Another mass shooting brings an understandable sense of hopelessness

The horror of a mass shooting has returned to an American school.

In fact, the brutal truth is that it never went away. There have been multiple schools shootings - at least one a week - since the start of 2018.

The tragedy of the latest assault on America is that it was not surprising. This is a heavily armed society with no political impetus for gun control and a mental health crisis that is rarely addressed. It has a President and a Congress that is heavily in favour of the second amendment and gun rights.

The gunman was Nikolas Cruz. He had faced multiple disciplinary actions and some of his classmates reportedly joked - with the darkest of black humour - that if anyone was going to shoot up the school it would be Cruz.

The Valentine's Day massacre began when Cruz entered the school with an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon, the same type used in the Sandy Hook attack. According to the police, he was armed with “countless” magazines, smoke grenades and a gas mask.

Cruz then deliberately triggered the fire alarm so that hundreds of students would run into the corridors and be easy targets. When police looked into his social media use it was profoundly disturbing.

Students are evacuated by police out of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Credit: PA

There is now an understandable sense of hopelessness. Irrespective of any legislative move on gun control or background checks, there are more than 300 millions guns in private hands in America. That’s one for every man, woman and child in the country. That means these tragedies will continue.

It’s a sad fact of life here - and I know this better than most with three children in American schools - that rehearsing for a mass shooting is part of the educational routine. More common than dances or field days.

As a shocked teacher from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School put it last night:

We could not have been more prepared for this situation … we have trained for this, we have trained the kids for what to do …We did everything that we were supposed to do.I feel today like our government, our country, has failed us and failed our kids and didn’t keep us safe.

What more can be said?