THERE is no justification for violence whatever its source. We have an angry society with distress and fear and frustration.

However, for an individual to take revenge on an innocent group of people simply enjoying themselves is totally unacceptable.

Reports in the United States would suggest that the individual who murdered the 50 or more visitors to Las Vegas had no real motive for the atrocity he committed.

Like so many of the tragedies involving gun crime it draws attention and the question of how the US governs and regulates guns in a nation where it is too easy to buy weapons.

There is a gun culture and indeed Donald Trump’s Presidential election campaign and continued support in the White House rests on a powerful gun lobby. There is a constitutional right to have a gun, but the issue here is about the number of guns American citizens are allowed to have.

Like so many of the incidents involving guns and the fatalities and injuries caused by gun crime in the United States the latest atrocity was allegedly ‘non-terrorist.’ It was not linked to a known terrorist organisation.

For a country to have a credible reputation as a civilised nation it must make urgent changes to review gun laws, otherwise further atrocities will occur. At this rate the United States will be reduced to a nation unable to protect and be seen as the ‘wild west’.

Bernie Walsh, Coxhoe