Guns and gamebirds (2)

Michael Fitzgibbons seems to be remarkably unaware of the situation regarding firearms ownership in Malta. Far from being at variance with the European Union, in 2005 Malta passed a new Arms Act which is fully in accord with the 1991 EU Directive on Weapons Control, and many aspects of which would serve as a model for national legislation within the EU.

While hunting practices on Malta have received adverse coverage in the European press in the past, there is a growing co-operation between shooters and the Maltese authorities, seeking to improve standards and practices by education and positive partnership, rather than through negative "bans" which tend only to disadvantage the law-abiding.

Mr Fitzgibbons has only to look at the conspicuous lack of success on recent "bans" on hunting and on handguns in Great Britain for evidence of the undesirability of such negative, socially divisive and usually unjust legislative measures.