Although I stand to be corrected, the white paper on guns and weapons appears to both liberate target shooting sports and at the same time alienate existing martial arts sports.

It may make target shooting easier but buying or carrying dull and non-edged weaponry to martial arts training sessions could become even more fraught. I do not recall anyone in Malta being attacked by hordes of murderous martial artists, somewhat paradoxically not so the humble penknife, while replica Bowie knives, swords, diving knives and even escrima butterfly knives can be bought in any number of gift and tourist shops. Will these not be regularised? Given the importance of the tourist trade probably not.

Neither will sports rackets, bats and clubs, yet these innocents are deemed by most aviation authorities to be bona-fide weapons banned from carriage within the aircraft cabin and perhaps rightly so. But therein lies the paradox.

I do hope, therefore, that the term weapons will be treated with some restraint so that a new group of sportsmen and sportswomen are not facilitated at the expense of existing ones and martial artists.

To paraphrase Prince Philip, thousands die in car accidents every year, are we to consider banning people from using cars also? No. Neither then should these existing sportsmen and sportswomen be made to pay the price for the inadequate enforcement of existing laws designed to regulate the ownership and public usage of both firearms and "pointed instruments". Moreover this lack of enforcement often has fatal results.

I hope that those in power understand that this white paper has the potential to not only liberalise growth of sports in Malta, but also, as an unexpected outcome, to oppress it, and will take suitable qualified advice for the martial arts fraternity.