The gang busted after British crime's most-used gun was fired in Wavertree was no more than an assortment of yobs and dealers operating with little sophistication.
The investigation that brought down Wavo 420 found little evidence to suggest leader James Lunt ran anything beyond a street-level drugs network.
The gang's standing was such that one top detective described them as simply "a rag-tag bunch of street dealers who gained access to guns".
Lunt and seven of his associates were jailed at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday, marking the end of a major probe launched after Mark Gaskill was shot in May 2017.
Eleven bullets from a Beretta 9000S were fired at him , several striking him in the head.
He was saved by the motorbike helmet he was wearing when targeted on Stevenson Street.
The gunman has not been found but the findings of a complex investigation allowed judge Rachel Smith to conclude it was unlikely the attack took place without Lunt's knowledge.
The Beretta linked to the 29-year-old was part of an arsenal of weapons uncovered by police as they delved into Lunt's operation.
And once they had his name as a starting point it took just months to track down that gun, an Uzi sub-machine gun and a sawn-off shotgun also under his control.
Yet while he had access to a startling haul of guns, Detective Chief Inspector Steve Reardon said his officers found little to suggest Lunt was a criminal of prominence.
Instead, he painted a picture of a man who led a street dealing cannabis network in the streets around his Wavertree home but who had "accrued" weapons over time.
DCI Reardon said: "He was someone who had significant firearms around him but he was he was not a significant criminal.
"This may seem a contradiction but he was someone who was involved in criminality, in drug dealing, in making people's lives miserable in Wavertree - him and his associates. It was more low level when you look at the street dealing and the amounts [of drugs] we recovered but he's managed to accrue over quite a few years some reasonable weapons which probably has given him standing - but I would not say he is a sophisticated criminal."
Lunt had been jailed in 2015 after he was linked to a series of cannabis farms across Liverpool and Wirral and DCI Reardon said the investigation into his gang found no significant wealth.
He added the lack of sophistication of the network was backed up by the speed at which it was unraveled by police once he became the centre of their investigation into the Wavertree shooting.
That happened despite the victim refusing to co-operate with Merseyside Police.
The attack was the 19th incident on British soil linked to the Beretta, which was codenamed Linked Series Four when detectives launched a mission to find it after it was linked to multiple shootings across Merseyside.
Lunt is not said to have been linked to any of those incidents other than the Wavertree attack .
He is thought to have been in control of the Uzi from 2012, when it was fired in a street off Edge Lane, to 2017, when it was seized from the Toxteth home of a woman linked to his network.
There is no evidence to suggest it had been fired since that shooting, and the sawn-off shotgun also linked to him has not been connected to any criminal activity.
The gang name, Wavo 420, came to prominence in 2013 when Liverpool Council and Merseyside Police secured anti-social behaviour orders against 11 teens and adults following a catalogue of incidents in Wavertree.
Members were said to have threatened residents, been involved in thefts, abused and threatened staff and customers in shops, driven unlicensed scrambler bikes and harassed local resident and businesses.
Lunt was not among those hit with an ASBO and the personnel of the Wavo 420 appears to have changed since those orders were secured, though some of those targeted in 2013 were among the suspects prosecuted following the Stevenson Street shooting.
They include Alan E'von, now 22 and of no fixed abode.
His DNA was discovered on a Lucozade bottle found at the scene and, while he was not the gunman, prosecutors argued he "was present to encourage and support the shooting".
He was was described in court as simply a "foot soldier" in a wider plot.
Found guilty of conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and to possess ammunition without a certificate, he was jailed for 13 years.
Lunt was sentenced to 21 years in jail - of which he will spend a minimum of 14 behind bars - for conspiracies to possess firearms with intent to endanger life; to possess prohibited firearms for transfer; to possess ammunition without a certificate; and to supply cocaine and cannabis.
