Guns in America: why has Barack Obama failed to control firearms?

US citizens, 5 per cent of the world's population, own as many as half of its privately held guns

A pistol is fired at a US gun show
(Image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty)

By Sophie Warnes

Hours before the news came through that a gunman had killed two people in a cinema in the US state of Louisiana, Barack Obama admitted that failing to pass "common sense gun safety laws" was the greatest frustration of his presidency.

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