I'm not sure why it was only this evening whilst watching the news that I was reminded of the 1996 shooting in Dunblane, Scotland. I apologise if this has been mentioned before since I've skipped a fair few pages on this thread. The Dunblane shootings were similar in many respects to the recent shootings in Connecticut - a quiet, unassuming town, and many young children (and I believe teachers too) were shot dead before the gunman turned the gun on himself. The British tennis player, Andy Murray, was a survivor of the shooting.

I was very young at the time of the incident, about the age of the primary school children killed. I can't really recall the impact it had on my school life, but my parents can. Security at the school gates became paramount, with secretary-operated buzzer systems installed pretty much everywhere and alarm systems upgraded to the latest technology. Furthermore, following the incident almost all handguns were banned from private ownership without a licence. I cannot comment on what happened to those guns already in private ownership. Yet since then, we have had no massacres at any educational institution. In my 20 years, I can recall one other mass shooting in the UK. I can recall many more for the USA.

So no, banning something will never entirely eliminate the problem. Unless we could ban nut-jobs, perhaps. Indeed, mental health checks can only be helpful before a gun is sold to a member of the public, but how well would they be followed up? I can be sane today, but bonkers tomorrow. No-one necessarily need know I'm bonkers until I, say, pick up my gun and go on a shooting spree...