Every time I hear the ritual condemnation of gun attacks in America the whiff of insincerity becomes more rancid.

Next time (and tragically as we all know there will be a next time in the not too distant future) precisely the same sentiments will be expressed…sentiments with which the world has become all too familiar.

There will inevitably be another plea from on high that America should “stay united” in the face of such an onslaught. (What does that actually mean?) I suspect there will be many who feel that the words ring hollow because those who express such thoughts know there will be a next time. They know that nowhere on planet Earth is a nation so divided over gun laws. They know that for all its greatness America remains largely incapable of uniting its people behind the reform of gun law.

“Body count”

Eleven years ago I reported on the slaughter of five schoolchildren in a one-roomed schoolhouse in the Amish district of Lancaster in Pennsylvania. The “body count” by US standards was nowhere near as high as other more infamous school massacres. Yet there was something in the nature of the attack and the helplessness of its innocent young victims that made me sense that America was about to experience a seismic shift in public opinion on gun law. I was wrong.

I reported the ritual condemnation. I reported the “defence” offered by the gun lobby and the world waited. Then came the next gun attack. And America waited. And the next attack and the next… It is a tragedy beyond description that America is still waiting and is likely to remain so long after the next gun massacre and the next…