A top-ranking Euro official will tomorrow be urged to listen to Gazette readers' pleas for an end to the airgun menace.
Euro MP David Bowe took a copy of our dossier containing your petitions for a change in the law on the lethal weapons to Brussels in the autumn.
And in the wake of success in Britain as Home Secretary David Blunkett agreed to raise the legal age for owning an airgun, he hopes to persuade Brussels to follow suit.
The Yorkshire and Humberside MEP will hand the dossier, which also contains Gazette articles illustrating the misery the weapons have caused, to the enterprise commissioner, Erkki Liikanen.
He is responsible for products that are on the market in the EU.
Former Middlesbrough teacher Mr Bowe said: "It's a snapshot of a problem in one region of Europe.
"I will ask him to do a study across Europe. They're doing something similar on fireworks, and I don't see why they can't do it for air weapons as well, particularly with the events of the last few weeks.
"In a common market, there should be common rules, and the UK is a good starting point. Some of the rules elsewhere are shambolic."
Last week, Mr Blunkett announced plans to raise the age at which a youngster can own an air weapon from 14 to 17. Children under 17 will have to be strictly supervised even to use an airgun.
But Mr Bowe said children could smuggle them back into the country after foreign holidays if the guns are still available on the continent.
He said there used to be problems with children trying to bring flick knives and knuckle dusters back to Britain from school trips abroad, and he fears a similar issue could arise with air weapons.
