"Figure 3: Continued rise in offences involving a knife or sharp instrument and an increase in offences involving firearms","" "England and Wales, year ending March 2003 to year ending March 2019","" "","" "Notes","1. Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. 2. Police recorded knife or sharp instrument offences data are submitted via a special collection, which includes the offences: attempted murder; threats to kill; assault with injury and assault with intent to cause serious harm; robbery; rape; and sexual assault. 3. Information on recording issues for individual police forces can be found in [Table P4](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/policeforceareadatatables) published alongside this bulletin. 4. Firearms include: shotguns; handguns; rifles; imitation weapons such as BB guns or soft air weapons; other weapons such as CS gas, pepper spray and stun guns; and unidentified weapons. They exclude conventional air weapons, such as air rifles. 5. Data on firearms offences are provisional and have not been reconciled with police forces." "Unit","Number of offences" "","" "","Knife or sharp instrument offences (exc Greater Manchester Police)","Offences involving firearms","Knife or sharp instrument offences (inc Greater Manchester Police)" "Mar 03","","10248","" "Mar 04","","10338","" "Mar 05","","11069","" "Mar 06","","11088","" "Mar 07","","9645","" "Mar 08","","9865","" "Mar 09","","8199","" "Mar 10","","8082","" "Mar 11","30620","7040","" "Mar 12","29250","6022","" "Mar 13","24798","5158","" "Mar 14","23945","4856","" "Mar 15","24551","4911","" "Mar 16","27464","5182","" "Mar 17","33726","6375","" "Mar 18","40215","6492","" "Mar 19","43516","6684","47136"