CLIVE SMITH: Guns aren't born evil '“ people are

Appallingly it’s mainly schools and colleges that are targeted and sadly with these attacks being so common it doesn’t really come as a shock any more.

Whatever possess someone to return to their former school and murder 17 people, manly children, is really unfathomable to most sane people. It seems it’s the go-to option when someone has got the hump with life over there.

Every time this happens the call for gun control becomes stronger.

The argument that guns have changed since the Second Amendment was written and therefore laws should change doesn’t hold up for me.

Yes, when the citizens of America were given the ‘right to bear arms’ they were carrying muskets that fired three rounds a minute compared to nowadays where guns can fire five a second, but by that reasoning Americans would have no right to free speech on the internet because it never existed when the First Amendment was written.

I’m not saying laws couldn’t change to make things better. Having military grade weapons readily available to any Tom, Dick or Harry doesn’t help, but at the end of the day it’s the lunatics carrying them that’s the real issue.

Isn’t a gun only as good or bad as the person holding it? Guns aren’t born evil, people are.

Yes, the availability of guns in America facilitates mass killings, but controlling them will not stop the evil in one’s heart. If you’re that way inclined you will find a way.

During the Prohibition era America banned the selling of alcohol. Did this stop people from producing, selling or drinking it? No. Drugs are illegal. Has it stopped people using them? No. You can’t blame an object for something humans do. If that were the case why not blame cars for people drink-driving? There were no calls for pressure cookers to be banned when the Boston marathon was bombed.

Knife crime in London is off the scale. Should we ban knives? Next obesity will be blamed on forks.

Stop blaming objects for something humans do. Start blaming the humans who do it.

ALL THE WINTER OLYMPICS MISSED WERE SNOWBALL FIGHTS

Cycling, rowing, sailing – now Lizzy Yarnold winning gold in the sledging or as its actually called, The Skeleton.

We’ve yet again demonstrated our skill as a nation in one of the lying/sitting-down sports.

The Skeleton, basically lying on a tray and bombing downhill, is a much slicker version of what most of us have done at some stage on Portsdown or Butser hills, though you don’t end up tangled in a bush at the bottom.

I quite liked the Winter Olympics though, it’s more relaxed, the crashes are better and the competitors actually seem to be enjoying themselves. All they are missing is a snowball fight.

I reckon that would be a decent team event along the same lines as Dodgeball.

ARE BRENT GEESE STUPID?

Good old Brent geese are back in the news again,.

Years after scuppering plans for a new Pompey stadium on Farlington Marshes, they put the kibosh on the ferris wheel at Clarence Pier, Southsea, after Natural England warned the birds might crash into the wheel’s pods.

Those birds have been ruining our fun for years!

The wheel has been brought back now though after a survey by the pier’s owners proved it wasn’t a risk to the birds.

Now I’m no ornithologist but they’ve got all that sky to fly about in, what is so special about that particular area?

What about other birds, are the Brent Geese a particularly stupid species of bird which can’t manage to fly around things?