The Las Vegas shooting is truly appalling, a sickening waste of life and a devastating torment inflicted on so many families.

But it is not shocking. Not when it is taken into account along with all the other horrific mass shootings that have blackened the country's history.

There have been the usual calls to introduce some gun control. There have been the usual counter-claims that mass murderer - - could have killed and wounded just as many, if not more, it he had made a bomb.

So why bother with imposing gun restrictions?

Stocks in gunmaking companies rose immediately after the horrors of Las Vegas because of fears that gun controls could restrict the availability of weapons, and that gun buying would pick up as Americans looked to protect themselves.

Presumably against other Americans who have bought guns.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the ready availability of a weapon makes its use more likely. In any event. If someone gets upset or suffers from poor mental health, something that should be used as some form of protection takes on an entirely different and more dangerous use.

Sickeningly, children have gone on a shooting spree against their own classmates on more than one occasion.

There is a brilliant argument doing the rounds on social media on how the US lawmakers should make it as hard to buy a gun as they do to obtain an abortion.

How anyone who wants to arm themselves should undergo a 48 hours waiting period, get permission from parents, a note from a doctor to say they understand what they are about to do and watch a video on the effects of gun violence.

It ends with the comment: “No woman seeking an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds.”

It's odd how a nation is so desperate to maintain the second amendment of their constitution, written in 1787, shortly after gaining independence from Britain.

It states : "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

And yet so many are outraged when US football players exercise the first amendment and kneel during the national anthem before a match to protest against racism and the continued shooting of black Americans.

The first amendment protects the right to have free speech and forbids the prohibition on the free exercise of religion.

Every nation has been forced to endure such mass killings. But no other nation suffers them on such a massive or regular scale.

America will now never be able to get rid of its weapons and enjoy the relative calm of Britain, or France of Germany or of its neighbour Canada.

The desire to own guns and the sheer number of weaponry already distributed across the country makes it almost impossible to reduce their numbers to any great extent.

So America must go through the due grieving process for the tragedy of Las Vegas, then it must prepare itself for the next. Because there will be one.

That is the American Way.