"Mr. Jones, how do you explain that whacko who just shot down 13 people in the lake district?"

Whacko or no, the idea that had everyone this man shot been carrying a gun he wouldn't have shot them is ridiculous. Did all those people carrying guns in the US stop Timiothy McVeigh in Oklahoma - no. It's a non-argument. Howard's expression of the dismay felt by us non-gun-centric societies here in Europe is totally correct, most gun crime is gan-related.

Two things worth considering here: The US is a nation born of violence and is a society which glorifies depersonalised violence unlike any other in the world; a written constitution can be an albatross around the neck of the societies that created them as times change. However, there is a remarkable (and to outsiders befuddling) consensus of opinion in the US that people should be allowed to carry guns - from farmers etc that might need them, to scared city types fearing some faceless foe and the compounds of heavily armed loonies holed up in mountain retreats waiting for armageddon.

"Bowerbank Maine passed a law about 10 years ago that required all persons to own a gun. No one has been shot or raped since."

This is meaningless - there are plenty of towns the world over in countries where there are strict gun laws and no-one has been shot or raped - fact. A law to make people carry guns? Unbelievable. i'd tell them to sod off and exercise my democratic right to be a civilised human being.