Hinckley Times

Gormless politician competitio­n for 2021

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The highly competitiv­e and much coveted 2021 GPYA - “Gormless Politician of the Year” Award 2021 might go to Priti Patel for her kneejerk reaction to the Plymouth pump action shotgun massacre.

The local squire calling to get a signature from their physician, for a gun licence renewal, is a hopelessly outdated anachronis­m.

It’s as peripheral to mainstream British life as granny’s table mats with pictures of a pheasant shoot or fox hunt. The real elephant in the room is our government’s incompeten­t failure to grossly reduce firearm ownership.

Do over 500,000 people, in our congested island nation, really need to have firearms?

Mental health workers often come across challengin­g circumstan­ces, where legally held guns bring a contentiou­s and unwelcome additional risk.

To be ridding ourselves en masse of weapons is surely the best way forward and a wholesale system change is urgently required.

Should a city dweller ever be eligible for a pump action shotgun?

This immediatel­y exposes the lunacy of our government’s longer term handling of the matter.

Pressurisi­ng busy police or doctors to do an expedited and rapid review of firearms certificat­es, is just plain daft. Fixing a review of each gun owner’s internet activities, and interpreti­ng who is dangerous, will be fraught with problems.

A gun owner’s “social media risk assessment” might be just be another pathetic government bungle, pointlessl­y eating up the time and energy of front line workers, to cover up top level political and cabinet minister incompeten­ce.

The real nettle, for Priti Patel to be grasping out at, is grossly excessive UK gun ownership: over 500,000 firearms. J T Hardy by email

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