WHEN the women from Dunblane visited America recently in support of tighter gun controls, they no doubt quoted some facts and figures to support their arguments.

However, I suspect that one set of figures were not given. So I will give you them now.

Despite a TOTAL ban on the private possession of handguns being introduced in 1997, resulting in the removal of approximately 200,000 handguns, the figures for homicides show that the number committed using handguns has not changed materially.

Bear in mind that the United Kingdom has a strict registration system for the lawful ownership of firearms, making it impossible for a licensed user to retain them in defiance of the ban.

In fact, the number of homicides committed in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own laws) with handguns in 1998, the year after the total ban came into effect, is three more than the number committed in 1994, before the ban. For the record, the number of homicides committed with handguns, year by year, is as follows:

1994 = 25; 1995 = 39; 1996 = 30; 1997 = 39 (handgun ban introduced that year); 1998 = 28.

Could it be that these figures demonstrate what the shooting organisations have known, and have been saying for years if only people would listen, namely that the vast majority of firearms offences are committed using unlicensed firearms by people who would never be allowed to have a firearm legally.

The United Kingdom introduced its first Firearms Act in the 1920s, with major amendments in the 1930s. A totally new act was introduced in 1969, with major amendments in 1988, outlawing fullbore self-loading rifles, and in 1997 banning all handguns, yet figures for crimes involving firearms,including banned ones, continue to rise.

As recently as 1997 an armed robber opened fire with a sub-machine gun on a pursuing police vehicle. This is the type of firearm outlawed 60 years ago. How effective can a law be if the outlawed items are still available 60 years later?

As someone who has lived my entire life, all 39 years of it, in a country with strict gun laws, I can tell you that gun control does not prevent gun crime.

Indeed, the reverse is probably true, that disarming the law-abiding citizen allows the criminal to use firearms with impunity.

T. R. MILES