'These days you can be shot for upsetting a drug baron, or even turning up for a day at school...' GUNS have dominated the news in the last few days. In fact, it's fair comment, and a searingly accurate reflection of what is going on in this mad, mad, world, to say that 'gun-related incidents' pretty well occupy the bulk of mainstream media reports. 'Incidents' is hardly a strong enough word to describe the events unfolding in Africa, where an entire continent seems to be embroiled in bloody civil wars. At the time of writing there is conflict in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

The scale of the savagery and horrors being inflicted on millions of innocent civilians cannot possibly be fully assimilated by people like you and I, fortunate enough to live in a civilised and democratic society, well, civilised by the standards currently prevalent in the God-forsaken places listed above.

Individually we may have grounds to moan about the cost of being a smoker, who enjoys a drink and drives (not all at the same time, of course), a single parent struggling to bring up a family on benefits, or a pensioner with the same kind of financial constraints.

But overall, the chances of our being shot or hacked to death by a machete-wielding assassin are thankfully remote, unless you happen to be unlucky enough to live in one of the areas now labelled 'sink estates' or a customer at Barclays Bank in Westhoughton.

The recent armed raid on the bank was relived at the weekend during a reconstruction for the BBC television Crimewatch programme.

And judging by the intimidating photo of the shotgun robber (played by an actor) on the front page of the BEN on Monday, I would suggest the innocent bystanders caught in the terror and mayhem will remember the Barclays Bank raid to their dying day.

The number of 'gun-related incidents', to once again utilise police jargon, are on the increase in the UK. We may yet be a long, long way from the civil wars and appalling bloodshed of the Horn of Africa, but hardly a day goes by without someone being shot or an armed robbery taking place.

And all this after gun clubs nationwide were closed in the wake of the dreadful episode in Dunblane in 1996 when Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 primary schoolchildren and a teacher.

The feeling of revulsion which followed those murders understandably was so widespread that it was obvious to everyone connected with small arms clubs -- everyone but the seriously optimistic -- that closure by government legislation was inevitable.

When it came, and with it the voluntary surrender of all registered firearms, enthusiasts were adamant that the knee-jerk reaction to Thomas Hamilton's madness was going to succeed in only one area: removing legitimately-owned firearms.

Sadly, that has proved very much the case, judging by the subsequent number of shootings and armed robberies. It's reaching the stage where we are no longer shocked by such happenings and, if they think seriously enough about it, anyone who handles significant amounts of cash must worry about their vulnerability.

It's not just in the pursuit of stealing money that criminals are resorting to firearms. These days you can be shot for upsetting a drug baron, or even turning up for a day at school, as Dunblane and several similar events in America have shown.

Opposition to America's weak gun laws has been growing nationwide in the aftermath of the random shootings which have claimed the lives of a serious number of youngsters in recent years, including 12 killed in the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, 13 months ago.

On Sunday, Mother's Day in America, hundreds of thousands of mums took to the streets in cities across the nation. Among them were three whose five-year-old daughters were killed at Dunblane.

Karen Scott, speaking to a crowd estimated at 200,000 in Washington, said that she, Alison Crozier and Karen Turner had travelled from Scotland to tell American mothers that they COULD make a difference to attitudes about gun ownership.

President Bill Clinton and his wife joined the demonstration in Washington and Hilary Clinton in particular nailed her colours to the anti-gun mast with an emotive speech. Her husband, whose talent for prevarication is well-documented, for once came down forcefully on the side of the protesters, saying they would have a stronger voice and more powerful message for the government's lawmakers than the influential gun lobby. But then he is about to vacate the White House in a few months time, is he not?

The street demonstrations and protest against free access to arms and the right to carry them, written into the American constitution, will be firmly opposed by the very same gun lobby referred to by the President.

One of their most influential and vociferous supporters is actor Charlton Heston. Their slogan: 'If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns' used to carry a lot of clout. That has been considerably dissipated by the random high school shootings. Of course in America there is the stipulation that the person who owns the gun must have satisfied all the necessary criteria. But I doubt the qualifications and restrictions in the USA are anywhere near as punitive as those in force in the UK before the closure of our pistol clubs.

And I would further estimate that the number of guns in circulation in America, legal and illegal, would be enough to arm any of the forces, legitimate and otherwise, currently rampaging across Africa.

I have asked this question before but have yet to receive, or be pointed in the direction of, a satisfactory answer. Where do all these impoverished African governments, and more so the rebels opposing them, get the money to buy the fearsome armoury we see nightly on our TV screens? There are millions of starving people in that continent so one can only assume that money which could be spent on a proper food programme is being channelled into guns, bullets, warplanes, bombs, shells, etc., which don't come cheap.

Watching the mayhem from their closeted and safe eyries in New York and Geneva are the well-meaning but seemingly helpless diplomats of the United Nations, the world's police force. In principle a great idea; in practical terms about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Why can't the UN stop the Ethiopians and Eritreans slaughtering each other in swarms? Or intervene to some effect in other regions of Africa, where internal conflicts are producing horrific casualties.

Mind you, the United Nations "peace keepers" hadn't actually distinguished themselves in Sierra Leone before the arrival of British paras. In fact the Blue Berets were being comprehensively overrun by an undisciplined rebel army, feared for a tendency to amputate the limbs of civilians they suspect might be less than 100 percent supportive of their cause.

It's only fair at this stage to point out that when war broke out in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, with all the related atrocities, Britain, America and their European allies stepped in to halt the slaughter, in so doing inflicting some pretty comprehensive slaughter of their own.

It has been said many times before by media commentators in Europe and both sides of the Atlantic that the United Nations Peace Keeping Force is nowhere near as effective without the military might of the United States and, to a lesser extent, its Nato allies.

Maybe previous disastrous involvements in Central and Latin America and South East Asia have taught the Yanks that an insular attitude to world politics is perhaps best, unless the problem concerns them directly.

Nothing that is happening in Africa unduly concerns America, if one takes away the humanitarian segment of the equation and the savagery inflicted on helpless civilians.

Anyone who has spent time in the States, even on an annual vacation, cannot fail to have noticed the almost total ignorance shown by Americans with regard to events outside their national boundaries.

It's not that they are necessarily isolationists; their country is so vast that they are concerned almost solely with what is happening inside it -- not out. So the United Nations Police Force is very much an organisation without teeth.

Sadly, that seems to be the case in the UK according to a statement from Fred Broughton, chairman of the Police Federation.

Mr Broughton painted an alarming picture of an under-manned police force struggling in vain to cope with the rising tide of Crime, admitting that city centres were no-go areas at night because of violence and shortage of police patrols.

His admission that the public had lost faith in the police, and that the force was demoralised, was damaging in the extreme for the Blair Government, which has been telling us that the battle of the streets was being won.

Those of us who actually live on those streets, and therefore occasionally have to face the drunken and/or drugged hordes of Genghis Khan while going about our lawful business, know that Jack Straw's comforting pronouncements are a load of old cobblers.

Hopefully, when things get totally out of control, Tony and Jack will send for the Blue Berets.

At the present speed of descent into anarchy, that should be about the end of June.

Let's hope the British paras are at the head of the relief column.