GUNS and the impact they have on civilians are seldom far from the media spotlight, with good reason. Their increased availability threatens life and liberty in communities and cities around the world, Including ours.

Recently an ICM poll found that 18 per cent of people surveyed in the south-east have seen a gun that they understood to be illegal.

From the inner cities of Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles to the conflicts in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, guns have never been so easy to obtain. Deadly weapons such as AK47s and assault guns daily cast their shadow over people's lives all over the world.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We need strong, legally binding, global controls to stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.

It is time that all governments took responsibility for the individual tragedies perpetrated with the weapons they supply: the woman raped at gunpoint, the young man crushed under the tracks of a battle tank, the child forced to become a soldier.

The United Nations' initiative to develop a global arms trade treaty is being supported by 80 per cent of the world's governments as well as by campaign groups, including Oxfam Internation-al, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms.

The UK government has been at the forefront of the drive to achieve the treaty.

It is vital that it keeps up the pressure now, to make sure that sceptical countries, such as the USA, do not succeed in watering down this vital agreement.

HAYLEY BAKER, Oxfam campaigns officer for Hampshire.