The first response to one of the deadliest days in recent US history must be mind-numbing horror and heartfelt sympathy for the victims and their families. But what then? Will the slaughter of 32 people at the Virginia Tech University be dismissed as the actions of a crazed loner with guns and a grudge? Regrettable but basically unavoidable? Or will it finally trigger political action to limit the ridiculous ease with which it is possible to buy guns in the United States? The same question has been asked in the wake of every bloodbath since Charles Whitman opened fire at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966, killing 16 - America's worst university mass shooting, until Monday.

On each occasion curbs on the buying and holding of guns have been proposed but virtually every piece of legislation has been rejected or neutralised. (The Bush administration allowed a ban on semi-automatic weapons to lapse in 2004.) Why? Because the American love of guns runs deep, enforced through popular culture and supported by a powerful lobby. Culturally, it is fed by a frontier spirit that has romanticised outlaws and gangsters. Politically, it is backed by a nexus of gun lobbyists, lawyers and politicians who hang their hats on the US constitution's second amendment: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." But this is set in the context of "a well-regulated militia". It was never intended as a licence for every American to keep a Saturday Night Special in the glove compartment or a rifle under the bed. Yet in a land where "freedom" is perceived as individual, the right of the citizen to bear arms perversely remains a touchstone. Amazingly to many non-Americans, one response to the Virginia shootings was to argue that the assassin could never have run amok if students had been able to bring their guns into classes.

This is the politics of madness and despair. Fortunately, attitudes on this issue are not uniform throughout the US but remain strong in Republican southern, rural and mountain communities where hunting is popular. Some states, notably New York, California and Colorado, following the Columbine High School shooting, have introduced legislation to curb ownership and up to 60% of Americans now favour stricter controls. The British ban on handguns after the 1996 Dunblane shootings may not have ended gun crime but it has restricted it largely to the criminal community.

Aberdeen councillors yesterday agreed to make their city the first in Scotland to outlaw airguns. Others should follow. As the recent outbreak of shootings in London and individual incidents in Scotland have demonstrated, Britain cannot be complacent on this issue, but the problem here is dwarfed by events in the US. The 2008 US elections must be the moment when American politicians stand up to the power of the gun lobby and question this lethal strand of their culture. It makes no sense for a country in which so many oppose abortion, that 11,000 people die each year by the gun.