I SEE we are having another knife amnesty (The Press , June 1).

I realise that the police have to do this from time to time, but we all know it will be a total waste of time. There must be 20 knives in every household and they are very easy to make, so how is the supply going to dry up?

Unfortunately, we have a gormless Government that thinks penalising law-abiding people will have some effect on crime.

Readers will recall that in 1997 Thomas Hamilton took his guns to Dunblane School. As a result, all pistols in private hands were confiscated. How did this help? What had the law-abiding done to deserve this?

I'll bet the criminals were overjoyed. It meant that they could continue to mug, rob and murder us without the danger of ever having a gun shoved in their faces.

We are told there is less violent crime than there used to be. What rot. Why is it that a United Nations survey found Scotland then Wales and England had the most violent crime in the developed world?

You will never stop criminals carrying weapons, they are the tools of their trade. The only thing you can do is allow the public to carry weapons to protect themselves.

It is a well known fact that heavily armed societies have little violent crime.

The previous Home Secretary said the public would be able to actively protect their property and family, but, of course, that has been quietly forgotten.

But the first step must be to arm the police. If they can't protect themselves, how can they protect the public?

Jeremy D Fox, Malton Avenue, York.