Defence minister Willie O'Dea says he is on standby, ready to give the order. Picture it. Tourists and business executives, visiting Ireland from their own countries where life is even cheaper than it now is here, asking why there are troops on the streets, as if the place was Burma or Pakistan rather than a western democracy.

At least the politicians were being silly and not dangerous in this latest response to crime. The more excitable among them can't help but attempt to feed off public outrage like circling vultures.

Whether it is draconian legislation that will ultimately prove redundant and possibly dangerous, or silly concepts such as calling for the army, there is hay to be made by those in search of cheap headlines. Send in the troops. Send in Charlie with a Wyatt Earp badge and a six-shooter borrowed from Enda Kenny.

To be fair to Flanagan and his kindred spirits, the silliness is rooted not just in the compulsive grasp for headlines. There is a feeling of helplessness about the growing prevalence of gun murders.

Some things can be done.

Despite government protestations, it is obvious from Kathleen O'Toole's reports that An Garda Siochana is not as professional or resourced as it should be.

This is changing slowly, but the pace needs to be accelerated in response to the rapid change in the nature of crime, which in turn is a response to the rapid changes in the country itself over the last decade.

Gun crime isn't happening in a vacuum. The country is so awash with cocaine that greyhounds are now being fed the stuff, as an industry committee reported last week.

Irrespective of how well resourced the cops become, gun crime as we know it is here to stay. It would be nice to think that we will avoid the levels of it that exist in other wealthy countries with a taste for drugs, but short of introducing martial law, it is difficult to see how that will be managed.

Already there appears to be in the public mind an acceptable level of this kind of crime. The gun murders of those who are "known to the gardai" are regarded as shocking because it is an affront to decent society, not because another life has been wasted.

Unless the victim is unimpeachably innocent, as Eddie Ward was last week, and the young plumber Anthony Campbell last December, little reference is made to wasted lives, or the bereaved. It's as if a murder victim who is posted as being "known to the gardai" has merely reaped the wages of sin.

Not everybody gunned down is a murderer, or capable of murder. Some just found themselves involved in petty crime, or associated, through rearing or physical proximity, with serious criminals. Some of those who have died at the end of a gun may well have possessed the same moral fibre as better-heeled criminals who engage in tax fraud or perjury or insider trading. Different upbringing, different address, same attitude to the law.

Last week, the Taoiseach once more appealed to those who might have knowledge of these crimes to come forward. Who's he coddin'?

Bertie Ahern wants witnesses to perform a civic duty, and in doing so subject themselves and their families to life-transforming upheaval and, for a spell at least, constant fear.

Where is the evidence of the application of civic duty at any other level of society over the last decade? The culture of grabbing is not confined to gun-toting drug dealers.

Integrity is now often filed away under the odious term "politically correct". And Ahern wants witnesses . often drawn from the underclass that hasn't benefited from the recent wealth . . . to perform a civic duty so the rest of us can sleep easier?

Gun crime is here to stay, but there is a lot more that society as a whole can do to minimise its impact. A start could be made by a little selfanalysis at all levels of society.