While what happened in Cumbria is tragic beyond most peoples' comprehension, I do think that a bit of perspective is needed.
There are a million licenced fire arms in this country. In the past approx 20 years there have been only three instances where someone has gone on the rampage like this with a gun. In hungerford, Dunblane (sp?) and now in Cumbria.
The reality is that if a nutter wants to get a gun and kill a load of innocent people, no gun law is going to prevent him from doing that.
Tightening the gun laws will only serve to make the public think they are safer.
And yet people die in other ways every day and we don't hear calls for tighter laws.
E.g. how many people do you suppose were killed by drunk drivers in the past year? And yet a drunk driver can kill someone, might possibly get a custodial sentence and a three year ban, but after that he is free to drive his car again. He wouldn't be able to own a gun after that so that's ok, but he'd be free to go to the nearest pub and get back behind the wheel of his car under the influence. Why are there no calls for laws preventing drunk drivers from driving for the rest of their lives?
While not everyone agrees with people owning and using guns, hundreds of people do so without any intent on harming innocent people. Why should hundreds of thousands of innocent people be penalized because of one nutter who could probably just as easily havelaid his hands on an illegal weapon if he'd had the desire to do so?