DURING his weekly ramble down Rural View, Grant Burton tells us about the awful problems of keeping a shotgun for game shooting (January 14).

One must fill in a large form, pay a fairly large fee and then the police have to inspect it - presumably the gun.

Poor Grant thinks all this bother is a waste of time, both for himself and the police, who have to enforce the regulations which takes them away from their more important duties.

Rubbish!

The gun is an instrument of death, expressly designed for the taking of life, human or animal, and it is facile to say that only the "law-abiding gun owners" are controlled by the gun laws while brainless thugs run around like Bonny and Clyde. Removing the existing controls would only exacerbate what is already a dangerous situation.

Robert Holmes,

Thorganby, York.

Updated: 11:40 Tuesday, January 28, 2003