We woke up this morning to read about yet another mass shooting in the USA. In an all too familiar story, a young man with no criminal history has gone on a shooting rampage in a school in Connecticut, killing 26 people including 20 children before turning the the military-style rifle on himself. It's a tragedy for the children and families involved, including the family of the killer who started his rampage by killing his mother and ended it with his own death. It should also be a political scandal of the first order. How did an ordinary, and obviously disturbed, young man get his hands on a piece of powerful military hardware? Why, after so many such killings, are gun laws still unchanged and all these weapons still lying around in suburban homes? It's not often I praise former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, but my American readers should take note of how he responded in a similar situation. On 28 April 1996 a young man named Martin Bryant went on a sho
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson