As I write this, one of the hot topics of the moment is that of the rise of a gun culture amongst teenagers in the UK. The problem that I spoke of then as being something related to America has finally started to become a problem on the streets of the UK of A.

As Americans are notoriously incapable of recognising irony, it's unlikely to have been mentioned by Clinton or Major in yesterday's phone conversation, even in the context of the President's calls for decommissioning of Irish weaponry. Disarming its people is one of America's greatest ongoing problems.

Their constitutional right to carry arms was intended to safeguard the community against governmental tyranny. It places power in the hands of individual citizens, and as the bumper sticker says, "Before you take away my gun, you'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers". As any Afghan tribesman would agree, a gun is the symbol of individual empowerment.

National governments use bigger weapons as power symbols, but as with individuals, those most interested in their possession tend to be paranoid, tyrants, or both. Should we not question free-market policies concerning weapons manufacture and sale, rather than complain after the event when a Saddam Hussein finally decides to use the weapons that we sold him.

"Guns don't kill people" it's said, "People kill people" - but accidents will happen, and American children use their parents guns to shoot brothers and sisters, or settle playground arguments. In Strathclyde, the streets may not yet be awash with guns in any way comparable to New York, but we can learn from their experience.

When people feel economically and politically disenfranchised, they need to show their strength in other ways. Guns are not the problem, but the symptom. Weapons will always be available for anyone intent on murder. A kitchen knife or an iron bar will just as easily do the trick. Most of the IRA's bombs were not Semtex, but readily available chemicals. It's not the means of killing we need to take away, but the urge to kill.

There were no guns around in Muhammad's time, but there were plenty of swords and knives, yet he walked the streets without a guard or police force, secure in the knowledge that his people were content with their individual freedoms and fearlessly committed to social justice.

I wonder just how much feelgood factor it would take for President and Prime Minister to walk unguarded on the streets of New York, London or Belfast.