The Big Question: Is there a link between America's lax gun laws and the high murder rate?

Why ask this now?

The massacre at Virginia Tech has, yet again, focused attention on the culture of guns and the ease of obtaining firearms in America, an unending source of amazement to most of the rest of the world. Roughly 29,000 people are killed by firearms every year - 10 times as many as died on September 11, 2001. Of the victims, some 11,000 are murdered, 17,000 use a gun to commit suicide, and almost 1,000 die in accidents. Some sub-statistics are even more disturbing. Every day three children under 19 die from a gun wound. Across the country, roughly 1,000 crimes involving firearms are committed every 24 hours. The rampage of Cho Seung-Hui, the deadliest mass shooting in US history, will merely add one suicide and 33 murders (at the latest count) to these grim totals.

How strict are the gun-buying laws?

To be fair, a little stricter than they were a generation ago. But controls are still very lax by European standards. With guns, as with so many areas of American life, lawmaking takes place at two levels: federal and state. The first are passed by Congress in Washington, the latter are passed by legislatures in individual state capitals. Laws differ wildly from state to state, but federal laws tend to adopt a lowest common denominator approach.

The best known legislation to control firearms is the 1993 "Brady Bill", named after James Brady, the White House press secretary who was shot and crippled in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. But the last federal gun-control law, dealing with domestic violence, dates back to 1996.

A sign of the times, 1994 legislation banning semi-automatic assault weapons was allowed to lapse in 2004, largely because of pressure from the pro-gun lobbying group, the National Rifle Association. Republicans tend to be pro-gun, while even liberal Democrats have concluded there are few new votes to be won by tighter curbs on gun ownership - even after traumatic events like the 1999 Columbine shootings, or the execution of five little girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania last October.

And in the states?

Approaches differ hugely. Populous and traditionally Democratic states on both coasts tend to have the toughest regulations. The loosest are generally to be found in Republican states of the South and the old frontier West.

California, Massachusetts and Maryland get an A-grade from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and New York rates a B+, but 32 states rank from D to F, with legislation that ranges from the lax to the downright non-existent.

Texas, addicted to hunting and home of the Alamo, rates a D-, while the Deep South trio of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi get the lowest grade of F. Alabama has no limit on handgun sales, no state checks on guns, no registration requirements, no restrictions on minors possessing handguns, and not even curbs on so-called "Saturday Night Special" junk guns.

What about Virginia?

Interestingly, Monday's massacre took place in a state which, despite being home to the headquarters of the NRA, gets a medium C- rating. Virginia's main role in America's gun universe is as an convenient source of firearms for nearby East Coast cities like New York. Indeed, the Virginia legislature has passed an "anti-Bloomberg" law (named after the mayor of New York), preventing sting operations by disguised US law enforcement officers who trap Virginia dealers into selling them guns illegally.

To curb the gun trade, the state has legislation limiting handgun sales to one a month per person. But the contrast with Washington DC next door, which has vainly banned the possession of handguns, is glaring. Cross the Potomac River and within 20 miles, you meet roadside stores proclaiming "GUNS SOLD HERE".

So how easy is it to get a gun?

The short answer is, very. The Brady Bill, requiring a background computer check and a three-day waiting period for the purchase of a gun, means that anyone with a clean criminal record and minimal patience can buy one. According to Justice Department statistics covering criminals convicted in firearms offences, a small proportion of the weapons were acquired at flea markets, and an even smaller proportion (2 per cent) at gun shows, where no background checks are required. The majority, 80 per cent, got them from family, on the streets or illegally. It is reckoned the gun population of the US is roughly equal to its 300 million human one. Supply thus outstrips any conceivable demand. Even if there was a genuine public will for strict gun control, it is simply too late. Occasionally, a city authority will offer an amnesty when citizens can hand over illegal weapons, no questions asked. The results have mostly been derisory.

Is gun availability the main reason for incidents like that at Virginia Tech?

Absolutely not. Gun ownership, its supporters contend, is specifically encouraged by the Second Amendment of the Constitution, endorsing militias and the right of citizens to bear arms. Hence slogans like that of the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, people do". Moreover, violence, and the glorification of violence, runs deep in American culture.

The United States is a country where take-no-prisoners talk radio flourishes as nowhere else, and where gangsters and outlaws become national legends. For proof, just look at Hollywood's regular output, and any weekly list of top box-office hits. In a generally homogenous country, those who do not fit in can easily become alienated. All too easily, alienation breeds depression and despair. Most school shootings (and it seems this latest one at Virginia Tech) are carried out by people determined to commit suicide, and who want to take a few people with them. No weapon kills more people more quickly, and confers a greater sense of power, than a gun.

The media doesn't help, does it?

Most experts on the psychology of crime believe that saturation media coverage only makes the problem worse. Watching American TV this week, a visiting Martian would assume that Virginia Tech was not just the most important thing, but the only thing, happening in the entire world.

As one FBI specialist warned on NPR, "My big fear now is copycat incidents. How many kids at this moment are sitting around depressed, wondering whether life's worth it, and then they see the fuss this guy created? Some of them are bound to think to themselves, 'Hey, that's the way to go'." An hour after those words were uttered, a university campus in Austin, Texas was temporarily shut after a threatening note was found. The only difference is that the note talked of a bomb attack, while Cho Seung-Hui used guns.

WILL AMERICA EVER TIGHTEN ITS GUN LAWS?

YES

* An outrage like Virginia Tech will finally galvanise public opinion behind the gun-control lobby

* Some one will wake up to the terrorist threat. What if Cho Seung-Hiu had not been a South Korean, but a member of al-Qa'ida?

* The renewed sense of danger on American school and university campuses will generate its own pressure for action

NO

* Liberals accept that there is little chance of prevailing over the NRA, and Democrats in Congress have become more conservative

* If Killeen, Columbine and the Amish school murders made no difference, why should Virginia Tech?

* Saturation TV coverage will have other deranged, would-be gunmen believe they, too, can have their day of glory

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