On and on again

We chaps over here never cease to marvel at you guys’ attitudes to guns. Once again, more horrific news headlines this week of yet another school shooting in USA, made all the more poignant because of the young age of the victims, and of the time of year, Christmas.

Everyone can’t have failed to have been horrified and distraught when confronted by the pictures of grieving parents, and photos of tiny tots, who should have been starting out on life, only to have their futures so brutally and senselessly snuffed out, by some strange, disaffected and disturbed individual who had ready access to lethal weaponry to sate his blood lust and wreak terrible revenge on others.

And yet, these grim headlines have become commonplace. Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, shopping malls, church prayer meetings, and many, many more, including of course, perhaps the worst of all, and plumbing even greater depths of depravity, Newtown.

Certainly, the pro-gun lobby is on the back foot, pledging ‘meaningful dialogue’, and a fresh look at gun ownership, but one wonders if this will blow over as the immediate horror fades into memory, and the status quo will prevail.

Why oh why are you fellows so wedded to your weapons? The Second Amendment is history….written at a time when society was very different from today. Surely you don’t love your guns more than your children, for that’s how it seems to us on this side of the Atlantic?

You can never legislate for the mentally disturbed, and guns are available in both our countries, to folk who will seek them out. But surely we should make it as difficult as possible to obtain them, and some high-power automatic weapons are simply not appropriate for private ownership.

Come on America. Wake up and smell the coffee. Parents, rise up! Make Newtown memorable for being the last such mass shootings, so that those poor children and their bereft parents have something positive come out of their misery.

Across the pond Penny