The lingering reality of Saturday 13 July in Pennsylvania is not a nick of an ear. It is that yet another family has suffered at the bloody hand of the NRA. The tragic irony that like the rest of the Tr*mp-cult they probably support the guns-for-fools ethic.

You might want a little something for your kitbag when you next must discuss the subject with your crazy relative or friend.

Here are the top 25 countries ranked by homicide by firearm per 100,000 for the latest year reported. We're proudly at #9, having edged out Mexico (you know, the country with all the violent people) by a few hundredths of a killing per hundred thousand. Most of those ahead of us have been engaged in criminal, civil, racial or ethnic strife for decades. But hey: USA, USA, USA!

(1) El Salvador 78.52, (2) Venezuela 49.73, (3) Eswatini 37.16, (4) Jamaica 35.22, (5) Honduras 29.40, (6) Guatemala 25.48, (7) Brazil 23.93, (8) Colombia 20.38, (9) UNITED STATES 12.21, (10) Uruguay 11.67, (11) Mexico 11.55, (12) South Africa 10.47, (13) Panama 9.95, (14) Montenegro 8.68, (15) Philippines 7.72, (16) Costa Rica 7.59, (17) Barbados 7.36, (18) Nicaragua 7.09, (19) Paraguay 6.32, (20) Argentina 5.72, (21) Peru 3.72, (22) Serbia 3.23, (23) Albania 3.20, (24) Croatia 2.83, (25) Chile 2.79.

There are approximately 20 million AR-15 style rifles in private hands in the USA. Most are unsecured in closets and under beds along with enough ammunition to kill scores or hundreds.

Over 40,000 people are killed by firearms in the USA eveyr year. Only about 200 have allegedly been murdered by "illegal aliens" in the past eight years (that's the number of arrests, not convictions as reported by Customs & Border Protection), which averages about 16 per year. That means you're 2,500 times more likely to be killed by a relative, friend or neighbor than a non-citizen.