Trump shooting happened because US missed its ‘Dunblane moment’ to act on guns

The handwringing went on for days. “How could this happen in America” was a common theme along with strident statements that “there’s no place for violence in our public life”.

These sentiments, genuinely felt I’m sure, must surely come squarely into the category of the wilful suspension of disbelief. How could this have happened? The answer is simple.

All the ingredients were there, it was a question of ‘if not when’ they combusted. For the record, I have a great fondness for America, I’ve worked there, travelled extensively there, have American in-laws and many friends, but I simply don’t understand that wonderful country’s toxic relationship with guns.

How could America be surprised at the Trump shooting when mass school shootings are a regular occurrence, primary schools need armed guards, and the most common cause of the death of young children is gunfire.

The recipe for disaster that unfolded in Pennsylvania was simple. A raised mood caused by violent and intemperate rhetoric served to inflame the passions of a young male loner. The final ingredient was the availability of military-grade, high-velocity assault rifles.

Marginalised individuals

The profile of these shooters, whether in schools or other arenas is remarkably similar: young white men, often just out of school, loners who feel compelled to vent their rage on the world and, in doing so, claim their five minutes of infamy.

Every society has such marginalised individuals, but in the US they can get their hands on deadly weapons. Might it change, might the attack on Trump tip the balance? I doubt it.

A ban on assault rifles has been suggested again, but I suspect nothing will happen. On the face of it, there is absolutely no reason why such military-grade weapons should be in public hands. They are no use for hunting or target shooting, they are designed solely for killing people.

Their removal from the market would not contravene the sacred second amendment of the Constitution, the right to bear arms, it would only make sense, but I doubt it will happen.

Horror of Sandy Hook

I believe this simply because of an incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 12 years ago. On a December day in 2012, a 20-year-old man, not dissimilar to the youth who shot Trump, entered the school with an assault rifle and murdered 26 people, most of them six and seven-year-olds.

It was dreadfully similar to Scotland’s own Dunblane massacre, a horror of such magnitude that it required action to be taken here, including the banning of automatic weapons. After Sandy Hook, I was sure that the then President, Barack Obama, would take executive action despite the constitutional problems.

But nothing happened, and I concluded then that if the horror of Sandy Hook did not bring America to its senses, nothing would. I came to believe that this great nation was sown with the seeds of its own destruction.  The recent episode in Pennsylvania is further proof.

Tom Wood is a former police officer