If I had access to a hundred guns I still wouldn't shoot anyone. The gun frenzy in the U.S., fuelled by an extremely undemocratic lobby group, the NRA, which cannot be resisted, is symptomatic of the infantile state of US politics, not to speak of a deliberate misreading of the constitution, whose very imperfect text in no way whatsoever entitles its citizens to carry weapons of death in their pockets in peacetime (penned by fellows who all loved their slaves, lest we forget). We see the same feeble subservience to the pro-Israel lobby, who also cannot be resisted. We see the same collapse of democracy in the sanctioning of the teaching of creationist nonsense alongside evolution in schools. I don't think that owning a gun makes you a potential murderer, but the easy availability of guns certainly makes the job easier for lunatics. In a world in which the US is (for now) the major power, I think it's very worrying that it's a country in which such childish and immature - and undemocratic - attitudes are the norm even after two hundred years.

And don't go all defensive on me, yanks, at least not until you've explained George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and your resident Alaskan hockey mom to us.