Every day in America there is a mass shooting where four people are killed or wounded .

Every single day.

So the body count has to be high for a US mass murder to make national or world news.

Mourners lay tributes to those that lost their lives while watching the Route 91 Music Festival.

Enter the latest name written in blood: Stephen Paddock. Who knows why he took aim at a crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas but we can guess that he got what he wanted. His image and name will now be etched alongside the grim statistic - worst mass shooting in American history.

That is until some other lunatic armed with perfectly legal, military-grade weapons takes his place.

US President Donald Trump is now musing about gun laws.

The Guns and Guitars store in Mesquite, where Stephen Paddock is believed to have bought some of the weapons he used to kill 59 people in Las Vegas.

Paddock's body on the floor of the hotel room and a couch loaded with guns. (Supplied)

Believe there will be change when you see it. If American politicians were not moved to change the law after the massacre of innocents at Sandy Hook they will not change it just because the body count for a single massacre hits a new high.

And if any change does come it will likely be a legislative feint; some minor, meaningless tweak to apply the gloss of progress to a system that is so broken you can buy a semi-automatic weapon in a supermarket .

America’s gun laws are a profound failure of political leadership over generations.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania stage a silent tribute to the victims shot from the 32nd floor of the the Mandalay Bay Casino.

President Trump is just the latest in a long line of Presidents, Senators and Congressmen and women who refuse to tackle the all-powerful gun lobby. That lobby cites the second half of the Second Amendment as its sacred text: “... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

But that amendment was penned when the people carried muskets, not automatic weapons that can kill dozens in a minute. And the first part of the Second Amendment makes it clear it was inserted to protect state rights from the new federal government: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State…”

And if leadership is required on gun laws then there is little hope any will be found in President Trump.

President Trump denounced the gunman as 'sick and demented' and mused on changing gun laws in the United States.

Today in a visit to hurricane devastated Puerto Rico he complained that the disaster had “thrown our budget a little out of whack".

"Because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico and that's fine, we've saved a lot of lives," he said.

He went on to say that the Hurricane body count in Puerto Rico paled beside “a real catastrophe like Katrina”.

'What is your death count?' President Trump asks the Puerto Rico governor.

"What is your death count?" he asked as he turned to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. "17?"

"16," Rosselló answered.

"16 people certified," Trump said. "Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together.”

President Trump does his bit for hurricane-hit Puerto Ricans by handing out paper towels.

So, in a perverse twist on body counts, 16 dead Puerto Ricans is a number that inspires the President.

The people of Puerto Rico are citizens of the United States of America. They are a proud people. No doubt they would like to be proud of their President.