and who have guns and money under their floorboards.
Indeed, one Inch resident told me that he couldn't believe it when, three years ago, police raided addresses in Cumnor Crescent and Rutherford Drive – both streets close to his own – and found cocaine with an estimated street value of £112,000, £30,000 in cash, a handgun and live ammunition. They belonged to Mark Richardson, apparently the drugs kingpin of the area, and his father, also Mark, and both were jailed. The gap they left behind though has obviously now been filled.
There was a time when the only real problem the Inch residents had were rowdy teenagers drinking in the local park, which suffered from a lack of decent lighting.
With floral tributes now piling up outside Martyn Barclay's Hazlewood Grove home, how they must be longing for those days to return.
Doesn't add upDid anyone really believe that the target to reduce primary class sizes to just 18 pupils for the first three years of a child's education would actually happen?
Of course, it's a fabulous idea and would give youngsters the best possible start in their school life. But now it's finally been revealed as financial pie in the sky.
In order for such a thing to happen in Edinburgh alone, 200 more teachers would need to be employed at a cost of £7.45 million and new classrooms costing a further £16m would have to be built. And let's not get into the issues surrounding those schools which are already needing rebuilt or completely refurbished.
It's absolutely laughable that the Scottish Government would think that any local authority could just find this kind of money when there's a council tax freeze on and budgets are already straining at the seams.
This is one manifesto commitment which was never going to work – and that should be admitted by the SNP.
