15th January 2023

Yesterday, a seven year old girl was shot in London, caught in the cross fire from a passing car. When, a few weeks ago, we heard that a six year old Virginia boy shot his teacher at an elementary school, we all thought that couldn’t happen here. Gun crime in the UK’s a thing of the past, isn’t it? Statistics show we normally only have 0.4 such crimes per 100,000 people, compared to 4 in the US, so what’s going on?  When I wrote An Englishwoman in America, I included a chapter about gun laws in each country.  After the Pilgrim fathers landed and brought over some of Britain’s old practices,  we gradually modernised our gun laws, whilst the US essentially enshrined them in their ‘right to bear arms’ constitution. In the book I argue that men, consumed by testosterone, will always get inflamed by the many injustices in life. Therefore, it’s vital at such times that there must never be an accessible lethal weapon available, ever. A punch on the nose, however bloody, means that the victim gets up again to live another day. But for children to also be involved?  My message to every country in the world: ban the manufacture and sale of all guns immediately, and provide an anonymous depository for existing weapons.