Gun tragedy

Leafleting on Sunday evening in Manor Park I came across 2 young kids with toy guns. They pretended to shoot me. All harmless fun you might think. Then yesterday we have the terrible shooting disaster in Virginia. America’s love affair with the gun I suppose goes back to the wild west, but here in Sheffield the number of gun deaths seems to be rising too. What should we do about it? Well the Green Party policy is to crack down on gun crime by introducing a tough licensing system working to cut off gun supply to the UK and banning the sale of replica guns. Two of my favourite campaigning comedians have for a long time campaigned against guns. Michael Moore has been doing a great job in the States and Mark Thomas has written “As used on the famous Nelson Mandella” which exposes how easy it is to set up in the arms trade business. If we learn anything from the Virginia tragedy, I hope it is that we must stop the spread of these dangerous weapons- and if you are a parent, I hope you will think twice before you give your kids a toy gun. Guns are not for having fun with, they are instruments of death and destruction.