These days, gun controls in Britain are so strict that even fanatics who have vowed to their god that they will commit mass murder are not much less likely to get their hands on an assault weapon than they are to find weapons grade plutonium. We live in a society that is practically as safe as it is possible to be with guns, short of a total ban – even allowing for dreadful aberrations like Dunblane 1996 and Hungerford 1987. If you add up the numbers in use and put that figure against the numbers of deaths and serious injuries they involve, you will find that guns are less hazardous to humans than bicycles or horses (excluding N. Ireland, of course). Thank heavens for that. The lawmakers and enforcers deserve our unreserved approval and gratitude. They have mine.