It’s time to decommission the other lethal weapons: guns and cars

THERE are two sorts of lethal weapons causing untold havoc right now: guns and cars. And it’s time we began to see them in the same light. What that means is simple.

Cars are lethal weapons in the hands of uninsured or drunk drivers, and guns are lethal no matter whose hands they’re in. It’s time we began to take whatever action is necessary to get these lethal weapons off our streets.

In the late 1990s I spoke to a senior member of what was then the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). He was on the point of retirement, and there was one thing, he said, he was curious about. He was reasonably confident that many of the people (on both sides of the community) who had previously been involved in terrorism would end up “going straight”.