Several years ago the actor Charlton Heston warned his government that they would have to prise his gun out of his "cold dead hand." Charlton Heston is now dead and the gun has, indeed, been prised out of his cold dead hand. The gun laws in the United States are clearly insane but, in their defence, the guns sloshing about in that country are far too numerous to do anything about it. Even if an American government did have a sudden attack of common sense and sought to control the carrying of weapons all that would happen is that the "baddies" would remain armed to the teeth while the "goodies" would be left defenceless. They are caught in a trap of their own making and have to pay for that, from time to time, with events such as that recently played out in Newtown, Connecticut. That was nothing more than the ritual slaughter of the innocents, sacrificed on the altar of America's leading religious group - the gun lobby. The American's have, since World War II at least, come to the conclusion that there is no problem that cannot be solved by shooting someone - anyone and, if possible, in large numbers. It is now part of their culture, endlessly illustrated in their films which consist mainly of square-jawed heroes killing people they don't like with a bewildering variety of guns. The American gun lobby love to say "Guns don't kill people - people kill people." The truth is that without guns Adam Lanza would have been reducued to breaking into Sandy Hook school and then throwing rocks at the children.
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