THE law is very late in acknowledging what some local people have known for a long time: airguns are dangerous.

A Private Member's Bill to change the Firearms Act 1968 would, if passed, ban the unsupervised use of airguns by people under the age of 14.

An airgun attack on a Bolton postman, and some of the 800 most recent attacks on animals reported to the RSPCA have been cited nationally.

A change in this law is not an attack on individual freedom of choice. It is a way of curbing the behaviour of the stupid and the cruel.