The fright in the night that changed my mind about America’s 80m gun owners – by Princess Diana’s Private Sec

I’ll never give up. And if Congress fails, I believe this time a majority of the American people won’t give up either.’

Biden is just the latest in a string of Presidents to risk their credibility on diving into the gun-control cauldron, without much noticeable effect. Here is Barack Obama: ‘My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage.

We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens.’

It’s hard not to conclude that firearms in America are like a religion: rational debate falls on deaf ears, no matter which side you take. As a Millennial friend grimly observed, there’s a social dimension, too. ‘Telling a gun-owner you don’t like guns is like telling a dog-lover you don’t like dogs. There’s just no room for agreement.’

Nor does the Amendment specify from which direction the security of the state might be threatened. The Simpsons cartoon character Krusty the Clown (an ardent gun supporter) defends his right to bear arms as essential for ‘keeping the King of England out of your face’.

In the America of 2022, threats are perceived on all sides.

Most people have their own list of barbarians at the gate: domestic terrorists of Left and Right, unchecked migration on the southern border, criminal gangs, the urban army of homeless, anarchists, insurrectionists – and that’s not counting fear of the federal government itself.

There is widespread belief in the existence of a malign ‘deep state’, hellbent on stealthily tightening Washington’s tyranny over freedom-loving citizens. Many today would echo Thomas Jefferson’s robust solution for government over-reach: ‘What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.’

You can see why such sentiment survives and thrives when, as happened last week, the US Congress passed an act that authorises the Internal Revenue Service – with its formidable criminal investigative powers – to add 87,000 new staff (that’s more than the entire British Army) who must be ready ‘to carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force’. This on top of the IRS’s reported purchase of five million rounds of ammunition. It makes HMRC seem positively cuddly.

My FBI friend recommended a good pistol course. This was just common sense, not a mandatory

A sobering reminder that even churches can be hit by mass shootings

requirement. In the state where I now live, anybody over 21 who passes a police background check can buy a handgun but responsible owners – and most are – pay for professional training. Unless you’re a complete buckaroo, owning a deadly weapon is a deeply sobering experience.

In the class with me were some of the nicest people you could hope to meet. One group was there as part of an organised church programme, a reminder that even places of worship suffer mass shootings.

Talking to them helps reassure me that, for all America’s grievous problems, it’s a country where the good still outnumber the wicked and gun violence, like evil itself, is ultimately the work of individual human hearts.

Look around the world and perhaps, like me, you’ll find America is still the land of hope and opportunity its founders intended it to be. And if uninvited night-time guests come calling, at least I have the option of greeting them with something more substantial than a trembling torch.

I’m still a reluctant gun-owner, at least until the next time I’m violently woken by the burglar alarm. Until then, I’ll just remember the prayer written for Britain’s nuclear deterrent: ‘God grant the weapon never be used.’

Amen to that.