CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The disturbed neuroscience doctoral student who killed a dozen and wounded 58 in a Colorado movie theater had 100-round clips for his assault weapon. Apparently, Colorado is lucky that he didn't kill hundreds more moviegoers.

Why on Earth would anyone need 100-bullet rapid-fire clips, except to commit a massacre?

Why was the psychotic man allowed to buy such murder implements and 6,000 cartridges?

What kind of nation lets the mentally ill arm themselves for slaughter?

Incredibly, the GOP convention at Tampa revised the party platform to support 100-bullet clips, saying: "We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines." Good grief. Republicans want Americans to be armed with 100-shot killing power.

On the other side of politics, the Colorado tragedy is spurring some Democratic legislators around America to propose tighter limits on mass-murder guns -- but the safety efforts probably will fail, because most fellow politicians are terrified of the right-to-bear-arms lobby. After every massacre, a few seek reform, but nothing is done.

A recent news report said Russia's Kalashnikov assault weapons factory, home of the powerful AK-47, is booming, thanks to ever-rising sales to U.S. gun-lovers.

It turns out that Russians themselves don't buy many of the mow-'em-down guns, because Russian law requires each buyer to have a police permit -- which requires, among other things, a medical certificate of sanity.

Wow. Can you imagine the howl that would erupt from America's gun lobby and conservative politicians if anyone proposed that U.S. buyers of assault weapons show certificates of sanity? Yet, if you think about it, that's a sensible safety precaution.

A few weeks ago, nearly all Republicans in the U.S. Senate -- plus, naturally, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin -- signed a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, objecting to an international treaty designed to prevent weapons sales to terrorists and murderous rebels. The letter-signers feared that the treaty might prevent some Americans from buying all the firepower they want.

We wish psychiatrists would research the strange craving of so many American men to arm themselves with deadly guns. Why do they feel this urge? Hunters with their shotguns are normal and understandable -- but the U.S. gun obsession goes much further.

As we said, no new U.S. safety laws are likely, so Americans simply will await the next psychotic gun massacre.