Madam, - As many of the red-tops of both print and television have informed us in the past 48 hours, the number of those killed and injured in the Virginia university shootings is a new "record". How sad it is that there are such "records" to break.
The connection between the high level of gun ownership in the United States and incidents such as this, which occur with an all too predictable frequency, is surely undeniable. And yet, after a few days of press conferences with appropriately sullen-faced politicians promising to act, the political reality of a gun lobby which spent close to $10 million in support of President Bush in the last presidential election will prevail, the status quo will be preserved and the sullen faces reserved for the next such incident.
- Yours, etc,
MARTIN BROWNE, Ballinteer, Dublin 16.