In a written Parliamentary answer for the Conservative party, data compiled by the Ministry of Justice suggested firearms offences had more than trebled in the past five years, while the number of armed officers in the county fell by a third.

The disputed figures said that in 2006, Northamptonshire Police responded to 128 separate offences involving guns compared with just 55 in 2002.

But Assistant Chief Constable Alan Featherstone rebutted the data and said the real figures showed a declining trend in the number of gun crimes in the county.

He said: “Northamptonshire has very low levels of gun crime and is a very safe county. The vast majority of the incidents that we record as gun crime involve either the threat that someone has a weapon when none is seen or the reported sighting of ball bearing guns or imitation firearms.

“There were 103 reported incidents between April and November 2007, 31 more than during the same period last year, but most of them involving BB guns or air weapons being seen in the street and not what the public would regard as ‘gun crime’. We certainly don’t appear to have a gun culture in Northamptonshire.

“Protecting the public is a top priority for Northamptonshire Police. We take firearms offences and the threat of firearms offences very seriously. We have carried out a full firearms threat and risk assessment to ensure that as a force, we have sufficient well-trained and well-equipped officers to meet the identified needs on a 24-hour basis.”

There has actually been a 25 per cent rise in the number of officers licensed to carry a firearm, whereas incidents involving guns fell by about 20 per cent in the past six months compared with the same period last year. Statistics last year confirmed Northamptonshire was rated as the safest place in the country for gun crime.