WHILE feeling some sympathy for Local Gun Collector (Letters, October 23), there are two points that cannot pass without challenge.

To say the Snowdrop campaign intentionally misled is not only untrue but is rich when we consider how the gun lobby rammed it down our throats that Hungerford was a 'one-off.'

Well, now we know better.

Criminals do and will continue to kill with illegal weapons but do not indulge in mass slaughter.

What happened at Hungerford, Tasmania, Texas, Canada and Dunblane was not 'crime,' it was in each case deranged 'revenge' by deranged legal gun owners.

I fail to understand how one as national, stable, caring and completely trustworthy as Local Gun Collector fails to see that any one of us by force of circumstance or mental malfunction could become unstable.

Combine that with gun ownership and the inevitable outcome (as at Dunblane and the rest) is no longer an acceptable risk. The price is too high.

I hope Local Gun Collector will give that some thought and 'bite the bullet' voluntary.

D PRATT (MR), Plantation Street, Accrington.

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