In the days since the appalling murder of 20 school children
and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, the same questions keep getting asked around the world: why does this keep happening in the States? Why do Americans cling so persistently to their guns, even as the number of rampage murders continues to escalate and children continue to die? And why do so many of the shooters fit the same profile: young white men from middle-class backgrounds?
When horrific mass killings at Port Arthur and Dunblane rocked Australia and Scotland in 1996, Canberra and Westminster responded swiftly with new laws severely restricting gun ownership and buying back weapons already on the market. In both the UK and Australia, gun deaths plummeted. There have been no comparable mass murders since. Meanwhile, most of the deadliest rampage killings in US history have taken place just since 2007, with three major incidents (Aurora, Colorado; Oak Creek, Wisconsin; Newtown) in the last six months. Thousands more have died in smaller-scale eruptions of gun violence. And even after this latest horror, the only measures proposed in Congress this week are stunningly modest, focusing on the size of ammunition clips. A gun buy-back and ban is not in the cards.