I CANNOT understand your attack on Lancashire Police (LET, May 22) because they failed to renew only four firearms certificates out of the many thousands presently valid in the county.

Presumably, if the police had failed to renew, say, 50 per cent of those presently in force, you would have criticised them for issuing so many to unsuitable people in the first place.

Surely, the question you should ask is how many licensed firearms and shotgun owners have committed crimes of violence, or any other crimes for that matter.

It has been suggested that the 'gun lobby' will use misleading information to justify their ownership of firearms, but your misinformation is equally bad.

You cannot excuse a general attack on all responsible firearms owners (and the police), solely to assist the Labour Party's political crusade.

The local Labour MPs, including the shadow Home Secretary, have not investigated the matter and are feeding dubious facts to the media solely to score points over the Home Secretary.

LOCAL gun collector, (name and address received).

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