Why do the guns need to be removed first? To my mind that's like baling out a sinking boat rather than patching the leak.

Agree that other things need to be done too - scouts, football etc, but need to get rid of guns first.

Tony is wrong to think that the police buying the guns would lead to people making and selling them to the police.

Anyone making a gun, which is hard to …

My friend Bill writes:

...you [Tony] are bang on with the profit making scheme, thats exactly what would happen. but also i'm not sure of the point of it all. there are far far more problems with knives than guns, perhaps those should be targeted (excuse the pun, fully intended …

I've very grateful to my friend Bert for lending me the 'two books in one volume', The Godfather (see previous post) and The Fortunate Pilgrim. In Pilgrim an italian immigrant brings up her family in pre-war USA, struggling through life's vicissitudes. It's triumph is to avoid descending into sentimentality.

Many films (and some books) would be exceptionally boring if one of the characters had made a timely phone call to the police. The Godfather manages to make it plausible that the police aren't called. For one thing, the police may be controlled by another mafia family!

So as I …

It's definitely an idea worth considering, though I wonder whether your caveat about incentivising the firearms market could be avoided by making this a one-off, week-long exercise rather than a permanent scheme. In that way there simply wouldn't be time to organise the import or manufacture of further weapons for …

My friend David Andrews has a plan to cut gun crime. Read his idea, then read what I think about it...

How to cut gun crime

By David Andrews

The present concern about high rates of illegal gun ownership and associated gun crime can be solved very simply in the …

Hurray! I sold my car today. £525 on the nail. Down with climate change! Plus I can get my bike and lawnmower in and out of the garage!

Actually, now I've got a bit of space in the garage, does anyone know how I can use the space to make …

I do not think Dawkin's ever makes a claim about the superiority of atheism, in terms of being a 'better person'. He only claims organised religions can be detrimental to society but also freely admits people like Stalin\Hitler, alleged Atheists (debatable), didn't necessarily have religious incentives for their attrocities …

Everyone seems to know about FreeCycle except me. It's a brilliant idea. If you want to get rid of useable stuff, don't take it to the tip, post it on FreeCycle and someone who wants it will come and collect it. I've done this with my unwanted TalkTalk modem. We'll …