Florida school shooting.

I have to admit as someone who is lucky enough to live in Great Britain, that the news of yet another school shooting in America leaves me somewhat lost for words, which may result in this particular blog being somewhat on the short side.

This is the eighteenth shooting at a school so far this year, although apparently only five or six have involved death or injury, one assumes that all the others must have been very bad shots, or didn't have access to an assault rifle, where I imagine even the most feeble minded would have been able to reap absolute carnage with very little effort.

The figures vary as to the number of guns in America but according to a survey in 2015 it would seem there are roughly 357 million guns, not counting the illegal weapons, whereas there were only 317 million people in the country, which doing the simple arithmetic means there are 40 million more guns than people.

As someone who has no understanding of gun culture, the surprising thing to me, is that this enormous arsenal of weapons is owned by only 37% of the population and whilst I realise America is a little paranoid about being attacked or invaded by communists, I very much doubt whether 37% of the population would be able to hold them off, even if they formed the wagons into a circle.

Whilst one cannot be absolutely accurate as to these figures, after all, as our past Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli said, "there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics," suffice to say no matter if the figures are a little inaccurate, there are still far too many guns for what might be called sensible use.

I know the gun lobby always put forward the argument that if everyone carried a gun this sort of thing wouldn't happen, but I find it hard to imagine a class full of students when being attacked by a crazed gunman, each pulling out a pistol and blasting away in self defence.

You will have to forgive me if an element of sarcasm has crept into this blog, as I really feel so very sorry for the victims and their relatives but whist the powers that be in government in America can't take this seriously I find it hard to do the same.