I’m sad to hear of yet another mass shooting in America. I won’t say where, because every few weeks or days there are new reports of them. To pin it down to one murderous incident would emphasise it and possibly diminish previous ones.

Clearly thoughts and prayers doesn’t help. Each time something happens these trite words are uttered. As if a sticking plaster could stop a flooding river.

Guns, particularly assault rifles, are weapons of war. They destroy blood, flesh and bone. Bodies are ripped apart or badly injured. They are meant to stop an enemy, not kill a father, mother or child. Innocent people die, are buried or cremated, and often forgotten in the wake of the next mass shooting.

In the UK we have gun laws, there are very few shootings, so much so it makes the headlines for days if a shooting happens. Yes we have them, and stabbings, but you don’t get mass stabbings here either.

In March 1996, in Dunblane in Scotland, there was a mass shooting of children at a primary school there. Following the shooting the Cullen Report looked into gun ownership. Parliament bought in gun control and most guns were taken out of circulation. There have been no mass shootings since then. That’s 27 years. Yes there have been shootings with shotguns and rifles, but not like the madness in the USA.

The American constitution talks about an armed militia, the right to bare arms. Use that to change the law there. Make the guns the population can use muzzle loading flintlocks, the same as we’re used when the constitution was written.

Thoughts and prayers for sensible gun control!