Paul,

You are making stupid assumptions nased on your lack of knowledge,

"People who play dress ups, and carry on with a silly pretence, I see them as some kind of screwballs.
You said it was completely safe, with the rapid action and numbers of people in close proximity, the safety aspect seems to play second fiddle to the fun carry on nonsense."

I've been to Western Action shoots, I'm a qualified Range Officer (and have been for years, since my early twenties), and I see their practices as being very safe.
Not only safe but safer than swimming, cycling, horse riding etc.

What have you got against people dressing up and pretending to be in another place and time?
http://www.alhf.org.au/mem_grps.html

The Australian Living History Federation provides a lot of fun for a lot of people, shame on you for knocking them.

How do you feel about Shakespearean theatre, or Aboriginal Australians dressing up?

See:http://www.indigenousaustralia.info/culture/corroborees-a-ceremonies.html

Just to stay on topic,

Here's a bloke who is so irate over the Florida shootings that he handed his semi=auto rifle in to police for destruction.

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/i-could-have-easily-sold-this-rifle-but-no-person-needs-this/news-story/b1eec24d94af4db3b82d4d52c8c4394e

The children can say enough is enough until they are blue in the face; nothing will change. In the first two years of his first term, Obama had 60% of the vote in Congress and he did nothing about gun laws. If an ultra-Left Democrat didn't want to do anything, there is no way any American president will do anything. It's all about votes.

It is not the gun lobby or a bunch of loonies who want guns; it is your average American voter who doesn't want changes to gun laws. It is a cultural thing, enshrined in law. Unlike Australians, Americans don't take kindly to having their rights taken off them. They don't like seat belts. They would laugh themselves silly if their government tried to make them wear helmets to ride a bike. So, any pious talk about the Yanks accepting the draconian Howard type gun laws is absolute bollocks.

Issy, I have no problem with fellas who want to dress up in tights, and prance around on stage reciting; "My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!" rather harmless. Its these armed delusional nutters I am concerned with. One day the schizophrenic Wichita Willie, Saloon Girl Annie and Dead Eye Dick might load themselves into a stage coach, and head for Dodge City, (my burb), and on arrival confuse me with the wanted 'dead or alive', the notorious outlaw Pecos Pete! You know the rest, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral ensues, and I having no gun, due to the fact the local sheriff knocked me back, the sheriff not allowing crazy people to have a gun, and I end up in Boot Hill. Would you go alone with that?

Paul,

" Would you go alone with that?"

Hardly, thousands would rejoice!!

As at 2015 there were 357 million guns for a population of 310 million in America. Deaths by gun were 0.0043403%, and 80% of those deaths resulted from criminal activity - not nutter shootings.

Hitler confiscated firearms. By doing so he had taken away a bulwark against his secret police hauling dissidents off in the middle of the night.