SIR: I refer to an article (BEN Sept 5) by Euro MP Gary Titley about firearms, in which he goes to great lengths to make the point that he attended the American Democratic Convention in Chicago where this subject was discussed.
I fail to see any similarity between the American and British firearm legislation; the Americans wish to ban fully Automatic Firearms (machine guns), the British Government did this with the Firearms Amendment Act back in 1936, as for Expanding Bullets etc. by the Firearms Amendment Regs 1992.
He stated that the American controls are minor in relationship to our legislation.
Having stated that the American gun control measures are minor by our standards, why bring the American system into discussion re firearms control?
There have been umpteen laws over several decades re firearms all to no avail as there are more illegal guns on the streets now than ever. Each time you ban something more appear illegally.
If you licence them at least you have a degree of control, if you ban you develop a sub-culture as with the drugs problem.
Brian S Ford, Farnworth
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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