The appalling events in Las Vegas, in any sane world, should result in a rigorous examination of the question of gun ownership in a civilised world.

The United States has around 88 guns for every 100 citizens. It also has 11 times more mass killings than any other developed country, which can only serve to suggest a re-examination of the meaning of the world ‘developed’. 

More than 100,000 people every year are shot in the USA and just under a third of them die as a result. Over a comparable period in the UK, deaths by gunshot were 104, of which 77 were suicide. It would be absurd to deduce that those figures bore no relation to the availability of guns to the populace.

For reasons dating back to the war of independence and the ensuing civil war, gun ownership has become a symbol for many Americans of their freedom and is enshrouded in their constitution’s second amendment, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The purpose was clear in 1791, (when the Bill of Rights was enacted), in a less ordered or safe society. Its interpretation since and its rigorous defence by the powerful National Rifle Association has insured that access to weaponry of the kind used by the Las Vegas mass killer is alarmingly easy.

Any President who has tried to reduce that ease of access has found himself in deep trouble. And on his showing to date, it is a fair bet that Donald Trump (whose support comes almost exclusively from those who consider possession of a firearm as a man’s inalienable right) is not the man to do anything to infringe that right or damage his power base. 

Every time there is a mass killing whether by a deranged citizen or a terrorist, the sale of guns increases. That makes about as much sense as dealing with the problem of speeding by making faster cars, or burglary by leaving doors open. 

But the gun is so hardwired into the American psyche as to render it unthinkable that even a small fraction of those 111 million firearms currently owned by members of the public would be willingly surrendered.

The UK may have its faults, but boy we are lucky that we don’t share that insane gun lust.