The AK-47 rifles were mangled at the Royal Armouries museum before an audience which included a man whose life has been wrecked by guns.
The rifles were representative of the 640m handguns in use in the world today – a number increasing at the rate of more than 7m a year.
The AK-47s were smashed as part of Gun Destruction Day, an international event in a campaign to rid the world of the millions of small arms which kill someone, somewhere, in the world every minute – more than 10,000 a week.
Victims range from people shot by criminals on the streets of Leeds to Sudanese villagers murdered by armed militias.
The destruction of the dummy weapons at the Royal Armouries was organised by aid charity Oxfam, human rights group Amnesty, and the International Action Network on Small Arms, who run the international campaign for tighter controls of small arms.
Among those present was Leeds North East Labour MP Fabian Hamilton, who monitors Britain's small arms exports.
Present too was Elvis Nbuhukire, driven out of his village in Uganda by armed gangs.
"Armed violence has forced me to flee my home and country," he said. "I have seen how the easy availability of arms fuels violence and destroys people's lives.
A spokesman for the event said: "On average 800,000 guns are destroyed every year, but the scale of the problem of unregulated guns remains enormous – for every one gun that is destroyed another 10 new guns are created.
"Amazingly, there is no international law outlawing the sale of guns to war zones, dictators and even criminals. An Arms Trade Treaty would stop weapons getting into the wrong hands."
The International Action Network on Small Arms represents 500 anti-gun and small arms groups ranging from Dunblane to countries around the world.
An electronic petition calling for controls is being run on www.controlarms.org
peter.lazenby@ypn.co.uk