It’s all too easy to overreact to yet another mass shooting in America. But the two shootings on Saturday, hours apart that killed 29 and wounded dozens more, seem in some respects to be the last hurrah of an America that I once knew.
The recent tragedies have been met with all the usual tropes: hand-wringing by editorial writers; meaningless clichés from the White House and political leaders; calls by the left to ban all guns; calls by the right to stop name-calling. And on and on. None of this counts for anything at all and will be trotted out at the next massacre in exactly the same terms and language as has happened after these tragic events.
When I arrived in the US in 1991 as an immigrant from England, I felt privileged and excited. America was a country I had visited often and always admired for its humanity, its inclusiveness, its morality and its determination to change itself and the world for the better.
I also loved the passion with which every American seemed to greet the world and the equal enthusiasm with which they seemed to embrace even the most insane ideas.
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