THE planet is now in a precarious state with countries bristling with arms posturing for global recognition.

The United States of America, which boasts a Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms, is responsible for the majority of weapon sales to the rest of the world. It is this bureau which monitors the sales in the US of such substances and weapons which eventually lead to death if abused. The United Kingdom comes second in this deplorable trade followed by several European Union countries.

The world is awash with non-nuclear arms. There is no guarantee that once sold, weapons would not get into the wrong hands - the state of war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other less advertised war zones is proof of this.

To profit out of arms sales is to indulge in a nefarious but obviously lucrative trade which should prick the consciences of all who are involved.

It was Mikhail Kalashnikov who having invented the AK-47 assault rifle with few moving parts remarked later that he wished he had not provided the world with this weapon as it had been developed to protect the Motherland – Russia. He had come to realise that it had become the weapon of choice of terrorist groups, being easily copied.

The mayhem caused by this evil trade disrupts the lives of those living in the war zones. Families are destroyed; the refugee crisis escalates while the leaders of the world, complicit in the arms trade just wring their hands. It is the Red Cross, Medecin sans Frontieres and other charities who supply the help – help which these charities can only afford through the donations provided by their supporters rich and poor. Amnesty International aims to prick the conscience of the world in attempt to get hypocritical leaders to look at the folly of their ways.

They who live by the sword will perish by the sword – “O that man the world o'er would brothers be for all that”.

Denis A Nicol,

Barcaldine, Strathearn Terrace, Crieff, Perthshire.