SO you think that replica guns should be banned (November 3). Can you tell me when any such ban has worked?

Illegal drugs are banned yet tons are smuggled into the country every week and further tons are manufactured here.

Pistols were banned in 1997 and what good did that do?

The first thing that happens after a ban is put in place is that a black market starts to supply the banned items. One day our lawmakers will realise that bans do not achieve anything other than to put money in criminals' pockets.

You refer to the case where a man with a table leg in a bag was shot dead by the police. However you make no reference to the fact that, some years ago, a leading firearms officer was shot dead by a criminal with a sawn-off shot gun.

In that case the shooter shot through the bag he was carrying the gun in and the unfortunate officer never saw the weapon that killed him.

Could this not have been in the minds of the officers who shot the man with the table leg? It appears to me that the police are damned if they do shoot and damned (or dead) if they don't. I do not envy them.

Jeremy D Fox,

Malton Avenue,

York.

Updated: 10:06 Friday, November 05, 2004