The other dank night I watched a film on TV, Die Hard, because it apparently plummeted Bruce Willis to fame. New York cop visiting California single handedly vanquishes Euro band of thieves posing as political terrorists. Outside the the sky scraper where Bruce is doing his brave bit the local cops, then the FBI, then the military hamper him incompetently. Only a local (black) patrolman is on his side - a policeman who has forsworn guns since he accidentally killed a 13 year-old kid.

Essentially the film goes bang bang until the baddies are dead, and Bruce the hero emerges, exhausted and bloodstained to assembled acclaim and to collect a hug from the black patrolman who had been rooting for him. But at this moment a villain, lying in the rubble presumed deceased, comes to life and raises a weapon on Bruce Willis. Final bang and villain falls dead. His executioner? The policeman who had sworn never to take up a gun again. Redemption...US style: redeemed to be able to kill once more.

With this nonsense as the background noise, gun laws will not change. Too many Americans believe (wrongly) that the Constitution from the outset assured them the right to bear arms, when in fact all it said was that they had the right to bear arms as part of a militia (to ensure continued national independence). But people believe whatever suits them. It is no good telling us, as the NRA insists on doing, that it is not guns that kill  but people. Young men, or old, however crazed, could not slaughter en masse without guns. And illegally procured weapons are harder to get hold of. They really are.