This time a violent and deluded white man walks into a black church, spouts hatred about his country being taken over and shoots nine people dead.

The debate about gun control and gun crime soon became a debate about a flag - about symbols, not deeds.

About how the flying of a flag, however offensive and racist, overbears any debate about tackling gun violence.

Yes, the Confederate flag is symbolic of a racist history, where 11 rebelling Confederate states fought tooth and nail to retain their black slaves as property into perpetuity.

It was designed to fly in a battle to rally the troops but it soon became a symbol of the American Civil War.

It is incongruous and appalling that it flies above the State House in South Carolina, a state where the highways are named after Union war leaders.

Other states in the South have the symbol on its flags, including Mississippi, which voted to retain the insignia in 2001 but is now reconsidering.

Tennessee's legislature is also reviewing its state flag, which includes Confederate symbols, and wants a bust of a Confederate General and Ku Klux Klan leader removed from outside the state's senate chamber. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina also have elements on their flags that relate to Civil War battle flags.

It seems likely that the flag will be removed after the house voted 103-10 to allow debate on removing the flag.

I don't know what is more disturbing, that they need to debate the matter at all or that 10 people did not want to even go that far.

But surely the real issue facing the US is its inability to seriously address meaningful gun law reform.

Like all preceding mass shootings, the Charleston massacre was met with an instant chorus from some sections of the community that gun laws would not have stopped the crime.

It is true that stricter laws would not stop every massacre.

But people do not argue that we should not have speed limits because they do not stop all road deaths.

Or that we should not enforce drug laws because some people will always take drugs whether they are legal or not.

Others went as far to say that if the paster was armed, the tragedy could have been averted or mitigated. What nonsense.

The US has lots of mass shooting because it has lots of guns.

America suffers a disproportionate number of mass shootings compared to other countries: 133 between 2000 and 2014, compared to three in Canada, two in Australia, and one in the UK.

It is 20 years next April since Australia's worst mass shooting was carried out by a lone gunman at Port Arthur in Tasmania.

The Howard government's greatest and bravest achievement was overhauling Australian gun laws. It was controversial and upset a lot of people in Coalition heartland.

But Australia reduced mass shootings and gun crime while the suicide rate by firearm has also dropped significantly.

Others argue that it is remnant of a frontier colony that has inscribed a gun culture on the US.

Again, Australia and Canada were frontier countries and we do not have the same love affair with guns.

There is a place for responsible firearm ownership and use. Australia has shown the way that can work.

It is a pity that debate on the matter is focused on absurd reasoning or red herrings.