LONDON—Foreign politicians and media commentators attacked America's "gun culture" on Tuesday after the country's worst shooting rampage left 33 people dead.
U.S. police identified the gunman who killed 32 people then himself at Virginia Tech University on Monday as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old South Korean studying at the university.
European newspapers saw a grim inevitability about the shootings, given the right to bear arms which is enshrined in America's constitution.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch U.S. political ally, cited the tough gun laws in his country as a solution. Australia banned almost all types of semi-automatic weapons after a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996.
"We showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Howard, extending sympathies to the families of the victims at Virginia Tech University.
Iran, at loggerheads with the United States over its nuclear programme, also expressed its sympathy.
"Iran condemns the killing of Virginia university students and expresses its condolences to the families of victims and the American nation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement to Reuters.
In a telegram sent on his behalf to the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, Pope Benedict called the shooting a "senseless tragedy" and said he was praying for the victims and their families.
"As American as Apple Pie"
Media commentators in Europe were quick to blame the permissive U.S. gun laws for the massacre.
In Italy, the Leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie".
France's Le Monde newspaper said such episodes frequently disfigure the "American dream".
More than 30,000 people die from firearms in the United States every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. By comparison, there were 163 gun deaths in the United Kingdom in 2003, according to the latest figures from the campaign group Gun Control Network.
But a powerful U.S. gun lobby and support for gun ownership have largely thwarted attempts to tighten controls.
"It would be vain to hope that even so destructive a crime as this will cool the American ardour for guns," Britain's Independent newspaper said in a commentary.
Some U.S. gun advocates in fact argued it was time to lift a ban on carrying arms in American schools.
"When will we learn that being defenseless is a bad defense?" said Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, in a statement.
"All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last ten years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen—a potential victim—had a gun," Pratt said.
However, campaigners in other countries where gun ownership is common expressed fears of a similar massacre. Nandy Pacheco, head of the Philippines anti-gun lobby, Gunless Society, said he feared it could happen there.
"Not a day passes without a gun-related incident happening (in the Philippines). You hear it on radio, see it on TV and read it in newspapers," he said.
Gun ownership is commonplace in the Philippines and shootings over trivial incidents are routine. A few years ago several fatal karaoke bar shootouts were sparked by poor renditions of Frank Sinatra's "My Way."
