Another use for a time machine

WP knows of six 'spree' shootings in Great Britain:

• One in the Midlands in 1978 which I'd forgotten about


• The 1987 Hungerford Massacre


• The 1989 Monkseaton shootings, which I'd read about this year but had otherwise forgotten


• Dunblane in 1996


• The Cumbria shootings in 2010


• Raoul Moat in Northumbria a month later

There are doubtless more multiple shootings - the 1995 Essex 'Range Rover' drugs killings and the 1966 'Harry Roberts' shooting of three police aren't in the list, for example, as they're seen as purely criminal - but it's a fair reflection of the frequency.

After the latest massacre - fifty plus in a gay nightclub in Orlando - Twitter tells me that there have been seven multiple shootings in the US this week.

Dunblane effectively ended the private ownership of the majority of guns in Great Britain outside some very strict limits, regardless of the 1689 Bill of Rights still saying "That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions", not least because its authors had the foresight to add "and as allowed by Law".

Unfortunately, the authors of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution were not so wise, and - with the lobbying help of the National Rifle Association - nothing effective will be done. Again.