THE DECLARATION by Shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw that Labour will not be browbeaten by the gun lobby in its determination to outlaw handguns will have a far larger audience in agreement with him than the conference of police chiefs to whom he delivered it.

For, just as Mr Straw says, handguns are not about sport, they are about death and should have no place in our society.

But what is chilling is his revelation that the handgun lobby had been "ferociously active" in inundating MPs with material and in the influencing the Conservative members of the Commons Home Affairs select committee which decided against a gun ban. Surely, though, with the horror of the Dunblane shooting in mind, this issue should not be swayed by any interest group, but by what the public wants - and that wish, surely, is to make the country safer by banning these guns.

And if that means depriving hand gun owners of the esoteric pleasures they gain from owning and shooting lethal weapons, a greater good will have been served.

Evidently the Police Superintendents' Association, which Mr Straw was addressing agrees, for its conference voted unanimously for a motion describing current legislation as too liberal.

We must hope that the report of Lord Cullen's inquiry into the Dunblane massacre, due in a few weeks, reaches the same conclusion - as it is the only sane one.

And afterwards the government must swiftly prove that it, too, will not be browbeaten by the gun lobby.

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