More people want them, they are becoming easier to get hold of and they can kill in an instant.

Rising fears illegal guns are becoming a must-have accessory for many across the UK have been fuelled by latest crime statistics.

Gun crime on the streets of Sussex rocketed by 41 per cent in the past year, the Government revealed yesterday.

That places the county above the average for England and Wales where there has been an overall 35 per cent rise.

Sussex Police have admitted surprise at the surge as more and more criminals arm themselves with deadly weapons.

Police recorded 155 firearms offences in Sussex in 2001/02, compared with 110 in the previous 12 months.

The figure is equivalent to a gun crime almost every other day on the county's streets.

The New Year's Day fatal shooting of two teenagers in Birmingham has focused concern about a gun culture flourishing in many of England's towns and cities.

Sussex officers point at the rising trade in crack cocaine, much of it spreading from south London.

Spokesman Chris Oswick said Sussex was still a long way behind the endemic gun culture of inner-city London or the West Midlands.

But he said: "What we do have are some very unpleasant criminals, many involved in the class A drugs trade, ready to support their activities with guns."

Chief among police concerns are the likes of Carlon Robinson and Nolan Atkins, two self-styled gangsters who went on a torture spree in Sussex.

The pair pistol-whipped victims, beat them, poured boiling water over them and threatened to slice off genitals as they hunted for cash and drugs.

They hoped to use terror to head up a Sussex-wide drugs empire but were arrested and convicted last month.

Another gun-toting menace was 21-year-old robber Gavin Dumbrill, from Horsham, jailed for five years this week after threatening an elderly florist with a replica weapon.

Last year Sussex recorded its first incidence of a drive-by shooting when father-of-three Jimmy Millen, 27, was shot four times in the back by a motorbike pillion rider as he worked on his car in Tile Barn Road, Hastings.

Despite these incidents, Mr Oswick said the latest statistics were skewed because CS gas incidents were included as firearms offences.

When a schoolboy sprayed CS gas around a changing room at the Priory School in Lewes, 28 people were hurt and police recorded 28 different incidents.

Even so, the figures would have shown an increase in Sussex gun crime.

Nationally, the number of firearms offences recorded last year was 9,974 - up from 7,362 in the year to April 2001 and double the 4,903 firearms incidents in 1997 when Labour took power.

The number of crimes involving handguns has more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons.

The figure rose from 2,636 in 1997/98 to 5,871 last year.

Only eight police forces had more gun crimes than Sussex last year.

Sussex Police schemes to tackle the problem include Operation Sceptre, building up intelligence aimed at rooting out the use of illegal guns.

This tied in with Operation Disrupt, which targeted crackhouses and drug-dealers travelling into Sussex from London before Christmas.

Home Secretary David Blunkett wants to introduce a five-year inimum jail sentence for anyone caught with an illegal firearm.

The Government has also announced it would ban anyone carrying replica weapons in public places without good reason.

Sussex Police will support suggestions for a firearms amnesty later this year.

The force has also beefed up its ability to respond to reported gun crimes during the past year.

Armed response units on 24-hour alert have been placed around the county, with a superintendent permanently on call to direct any operations.

The new systems were praised by Government inspectors who monitored the force last summer.

But Mr Oswick acknowledged many residents would be worried about guns on the streets.

He said: "People who are so minded can always get access to a gun or an imitation because they are readily available.

"We don't want people worrying they are going to get shot tomorrow. We feel we are now especially well placed to respond to any reports of firearms."