Apparently the Americans take umbrage at us civilised nations advising them to control the supply of guns better. But Xylophone has no fear of superpowers so here's my two cents anyway.

I think it's not so much about gun control but about the value we put on life. You could imagine measuring respect for life on a scale from 1 to 100. The type of people who plan and carry out suicide bombing are near to zero, whereas your average Quaker is near to 100.

Here in the UK we are probably in the 80s. Fundamentally we regard life as sacred to the extent that we would not execute even the most evil of murderers. I feel I was brought up to believe that Thou Shalt Not Kill was more than just a line from a book to be interpreted as you choose. However we are prepared to go to war now and again provided that we can convince ourselves that lives will be saved in the long run; and even then it's usually in the face of mass protest at home. Perhaps the UK respect for life rating took a bit of a knock when we went to war in The Falklands which seemed to many to be a mad way to argue about a few sheep pastures.

In the USA, they seem to see death as just one of those things. No one seems too concerned about executions nor gun crime. Nor do they seem to bothered about getting involved in wars, friendly fire incidents or collateral damage (a euphemism for the death of innocent bystanders that only the USA could have thouught up). Their value of life rating is probably at best 50.

So whereas we outsiders can be saddened by the shooting of those children, don't spend too much of your emotional energy worrying about it. It's just another day in the land of the free.