All decent and right-thinking persons will share the sorrow of the families and friends of those 32 young people who were slaughtered on Monday by a fellow student at Virginia Tech University in the United States.

The incident is all the more horrific because there seems to be no easily identifiable motive on the part of the young South Korean shooter his behaviour, from this distance, appears to have been premeditated. He must have been a very sad and troubled young man.

Although we are not accustomed, in a single event, to the scale of the Virginia Tech mayhem, we in Jamaica understand only too well the trauma of gun crime. Indeed, in this country more than 1,000 persons are murdered annually, many of them multiple killings, with upwards of 80 per cent the result of shootings.

There is, too, another connection between Jamaica and the United States with regard to gun violence, which we feel has to be addressed on the basis of national policy - mostly on the part of the Americans. It is known, and notoriously known to be so, that the majority of the guns used in Jamaica to commit criminal violence originate in the United States, whether smuggled directly to this island or via third countries.

We do not believe that the United States is doing enough to deal with this problem. And it is not enough for U.S. authorities to say that they cooperate with Jamaica in an effort to stem the flow of weapons. The issues are far more fundamental. The bottom line is that guns are too easily accessible in the U.S.

Indeed, it is instructive that President Bush, even as he expressed his condolences to Virginia Tech and the families of the victims,deemed it necessary to underline the right of Americans to bear arms. A constitutional right, they say.

It is a right supported and embraced by American officials including Mr. Bush, who has had the support of a powerful American gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association. Even if the constitution does suggest the right of Americans to bear arms, more can, and ought to be done about gun control.

Purchasing a gun ought to be a little bit more complicated than purchasing sweets in a candy shop, with only deferred collection and perfunctory background checks.

The unfettered ownership of handguns is bad enough, but we can see no logic in individuals being allowed to have in their possession high-powered assault rifles. The idea of the citizens' militia was worthwhile two-and-a-quarter centuries ago, but times and circumstances have changed. America has a standing army, in whose armoury such dangerous weapons should reside.

Not since the Brady Bill has U.S. Congress in a serious and sustained fashion, considered gun control legislation. The cooling-off period and minimal background checks and limited prohibition of certain types of firearms were never good enough. It is time that the United States muster the courage to do more, including making it mandatory for there to be full registration of all guns and gun owners, even if total bans are constitutionally off-limits. All state gun accounts should be in a national database.

The 1999 Columbine High School killing, last year's assault at that Amish schoolhouse and Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech should be enough to stir people into action.