I SEE our MP Mr Hugh Bayley is promoting international laws to stop the bad guys of the world from getting guns (Evening Press, May 7).

Such laws have been a dismal failure in this country, so why should they work in the rest of the world?

Does he think they will make some tribesman in Afghanistan run to the nearest police outpost to register his convertible air pistol?

Doesn't he recall that there was an international ban on exporting weapons to South Africa and, as a result, they started to manufacture their own arms?

They now produce an excellent range of weapons, a large proportion of which are exported. Nobody can stop the bad guys of the world getting guns. The only thing you can do is to make sure the good guys have more and better guns and plenty of ammunition.

Jeremy D Fox,

Malton Avenue, York.

Updated: 11:27 Wednesday, May 12, 2004