WHEN I was much younger and considerably dafter, I part-owned a .22 sporting rifle with a friend (Gun Crazy, Big Read, October 8). He came round to check on his investment. This involved assembling the rifle, working the moving parts and presenting the weapon at my forehead. My objections were waved away: "You wimp, it's not loaded!" 

Not convinced, I moved aside. The firing pin fell on the empty chamber and the bullet went straight through an inch and a half of Douglas fir, embedding itself in the opposite wall. 

My dislike and distrust of guns date from then. I was a member of an editorial photographers’ message board at the time of the Dunblane outrage. A contributor from the United States aggressively insisted that, contrary to outraged UK opinion, it would have been avoided if the teacher had been armed. A shootout in P1, oh yes, great idea. A colleague, recently returned from Texas, told of being shown a gun collection of thirty or so guns from antiques to assault weapons. “But you’ll never guess what this is,” said his host, displaying a truncated walking stick made of light alloy, with a clamp device half way down the shaft. Quite right: “It’s a support for hooking over the back of the front passenger seat, for drive by shooting!” Openly and legally on sale.

American children are being shot by their parents, fearful of intruders in the night. Unarmed strangers are shot for the heinous crime of setting foot on another’s garden ground. And on and on. Not that there are many incidents of this sort, given the size of the population, only a few per year. Perhaps one is too many, though.

Richard Douglas, Menstrie

AS the search for answers begins following the senseless and indiscriminate shooting in Las Vegas, the cause of senseless violence once again goes firmly under the spotlight. It’s been said many times before; there is never one simple explanation for what drives a human being to commit such an unspeakable act, but a common denominator has surfaced in hundreds of cases—prescribed psychiatric drugs, documented to cause mania, psychosis, violence, suicide and in some cases, homicidal ideation.

For decades, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has been collecting information on numerous similar acts of senseless violence, acts where the psychiatric connections have eventually surfaced. A recent example concerned the gunman involved in the Ft Lauderdale tragedy in January this year. It was revealed he had been being ‘treated’ for mental health issues.

Then there was James Holmes, who murdered 12 people in a Colorado cinema. It was revealed he too had been ‘treated’ for mental health issues and had been prescribed an antidepressant drug.

It also surfaced Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who flew Flight 9525 into the Alps killing all the passengers and crew, had been under psychiatric care and was being treated by several psychiatrists.

While gun laws in the United States are put to the top of the list as a means of curtailing such tragedies, the role of psychiatric treatment, especially psychiatric drugs, should also be investigated and closely scrutinised.

I’ve written this before, but it’s vital to continue repeating this message about the dangers of psychiatric treatments until it gets through to those who can make the necessary changes so that public safety is no longer compromised.

Brian Daniels, National Spokesperson, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (United Kingdom)