This letter appeared in Monday's (Sept 1st) Derby Evening Telegraph:
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It's Simple: Guns Kill

I see that youngsters and parents are being invited to a training event to educate them about ball-bearing guns and airguns (Derby Evening Telegraph, August 2).

As a parent I would remind other parents that airguns can and do have the capability of killing children (such as Matthew Sheffield and George Atkinson, both aged 12 and killed in the last couple of years by airgun pellets).

Sensible Parents know that the best way to ensure that no more children are killed or injured by air weapons is not to 'train' them to use air weapons but to discourage them from having anything to do with guns.

We don't train children to smoke safely by giving them smoking lessons, we don't train children to use drugs safely by giving them cannabis and letting them have a go.

The message is that these things kill - have nothing to do with them.

The message should be the same for airguns.

Chrissie Hall,
Member of the Home Office Firearms Sub-comittee on Licensing
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I will be writing to them shortly to put the other side of the story across, but it may help if other people write too.

How can this obviously biassed, twisted woman really be a member of the Home Office Firearms committee? I thought that they should be unbiased, looking dispassionately at the facts, rather than trying to force their own agenda.

You can check out the telegraph at www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk

It may be best if you write in on paper though.

Cheers

Rob M