AFTER the latest shooting in an American school, we again have people jumping on the bandwagon regarding gun control. They conveniently forget that we have had supposed gun control in this country for 80 years.
I would therefore like to ask these people why gun crime in this country has increased more than eight-fold since the wholesale confiscation of handguns. Should they be at a loss for an answer, I can enlighten them.
Effective gun control can only begin to be achieved when gun owners are registered, as in the United Kingdom. It is then very easy for any government to remove those weapons from these law-abiding citizens, as was recently the case in this country. The government were pleased then to announce that all handguns were no longer in private hands, conveniently ignoring those held illegally. This number, using Home Office statistics, was conservatively estimated as being ten or eleven times the total legally registered, and subsequently confiscated.
It is these illegal guns, over which the police have no control, which account for all the gun crime now so prevalent. Gun control? Phooey! It will only be fully feasible when there are no criminals.
A. P. TOBIAS
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