Orlando Shooting At Pulse Nightclub In Florida Prompts Calls For More Guns

'Arm teachers, staff members, security, and good civilians.'

On Sunday a gunman walked into a bar in Orlando, Florida and killed 50 people, the worst mass-shooting in US history.

Predictably and sadly there are still many who think the solution to gun violence in the US is more guns.

 America has the highest gun ownership rates in the world.

 While the numbers are falling, nearly a third of households still have a gun.

Mass killings - those in which four or more people died - have become more common in recent years with 133 in 2016 alone.

Between 1968 and 2011, more Americans were killed by gun-related homicides and suicides than have died in all the wars the country has ever fought. 

Harvard research shows a clear relationship between levels of gun ownership and higher numbers of homicides. 

In 2013 92 people died in firearm-related deaths every day.

That's a total of 33,636 over the entire year. 

The majority of these - 21,174 - were suicides. 

Despite the huge numbers, murder rates in America are at about half the rate they were in 1991.

Identities of the 50 people mown down in the deadliest mass shooting in US history continue to emerge amid fears the death toll from the “act of terror” may rise.

Omar Mateen was armed with a powerful assault-type rifle and handgun when he sprayed revellers with bullets at the popular gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida. 

 The FBI have said the 29-year-old killer born in New York was an American citizen who legally purchased two firearms within the last week before murdering at least 50 people.

Edward Sotomayor Jr, 34, Stanley Almodovar III, 23, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, and Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, were among the first victims to be named.

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cr, 22, and Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera 36, and Luis S Vielma, 22, have since been added to the list of deceased.
 
More than 300 people were inside the building at the time of the attack - 53 people are also in hospital, with most in a critical condition.