Letters to the Editor

Dear Sir,
Two weeks ago 49 people were butchered in Orlando Florida and another 53 wounded. A single man did this with an assault rifle. The weapon is not useful for hunting and is too bulky for self-defence. Apart from warfare it has no other obvious use but is easy to buy in most US gun shops. As a reaction to the massacre and despite a large number of Democrats staging a sit-in the Capital, the US Congress blocked a bill to stop the sales of arms to people on the terror watch list. I repeat amazingly they will not block the sale of weapons to people associated to terror.
There is a gun (310 million) for almost every man, woman and child in the population (320 million). The habit of carrying a gun is engrained. Most Brits cannot understand this attitude. Travel broadens the mind and you would soon start to appreciate their depth of feeling over the right to carry guns if you spent some time in the country especially Texas were a number of my oil friends live.

On their drilling rigs, the T-bone steaks, hash browns and country music were easy to accommodate but not so the pistol in 4x4’s glove compartment. A shortcut to understanding (not necessarily agreeing) their life philosophy is in the same country music. A track from jailbird Merle Haggard such as Fightin’ Side of Me or Okie from Muskogee will get you there.

To put things in context they cannot see our fixation with football with often a 0-0 draw resulting after an hour and a half’s play. Prior to adopting the sport they wanted to increase the size of the goal to get scores up to basketball levels. Even more surprising the Spanish think we are cruel to dogs. I’ll leave explaining their logic for another day.
Mike Lillico
Playa de Palma