The UK has become a dangerous place in recent years and people living in the UK know that unprovoked attacks by violent thugs are all too common situations. Anyone who disagrees should take the time to read newspapers and watch the news more often.

I'm not suggesting that every crime will be prevented and every life saved by relaxing gun laws, because that's completely unrealistic. What I am saying is that arming yourself will at least give you a chance should you ever find yourself in a situation where you could be attacked, robbed or raped. The present laws mean that you whilst the criminals remain armed, you are now completely defenceless from attack.

Like many people, I realise what would happen if the thousands of people who pile into our pubs and clubs every Friday and Saturday night, unable to behave remotely responsibly with alcohol, had legal access to firearms.

Britain is overflowing with irresponsible people who give no thought to the longer term consequences of an action; that is why we have such a high level of young single parents and an alcohol problem in our city streets. Giving those people firearms really is not a responsible action.

Do I believe that most people should be allowed to be armed? Yes. However, I would not give legal access to firearms to the people I have just described. Therefore we would need to implement a sensible licensing system as a temporary measure until these issues are resolved.

If we are going to allow responsible citizens to be armed, we should also introduce severe penalties (such as the death penalty) on those who commit murder or other violent crimes, with or without firearms.

This will create 2 deterrents to criminals and violent drunks - the possibility of being killed by an armed victim, and severe punishment if they succeed in committing the crime but subsequently get arrested and convicted of the offence.

It's not difficult to stop guns getting into the hands of criminals; it's impossible. This is something that people in Britain should really start accepting as fact so that we can start to deal with the problem. Unfortunately many people in this country are still desperately clinging on to the idea that if we make gun laws strict enough then criminals will eventually start obeying them. In a ideal world this is what I would like to see, but the truth is it's never going to happen.

No matter how hard we try we will never have a society where criminals do not have ready access to firearms. When weapons cannot be purchased legally the bad guys arrange to have them smuggled into the country and then buy them illegally. They'll get them any way they can, so why not give the victims a chance as well?

We've tried a total ban as a means of reducing armed crime, but that failed massively. Then we tried the approach of minimum sentences, which has proven to be equally ineffective. The biggest problem is that most of the people that support gun control seem blind to the fact that the laws they protect and the new laws they pass are routinely ignored by criminals.

Tightening gun laws further will not solve the problem, as criminals really don't care if the government say they can't do something. For this reason we now need to try a different approach to this problem.

One thing that firearms do effectively is to equalise those who are unequal. Take an elderly person, a pregnant mother or someone weak or disabled because of serious health problems. People made vulnerable by situations outside of their control can easily be victimised by cowardly rapists, burglars and street criminals due to the massive power advantage that the fit and able-bodied criminal has over his victim. Firearms remove this massive advantage and create a "level playing field".

When you're armed, as long as you have the physical strength to hold something in your hand and then pull the trigger, you have the ability to protect yourself. You may oppose the relaxation of gun laws, which is something I respect, but ask yourself this -

If a person does not have the physical strength to fight off an attacker with their bare hands, what is the most effective way that they can protect themselves from determined thugs, especially if they are faced with multiple attackers?

When it comes to defence against criminal behaviour, individuals are responsible for themselves and their loved ones as the police will never arrive in time to protect you from violent thugs. They may, however, arrive in time to launch the murder investigation following your death, but by then it really isn't going to matter to you anyway.

Please don't believe the UK press nonsense that guns are evil and should remain banned. Firearms are not evil; they are inanimate objects with no mind of their own, they are nothing more than pieces of metal. The outcome of the use of a gun is dependent on the person controlling it. That person can be a hardened criminal or a decent law-abiding citizen protecting his or her family.

Banning gun ownership and leaving decent people defenceless whilst the criminals remained armed is not going to make people safer. But many anti-gun people don't think with their minds, they feel with their emotions and sadly logic and common sense often have no place in their conclusions.

Gun control advocates can talk all they want about getting guns off the streets, but if they've failed to get gun crime to even 1 percent below 1997 levels despite 12 years of effort, then what chance do they have of reducing it in the future?

The fact remains that until the UK gun laws are repealed, more and more lives will be devastated by violent street thugs that have no regard for the law, the police or human life.