It took a foreign journalist, Mark Stone of Sky News, to ask a question the world is thinking. Cornering the US senator Ted Cruz after the Texas shooting, he said: “Why does this only happen in your country? Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?” Cruz balked, feigned affront at British impertinence, then scuttled away.
He could not answer why the number one killer of American children is guns. Not cars or illness or domestic mishaps. But letting off a parent’s pistol, getting caught in street crossfire or — 27 times this year — a loner with an assault rifle entering a school. I fear the world will not remember poor Xavier Lopez or Annabelle Rodriquez or the other Robb Elementary pupils and their teachers.