I HAD to smile at the feigned bafflement of Mr M E Walsh (Letters, December 20) at the apparent double standard employed by the LET over the banning of hand guns and the 'promoting' of gun-culture TV programmes.

Overt propaganda and the attendant covert psychology of 'righteous killing' in comics, films, books, TV and toy shops is, as Mr Walsh knows, aimed at the impressionable young to foster the 'martial spirit' every nation needs to recruit conscripts for the armed forces and the national defence.

However morally wrong that is, we can't fault the need, the logic or the justification.

So gun-culture weaning starts with little Fred's first plastic pistol.

While programmes like 'Thief Takers' will impinge on the minds of teenagers, adults such as Mr Walsh are deemed mature enough to know better.

If the LET ignores such programmes, they won't go away and there is nothing wrong about recruitment to fight the criminal or potential invader.

When, however, it comes to banning 'real' guns, the LET was in step with the vast majority who gave the benefit of the doubt post-Hungerford on hand guns to the gun lobby.

Dunblane showed how wrong we were then. It was the last straw, not to be viewed in isolation and, as nobody could say it would not happen again, the guns had to go.

To my mind they should have gone voluntarily, without recompense - for 16 very good reasons.

D PRATT, Plantation Street, Accrington.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.