Evil beyond imagining

CHARLOTTE. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison. In an especially emotional moment during a prayer vigil, Barack Obama read out the first names of the 20 children killed during the December 14th school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The children were all six or seven years old. Six adults at the school were also killed, including the principal, who died trying to save her charges.

The carnage has rocked the community of Sandy Hook, part of the town of Newtown. Makeshift memorials made of candles, flowers and fluffy toys have sprung up all over the hilly New England village. Townspeople and visitors make pilgrimages to the school. They share tales of heroic teachers and brave children. One little boy offered to lead the evacuation as “I know karate.” Churches are open round the clock. Six-year-old Olivia Engel was supposed to be an angel in a nativity scene. Now, said Monsignor Bob Weiss, she is an angel in heaven.

The shooting has shocked a country long accustomed to gun violence. There have been a dozen mass-shootings this year. Over the summer murderous gun rampages occurred at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and at a cinema in Colorado. Mr Obama’s visit to Sandy Hook was the fourth time he has been to a community devastated in this way. Fighting tears, an unusually emotional Mr Obama said in an address to the nation that action is needed, “regardless of the politics”.

Other gun-related incidents, such as the one in 2011 which left Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona congresswoman, severely injured and killed six others, did nothing to push politicians to fight for gun control. But this time does seem different. Since the shooting more than 180,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to introduce gun-control legislation. Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Warner of Virginia, both given A ratings the National Rifle Association, are now calling for gun control. But the reformers have a huge task ahead of them. According to one survey, roughly a third of all American households own firearms. Three-quarters of those own more than one. Around 300m guns are in circulation, about one for every person in the country.

Between 1994 and 2004 the federal assault-weapons ban outlawed certain weapons. Since its expiry most of the debate about new gun-control legislation has not focused on banning guns, but about allowing them in more places—in national parks, on trains, in churches and at colleges. Still, Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic senator from California, plans speedily to reintroduce an updated federal ban on these weapons. And Mr Obama’s spokesman has indicated that he will support it.

Any serious new gun-control laws are likely to face opposition from the NRA. The lobby group has bragged that it defeated 19 of the 24 congressmen it targeted in 1994, shortly after the assault ban went into effect. The NRA kept a low profile this week, though it promised a statement on December 21st which would make “meaningful contributions” towards gun safety. Others have acted already: California’s legislature moved to require a licence for anyone buying ammunition, and Cerberus Capital, a private-equity group, said it will sell its stake in the firm that made the semi-automatic rifle used in Sandy Hook.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s anti-gun mayor, this week urged Mr Obama to introduce legislation. If the president does nothing, Mr Bloomberg notes that some 48,000 Americans will be murdered by guns during his second term—several times more Americans than died on September 11th 2001, in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Tightening existing laws would be a start. The 1994 Brady bill, named after Ronald Reagan’s press spokesman who was critically injured in an assassination attempt, brought in federal background checks for gun purchases. The refusal rate is very low, just 0.6% of the 157m checks processed. Besides, 40% of firearms purchases are not from licensed gun-dealers or are at gun shows, and do not require even this background check. That is one change that may well now be made.

Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, has called for a study on how to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. This distracts from the main issue of gun control, but it is true that gunmen in recent mass-shootings have indeed been mentally ill. A federal law is already on the books to prevent dangerous mentally-ill people from buying guns. Not all such people are included in national background-check databases, however. The Virginia Tech shooter, who killed 32 people, had recorded problems of that sort which his state did not send to the federal database.

Adam Lanza, the 20-year old gunman at Sandy Hook, did not submit himself to a background check. His mother legally bought and owned the Bushmaster and the two other guns that he carried. She was his first victim. He shot her in the face numerous times and took her weapons before he went to the school.

Mr Obama has said he will act within weeks. He should follow the example of America’s friends. In 1996 a massacre in a Scottish school in Dunblane killed 16 children and one teacher. The next year the private ownership of most handguns was banned in Britain. Also that year John Howard, Australia’s conservative prime minister, ushered in a semi-automatic-weapon ban a fortnight after 35 were killed in a gun massacre in Tasmania. If similar laws had been in effect in Sandy Hook, some of those lost might have survived. Instead, this Christmas, parents are going to funerals for six- and seven-year-olds.