You can't stop future Orlandos, but you can reduce the chances

I’m pro-gun control, but I come from the most heavily populated corner of one of the most crowded islands on earth, where it’s appropriate. I also grew up in a city and have only fired a gun once, which was basically an air rifle, and the results were predictably Woody Allenesque.

But gun control may not be necessarily appropriate in sparse rural areas, although I do find some of the arguments made by American Second Amendment supporters strange. Whenever someone pops up and kills loads of people, the argument is that if only someone there was armed it wouldn’t have happened. Like in a school? In a club?

We can’t say whether gun control would have prevented the Orlando massacre; but it can be argued that gun control overall reduces the probability of gun massacres. One of the reasons why France is more at risk of terrorism than Britain is that it has far more guns, and because Britain has some border controls, it’s harder to sneak them in.