China is among countries with the lowest gun-related crime rate, with only 58 cases in 2017, a public security official said Thursday.
In the past five years, public security officials in China have seized 1.01 million illegal guns and 56.61 million bullets, and the number of gun-related crimes has dropped from 311 in 2012 to 58 in 2017, an unnamed official from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said at a press conference in Beijing on Thursday.
The figure makes China among the countries with the lowest gun crime rates, the official added.
"China is among the safest places in the world," Li Jingsheng, an official with the MPS, said at the conference.
The country's strict management of guns and explosives, together with public security officials' campaign against such crimes, contributes to high economic growth and the social stability during economic transformation, said Li.
China will hold a campaign against gun and explosives crimes across the country from Wednesday to the end of 2019, MPS officials said at the conference.
The crackdown will target the manufacture and sale of guns and explosives in China and the smuggling of related goods from other countries, said Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi.
The campaign will also focus on the online gun trade, according to a notice from the website of the MPS.
Private individuals are banned from owning guns in China.
The country has long maintained high pressure on gun-related and explosives crimes.
In the latest move, about 250 guns and knives were seized in a crackdown on gang crime in November 2017 in East China's Zhejiang Province, the province's public security department said Monday.
