It illustrates the state America has got into that I am struggling to feel sympathy for the country in the wake of the massacre of Virginia. It’s hard to feel sorry for a nation that persists in a pattern of behaviour that repeatedly causes national disaster: gun ownership.

It is incomprehensible in the wake of the tragedy that eminent senators and congressmen have seriously suggested the answer to preventing future calamities is to arm more people so they have a chance to defend themselves. That if the students had all carried guns, they could have killed this madman themselves. They insanely argue that increasing the number of people who carry guns will reduce the deathtoll that haunts their country. Are these politicians evil or simply deranged?

11,000 Americans kill each other with guns every year. That’s nearly four times the amount of people who died on 9/11. And they do it every year. America’s reaction to 9/11 has been catastrophic for the Middle East, yet they doggedly side step the disaster that happens annually on their doorstep. Their own ability to kill each other makes Bin Laden look like an amateur.

I love many things about America and Americans. But their perverse attachment to weapons of violence is incomprehensible and indefensible. And it is hard to feel sorry for someone who despite all the evidence staring them in the face, still likes to play with guns, shooting themselves in the foot again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...