Firearms are increasingly being used to settle even minor disputes, writes Conor Lally.
Within hours of the shooting dead of Dara McCormack in Blanchardstown, Dublin, on Saturday night, gardaí established he had been murdered because he owed a small sum of money to drug dealers known to him.
The murder of somebody over an unpaid debt as low as several hundred euro is not unprecedented. If those involved in the drugs trade cede ground over such debts they lose face and their position within the underworld is compromised.
But when examined against the background of similar murders and violent incidents, where the stakes have been very small, there is little doubt that a gun culture has emerged in the Republic. Gone are the days when the victims of high-profile shootings were well known to both the media and gardaí.
The proliferation of gun crime in many Dublin communities has accelerated to such an extent that those doing the shooting and those being shot have often never registered on the Garda's radar in any significant way.
Some officers in west Dublin with deep knowledge of the gang scene had not even heard of the latest victim before he was shot on Saturday. This marks a seamless continuation of the state of play at the end of last year.
Of the 18 people shot dead last year in gangland-style attacks, two were not criminals. A further seven of last year's victims were involved in petty crime or on the periphery of the drugs trade. They were killed after minor disputes with armed criminals or because it was feared they were low-level informers.
One of the two pipe bombs which exploded in Dublin last week was linked to a personal dispute between families.
The sheer availability of weapons is evidenced by the frequency with which they are being used. The possession of firearms increased by 16 per cent last year, to 424 cases. Discharging of firearms increased by 7 per cent, to 313 cases.
When announcing the 2005 crime figures last month, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell conceded 2005 had been a "bad year" in the fight against gangland crime. However, it would be wrong to say that gardaí were not enjoying some success against armed gangs. The killers of Dara McCormack have already been identified and, although the investigation is at a very early stage, prosecutions look likely.
Gardaí in Limerick have managed to quell the city's gangs to a great extent in the last two years. In Dublin, Operation Anvil, which is targeting armed gangs, has yielded results. There have been 17 arrests for murder and almost 2,000 arrests in total under Operation Anvil in the last eight months. The total number of firearms seized is 347, and property to the value of more than €5.5 million has been recovered. Despite this, the rise in gun crime is a real worry.
In 1922 the then Garda commissioner Michael Staines said: "The Civic Guard will succeed not by force of arms, or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people." If last year's trends on gun crime continue, those words on the unarmed status of the Garda will look increasingly aspirational.