The Columbine massacre took place 10 years ago. It was the worst school shooting in US history. It was not the worst shooting in an educational institution as such because a total of 33 people (including the gunman) were killed at Virginia Tech (a higher education institution facility) in April 2007.

On Channel 7 "Sunrise" this week we discussed the Columbine massacre and the current gun situation in the US. Our US colleague, when asked about what had happened since then, identified improved school security measures and better "first responder" techniques by the police. She made no mention at all of the basic issue of gun control!

Gun control is a dead issue in US politics.

Despite its violent image, the US has not always been a country with a gun culture. Until about 1850, fewer than 10 per cent of American citizens had guns. Even in the Wild West in the 19th Century, many towns had strict gun controls, which meant that weapons had to be left at the city limits - and this gave them a very low murder rate.

The change begins at the end of the 19th Century. The mass production of guns brought down the unit cost and so guns became far more affordable. Government attempts to limit the availability of guns usually run up against a phrase in the US Constitution adopted in 1789: "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".

The phrase has kept lawyers busy. There have been many political attempts to limit the availability of guns and many court challenges to those attempts. There are now over 20,000 US national, state and local gun laws. Many of them are unenforceable because of the number involved and their complexity. There is a great deal of variation between different localities, with some states trying to make it harder than others to acquire guns.

Ironically the wording in 1789 received little debate. The politicians agreed to the phrase without any dissenting vote. The US was a new political entity. It had thrown off British control by 1783 in the War of Independence. The original 13 colonies were now joined by the Articles of Confederation in a very loose association, with hardly any federal power. There were border disputes between them and even an attempted rebellion. It was agreed that there was a need for a strong central government.

In 1787 representatives of the new states came together in Philadelphia to produce a stronger constitution. The 1787 document remains one of the most important documents in world history and a model for other countries. The original 13 colonies had rebelled against a British dictator (King George III) and now the new country had a dilemma. On the one hand, the new country had to have a strong central government to maintain order between the states. On the other hand, the Americans did not want to create a new dictatorial central government.

The inventive way out of the dilemma was a Bill of Rights to be incorporated into the US Constitution to guarantee the rights of the individual against the government. The Bill of Rights was sent out to the states to ratify. On December 15 1791, the legislature in Virginia ratified the document, thereby gaining sufficient state votes for the document to be incorporated into the US Constitution. No one at the time predicted just how controversial this amendment - the Second Amendment - would become. It seemed a sensible idea at the time.

The 1789 wording partly reflects the era which created it. People recognized that the US was a violent place. The US was a new country and there was a risk of foreign invasion by the European colonial powers (such as the Spanish and French in the south and west, and the British in the north). The US went on to have a war with Britain in 1812 (in which the British invaded Washington DC and burnt the president's residence). Meanwhile within the US, there were still many conflicts with the Indians to come. There was also a need for white slave owners to have guns to put down slave rebellions.

However, by the late 19th century, the US was becoming more settled and civilized. The Old West was becoming more a matter for entertainment (such as the Buffalo Bill shows) rather than a reality. The US was also aware that its reputation for violence (such as lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan) was eroding its image overseas. In the 1930s there were federal attempts to limit some types of guns (such as machine guns) because of the rise of gangster violence. After each major assassination in the 20th century there were further attempts at gun control (such as the 1964 law following the November 1963 President Kennedy assassination).

Despite all these efforts, the US is still the most significant country in the developed western world where it is possible to obtain guns of all sorts easily. Gun control remains a controversial political issue and most politicians running for office are opposed to restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Gun control advocates are up against major lobbying organizations. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has beaten (or at least watered down) every gun control project in Congress in recent decades. The NRA was founded in 1872 by two Union soldiers as a rifle club for army sharp shooters and it had close links with preparing people for military service. It had little to do with politics or formulating policy. Its work expanded after World War II to include training courses for hunters, teaching classes in gun safety and assisting with the US Olympic teams. It retained its apolitical culture.

The NRA changed in the 1970s when it saw its role as far more political. NGOs were changing the nature of the political process in developed countries and the NRA decided that it would need to be the lobbyist for gun owners. It endorsed its first presidential candidate (Ronald Reagan) in 1980. It acquired a far higher political profile. It is now the most influential NGO in the US. Most recent US presidents (except Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama) have been members of the NRA or at least sympathetic to it.

There is currently no Democrat appetite at the national political level to have a renewed campaign for gun control. Democrats decided not to alienate blue collar workers in the 2008 November elections with gun control matters.

These people had been traditional Democrat voters in the Roosevelt era. But over recent decades they had been courted in the "culture wars" by Republicans who knew how to attract their support with "God, gays and guns". They focussed on issues such as endorsing family values, opposing gay law reform and endorsing the right to own guns. They portrayed the Democrats as rich, elitist, city-based dwellers who no longer had much connection with mainstream Main Street America.

Meanwhile, gun control advocates have largely given up on the political process, such as by now trying to sue gun shop owners for selling guns later used in violent crimes. They see the politicians as too influenced by the gun lobby. Like the anti-smoking movement, they have decided to work through the legal system and the courts, in the hope that they are less influenced by the gun lobby. I sometimes feel that it is now easier to buy a gun in the US than a packet of cigarettes - there are certainly fewer restrictions on carrying guns than smoking in public places!

Americans seem reluctant now to address the issue of access. Following each massacre there is the soul-searching about violent media, broken families, failed romances, economic hardships, and disturbed teenagers. But these factors are found in other developed countries. For example, many male teenagers have violent tendencies. The difference in the US is that they can also get access to guns.

Keith Suter