 The number of mass shootings in the United States of America increased to 307 this year with the most recent being in Thousand Oaks Bar in California where 12 people were killed. This increase in mass shootings has seen the American public call for stricter gun control laws and a ban on guns. There have been a number of changes to gun control laws over the past century. However, these have not been enough to stop the constant stream of shootings in the US. We asked the students at DCU what they thought about the American gun laws and if they think they should be changed. I don't think they're as great as they are, but it's not as great as anyone can have a gun. But here it's much better because no one really has a gun except for the higher ups in the guarda. The gun laws in America are really like, you know, they're really stupid just because like, I don't know how like so many things can happen and how they can just think that, you know, that everything's okay with it. I personally think the American gun laws are out of date because they were drafted in the Constitution in the 1700s which was, as you can tell, a very long time ago. So I believe that they really require an update at this point. Yeah, I really think because it's really not that much of an issue in Ireland that whenever we hear the stories there's just that immediate panic. And we can't really understand why gun regulations haven't brought in, especially in countries like Australia where they had one mass shooting and they realized that they had to regulate gun control. So we don't understand now why America don't just follow suit with that. We then asked them if they thought that Ireland would be prepared for a mass shooting like the ones in the US and would we be able to cope with it? I personally don't think we would cope very well because it would be so alien to us. I feel like we'd resonate somewhat with it because we see mass shootings on television from America. But if it was closer to home I don't think we'd be able to cope as much. If we had the same thing I think there'd be a lot more humanity about it and we'd change things a lot quicker. But like that's easy to say, it's different when it actually happens. I think if that were to ever happen in Ireland it would be like a completely harrowing experience. Like it's really not something we've had since like maybe the Troubles or anything like that. So I really don't know how we'd cope with something like that. I think everyone here would be scared because it'd be really hard to defend yourself against it and there's really no way until you have to call the guard for it. The United States is still a long way to go before the number of shootings has produced significantly and stopped becoming a reoccurring thing. Cary McMillan DCUTV News.