Politicians raced to voice their horror at Monday’s Virginia campus massacre, said to be the deadliest single gun rampage in US history. But if history is anything to go by, expressions of outrage will lead to little in terms of tighter gun control.

President George W. Bush was “horrified”, his spokeswoman said. Gun control advocates pointed out, however, that a 1994 federal ban on assault weapons expired in 2004 but has not been renewed under Mr Bush’s watch.