This week, because of a nasty flu bug that has been bouncing around our family, I’ve been walking my four-year-old granddaughter Rosie to creche. Wednesday morning she was dressed head to toe in pink, her favourite colour, with her favourite heart-shaped sunglasses with rainbow rims. Rainbows are either her second or third favourite thing, along with unicorns.
When we got to the school, held in Waterford’s Quaker Friends Meeting House, she raced up the steps to greet her teacher, Fionnuala O’Regan, and the other happy, chattering youngsters.
So much laughter. So many smiles. It was all I could do to hold it together.
At breakfast, I had read the news of the shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and all I could think of was how many of those little kids had been dressed in pink, wearing silly sunglasses and dreaming of unicorns when their parents or grandparents walked them to school that morning.
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It is anguishing just to think about — 19 fourth-graders, from seven to 10 years old, and two teachers murdered in what should have been the safest, happiest place in the world: their classroom.
As an American, this is not the first time I have been through a tragedy like this, far from it. But it is the first time since I became a grandfather with little ones of my own.
Columbine, Marjorie Stoneman, Sandy Hook, these names and so many more. Children robbed of their lives before they’ve even begun.
Perhaps the worst thing about it was that after the sorrow and the rage came an overwhelming feeling of futility. We Americans have been here before, so often, and we know how it will play out.
There will be days of anguished gnashing of teeth and rending of garments on one side, while the other offers empty “thoughts and prayers” and ridiculous plans to turn schools, churches and supermarkets into armed fortresses rather than enact sensible laws.
And then life will go on, any good intentions having died aborning, until the next time. And there will be a next time. After all, it was only two weeks ago that 10 people were shot and killed in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store, in what was believed to be a racially-motivated attack.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organisation that tracks these things, there have been more than 200 mass shootings in America already this year. They define a mass shooting, by the way, as four or more people being killed or wounded — not including the shooter. There have been 27 school shootings this year alone.
Let me say right from the outset that I am not anti-gun. My dad was raised in the country and guns were always present in our home — little .22s for plinking away at targets, a bigger rifle for hunting. As a Boy Scout during my pre-teen years, the use and safe handling of firearms was a fundamental part of the programme.
My dad was a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) for many years and I remember looking forward to their American Rifleman magazine coming in the mail, with its news of hunting and target shooting.
It’s been years since I fired a weapon of any sort, but I understand the enjoyment other people get from it.
What I don’t understand is a society that refuses to place reasonable limits that would keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, and would do away with weapons of war that should have no place in a peaceful society.
Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers. Think about that for a minute.
Friends here in Ireland ask me how America came to this point. I wish I knew. Things weren’t like this when I was growing up. But that was before the NRA began to evolve into the lobbying arm of cash-rich gun manufacturers rather than a club for sensible gun owners. Even today, more than 70 per cent of NRA members favour some form of firearm regulations.
Money speaks loudly. In the last Congressional elections, eight candidates took in more than $1 million each from the NRA and affiliated gun rights groups, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. Another 39 took more than $100,000.
All of those candidates, it practically goes without saying, were Republicans. It is no wonder that the Bill passed by the Democrat-led House of Representatives requiring more stringent background checks cannot even be brought to debate in the evenly divided Senate.
In addition to the direct contributions to candidates, the NRA has spent more than $10 million on lobbying in general in the last election cycle alone.
In the polarised, tribal world of American politics, they have succeeded in making opposition to any form of gun control holy writ for conservatives. There can be no compromise, no matter how many innocent people are gunned down, or how often.
I am an American and I love my country, with all of its flaws and no matter how far it may stray from the promise it once represented and that I still believe in.
But walking Rosie up the steps to greet a smiling Ms Fionnuala and all of those joyful, safe kids, I was so happy that my grandchildren are being raised in Ireland.
And that breaks my heart.
