ONE of the greatest tragedies of the horrific events in Las Vegas this week - and there are many - is that this latest and biggest mass murder on American soil at the hands of an armed madman is unlikely to have any significant effect upon the nation's out-of-control gun laws.

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Orlando and now Las Vegas - at each mass loss of life, American politicians wring their hands in grief, shed the odd tear and talk - as did president Trump this week - about acts of "pure evil".

They're that, all right. What possesses someone to arm themselves to the teeth and to fire indiscriminately at innocent people going about their business? Fire at them with the sole aim of killing as many fellow humans as possible?

In the wake of Las Vegas, which has so far left almost 60 people dead and more than 500 injured, politicians will insist that lessons have been learnt, celebrities will take to social media to emote and to demand action, and the rest of the civilised world will shake its collective head in disbelief at the Americans' atavistic desire to have murderous weapons to hand.

Reining in the country's gun laws will be nigh on impossible for any president; and little if anything suggests Donald Trump, for all his anguished talk this week, will be the leader to end American's increasingly disastrous relationship with guns. In the immediate aftermath of the events in Las Vegas, shares in firearm makers surged on the American markets, as buyers flocked to stock up on guns and ammunition in order to beat any possible tightening of gun laws. That speaks volumes about the country's obsession with lethal weapons.

One witness to the killings, a performer who had been on stage during the shootings, has been widely reported this week as having these thoughts on what she saw. "You know, what it makes me do is just want to, you know, carry conceal. So our Second Amendment right is enforced in my mind for me." And on Monday night, the White House said it would be "premature" to reopen the debate on tighter gun controls.

Quite how many innocent people must die in one fell swoop at the hands of an armed-to-the-teeth lunatic before it is not deemed "premature" to reopen the debate has not, of course, been articulated by the White House. Some 30,000 Americans die each year from gunshot wounds - that's a huge amount of people. And yet so many Americans stick doggedly to their passionate insistence upon upholding the Second Amendment.

This is what Donald Trump has unequivocally said on the subject: "As your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of people to bear arms." It's unlikely that the Las Vegas killings will alter that clearly fixed stance. The powerful National Rifle Association takes an unsurprising position on the "lone wolf" mass killings which blight the nation: you stop a bad man with a gun by having a good man with a gun.

But if there is one piece of the American Constitution which urgently needs reassessing and reframing for the modern age, it is surely the Second Amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms. This part of the constitution was drawn up when "arms" largely meant muskets, unwieldy machines which, once fired, required reloading with gunshot for the next round. A far cry indeed from the automatic weapons - such as those reportedly used by Las Vegas killer Stephen Paddock - capable of spewing out hundreds of lethal bullets a minute.

In 1776, the right to bear arms made some sense, given the limited capability of the arms in question. Looked at down the barrel of today's ruthlessly efficient machines of mass slaughter, it is harder to justify. In addition, when the US Constitution was drawn up, America was a nation of 2.5m people. That's half the population of Scotland or Yorkshire. Now it's nearly 300m, scattered across 50 states, all with their own interpretation of the Second Amendment.

It is no surprise that the state of Nevada, where Paddock lived, killed and died, has some of the most lax gun laws in America. This is a state where firearms owners are not required to register weapons or have licences. There is no limit on the amount of weapons they can own, and they are allowed to carry them openly. All of which explains why someone like Stephen Paddock could amass an arsenal and walk into a Las Vegas hotel carrying a reported 10 weapons.

Las Vegas will go down in history as the single largest loss of life in an American mass shooting. Until the next time, of course, when it will slip down the rankings on that deadly list. Americans are understandably proud of their Constitution. But it is a constitution of another, less deadly age; and as such, the right to bear arms is a most lethal anachronism of that fine document.

THE highlight of the Conservative Party conference this week has surely been the "discussion" between Jacob Rees-Mogg and the placard-waving protesters who barged into a speech he was giving in Manchester.

So politely, so suavely, so courteously did the pinstripe-suited one deal with the angry gatecrashers that he succeeded in making them look very, very silly indeed.

As, of course, they were. Not least the angry young man who, having arrived uninvited into the event, yelled "you're not welcome here", at Mr Rees-Mogg, the guest speaker whom everyone in the room (apart from the protesters) was there to hear. "What do you disagree with me about, particularly?" Mr Rees-Mogg asked, to which the "Tories out!" placard waver lamely replied "everything". Genius.

Of course, Mr Rees-Mogg was right to deal with the situation the way he did. No-one should be shouted down because their views differ. Reasoned debate is always better than angry heckling. The only problem with this little vignette at Manchester was that when Mr Rees-Mogg asked the protesters to articulate what exactly they were protesting about, they couldn't. "Everything", as so gloriously inarticulated by the protester, is just a tad on the vague side when it comes to getting one's message across effectively.

GOOD on the group of authors who have expressed their dismay at the World Book Day organisers for choosing four books by celebrities in their list of 10 works for next year.

Julian Clary, Clare Balding, Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussein and pop star Tom Fletcher, of the band McFly, all have books on the list for the event, which is aimed at improving children's literacy. Now, I'm not saying Clare Balding isn't a gifted person (although the current Twitter furore about her apparent insistence on re-writing parts of an interview hasn't done her much credit), but she is not known for her literary output.

As one exasperated author, Joanne Harris (who penned the bestseller Chocolat), rightly said: "The current spate of celebrity (and often ghostwritten) children's books is having a detrimental effect... on the reputation of children's writing and even on literacy in general. Celebrity authors are the equivalent of the McDonald's Happy Meal."

Hear, hear. There are some superb authors out there whose work is being overlooked due to the lure of celebrity authors, far too many of whom cut lucrative book deals based entirely on the pull of their name. It is truly a disservice to literacy and literature. Let's hope the World Book Day organisers see sense and introduce a few more proper authors onto their list.