Obama's gun control plan sparks outrage in the US - but is there anything to really shout about?

President Barack Obama's announcement that he's to take unilateral action on gun control has triggered the usual fire and fury here in the States.

But for all the noise, there isn't really a lot to shout about on either side.

Read: White House unveils plans to tighten US gun laws

This is no wide ranging change to genuinely rattle the conservatives and their belief in the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

Nor is it significant enough to make those Americans who wish for change to feel it is coming.

This is a President desperately trying to achieve something at the end of his second term, having mourned with the families of numerous dead over seven years in office.

In reality, though, he and those who support him know that if there was a wider political desire for change it would surely have come in the days after such tragedies.

If the murder of 20 small children at their school in Newtown was not enough to shock a nation into action it's hard to imagine what would be.

Remember too that such is Congress's slavish support for the gun lobby that even an attempt to bar anyone on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun was defeated.

You may be deemed too dangerous to get on a plane, but that doesn't mean you can't buy a weapon.

America's relationship with guns is complex and often split down party political lines, but terrorism and mass shootings are starting to blur those lines.

Back in 2000, almost half of Republicans believed that guns made a home safer whilst only 28 per cent of Democrats felt the same.

By last year, 41 per cent of Democrats were starting to feel the need to have a weapon in the home. More telling, however, is the response of Republicans - with 81 per cent now sure an armed home is a safer home.

Americans, like everyone else, want to feel safe. After the Paris attacks and the terror-related murders in San Bernadino, sales of guns rocketed. The White House's response was to say that that is why there is a government - to provide security against the threat of terrorism.

It is clear many do not feel so protected.

President Obama says gun control - or rather, the lack of it - remains the greatest frustration of his presidency.

Even with this executive action it is likely to remain so - for this President and the like-minded ones which may follow him in the years to come.