HANDGUNS were responsible for more injuries and deaths than any other type of firearm used in serious crime cases in Scotland, a new Government reports reveals.

The report, put together by the Scottish Office Central Research Unit, states that where a handgun was carried during a crime there was more than twice the likelihood of it being fired compared with shotguns.

Lord Cullen asked for a detailed set of figures on the use of firearms in crimes in Scotland so that he could consider them before publishing his final report into the Dunblane massacre.

Although handguns featured in only nine actual cases which came before the High Court in the year studied, 1993, shots were fired from them proportionally more often than any other weapon.

In all, handguns were responsible for three deaths and five injuries compared with two deaths and four injuries caused by shotguns, the weapon used in most serious crimes.

The figures come as a new report for England and Wales, also lodged with Lord Cullen yesterday, shows that out of 152 gun-related murders between 1992 and 1994, 130 of them were carried out by people using illegally held firearms.

Both sets of figures give the best insight yet into what type of people carry out serious offences with guns, where they get the weapons and the type of firearms they use.

The decision to use just one year of data for the Scottish study, which looked at murder, attempted murder, culpable homicide and assault and robbery cases, was taken because of the requirement to report to Lord Cullen within four weeks.

However, the report's authors, Denis Oag, Heather McKay and Nicola Coghill, said there was no reason to assume the 1993 figures were significantly different from immediately preceding or subsequent years.

Their main findings were that serious crime involving the use of firearms in Scotland was relatively rare.

The firearm most often used by criminals was an unlicensed shotgun which was mostly used to carry out a robbery during which the weapon was more used to intimidate rather than than injure or kill.

The general conclusions are backed by figures which show that in 1993 the police recorded 738 crimes and offences in which a firearm, excluding an air weapon, was alleged to have been used.

In total, firearms were used in 0.07% (less than one in every 1000) of all crimes and offences in Scotland.

A study of the backgrounds of the 52 people involved in firearms offences showed that nine of them said they had bought the weapon they used in their crime although the source of purchase was seldom given.

Six people said they had borrowed the firearm from friends, four people said they had stolen the weapon, and one person said it had been found.

Overall, shots were fired in eight of the 34 incidents which led to the death of five victims with nine others suffering gun-related injuries.

The report states that the use of firearms in crimes and offences recorded by the police ``peaked'' in 1992 when 800 such offences were recorded compared with 738 in 1993 and 772 in 1994.

The most common crime involving a firearm was assault and robbery which made up more than half of all cases, followed by serious assault (18%), attempted murder (12%) and murder (7%). Of the weapons used, one legally-held gun was bought for #100 through an advert, one sawn-off shotgun was bought in Kirkcadly for #60, while another shotgun was brought up to Scotland from London.

One offender who appeared in the High Court claimed to have stolen two shotguns used in his crime from a house he had broken into while another stole a shotgun from the loft of a farmer's barn. Another broke into a pub and stole a sawn-off shotgun from a cupboard which had the key left in it.

Despite the detailed research Scottish Office chiefs admitted that present knowledge of the psychological and social factors underlying single-incident massacre killings like that carried out by Thomas Hamilton was inadequate and required more detailed research.

The report also claims that the horror of tragedies like Dunblane may exaggerate, in the public eye, the extent to which firearms feature in crime.

Mrs Rosemary Hunter of the Dunblane Snowdrop petition which has collected 750,000 signatures to ban handguns said the Scottish Office should have carried out a study into the problem of serious gun-related crime over a longer number of years.

Mrs Hunter said she had reservations over the way the report only took a snapshot of a 12-month period of crime despite the fact it backed their campaign.

Mrs Hunter said: ``It is clear that handguns are a danger and this report shows that.

``The figures which show that handguns are more likely to be fired than shotguns are borne out by information we already have.

``Hamilton managed to strap four handguns onto his body and walk up the drive and into the school and kill the children. That couldn't have happened with shotguns.''