Well, another day, another mass shooting in the US.

A US man has killed himself after shooting dead his estranged wife, his daughter and two other relatives in rural north Alabama.

The body of Kevin Garner was found near his home in Priceville, according to Lauderdale County’s chief investigator, Travis Clemmons.

The house had also been burned to the ground.

The bodies of Garner’s estranged wife Tammy, their 16-year-old daughter, his sister and his sister’s 11-year-old son were earlier found at a house in Green Hill, near the Tennessee Line.

The Garners are said to have been due to divorce with court proceedings set for Wednesday.

I don’t think that the correlation between guns being readily available to any Tom, Dick and Harry, and the high level of gun crime in the US, is an accident.

Personally, I hate guns. Yeah, you should be able to protect yourself in your home, but I don’t see why that has to involve keeping a gun. I know that owning a gun is part of the US constitution, but in my mind, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. And don’t get me started on people teaching their kids to shoot guns.

When I was in the States a couple of years ago, I was appalled that guns were sold in the same place as a tin of baked beans. I just couldn’t get my head round it.

The sad thing for me is that gun crime in Britain seems to be growing exponentially, but I’m guessing that if we started arming our police as a matter of course, those numbers would probably increase tenfold.

Every time I hear about a shooting incident, especially one that takes so many lives, my stance on guns is strengthened.

Guns are dangerous, and yes, they kill people. If there was ever a vote in this country to decide whether to make guns accessible to the ordinary man on the street, I would definitely vote no.

What say you? What are your thoughts on gun ownership? Do you in fact own a gun? If so, what are your main reasons for having one in the house?