Tackling gun crime is not easy job

The Shropshire Star reports that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, when opening the new National Ballistics Intelligence service, said she was "determined to tackle gun crime and get guns off the streets".

There is no country in the world where its been possible to do this, so what makes this Government minister think that she will be more effective than, say, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe or Tony Blair, to name a few that have tried?

While I laud the effort to eliminate guns in criminal hands we have to acknowledge that it will not happen until everyone in the land is microchipped and monitored 24 hours a day.

Even then I expect the criminal fraternity will find a way of getting around any deployed technology.

The old saying that "when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns" is as true as ever.

Sweeping statements from politicians are understood to be just vote catchers.

The problem now is that because so many statements politicians make never come to fruition, be they manifesto pledges (ho, ho, ho) or off-the-cuff promises, that we now have become inured to them.

Michael Wilkinson, Ketley