Take guns off our streets
I HAVE been reflecting on the killing of 12 people in west Cumbria last week, and memories of the Monkseaton shootings in North Tyneside in 1989, which left one dead and 16 injured, have been inescapable.
I was part of a campaign to stop the Deep Blue shop being licensed to sell shotguns and ammunition in Whitley Bay.
We failed because there is no law to prevent planning permission being granted for these shops to sell guns.
Huge sorrow was expressed in the media about the 12 deaths, but I saw no suggestions about how this could be prevented from happening yet again, only comments by politicians and the police as to how few gun killings there are in the UK each year.
It is true there are now fewer such fatalities – 39 last year – than previously, but we in the Campaign Against Weapons Sales and Storage lobbied our MP and petitioned the Government and the Home Office for a further tightening-up of the law, but to no avail.
We wanted a simple enough change in the law which would have removed all licensed shotguns from streets in urban areas, from our communities and from gun shops.
We were demanding that shotguns be stored in secure gun club premises and not in homes, so licence holders could not, while in an emotional state, resort to using them against others.
The public would be shocked to hear there are 1.4 million shotguns licensed in the UK now.
The other day, at a green festival, I stood for a minute's silence in memory of those shot in west Cumbria, but sorrow is not enough to prevent another such incident.
I ask people to lobby or write to their MP to call for a change in the law, so no guns are stored in homes in our communities ready to be resorted to by a person in a state of mental breakdown such as Derrick Bird.
Vicki Gilbert,
St George's Road,
Cullercoats,
North Shields.
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Weather for South Shields
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 7 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
