Two schoolchildren died on Tuesday and 14 others suffered bullet wounds when a classmate opened fire outside a school in Benton, Kentucky. It was the third US school shooting in 48 hours and the 11th in the three weeks since the start of the year.
The victims were Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, both 15. A 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged with the attack.
The story fell somewhere into the middle of the day's news agenda. "Americans have accepted these common atrocities as part of life here," wrote one commenter on the New York Times website. "Another day, another shooting spree, and no political will to do anything about it."
But there is political will building behind a certain sort of gun legislation — reforms that aim to increase, rather than decrease, the number of firearms in schools and other public buildings, and arm teachers and school staff as a means of defence.
Hours after the shooting in Kentucky, Republican State Senator Steve West rushed to file a bill that would allow Kentucky schools to have armed school marshals patrol the site. His bill joins another in the state which seeks to loosen gun restrictions around college campuses.
Mr West's bill received cross-party support from state Democratic Senator Ray Jones. "We need armed officers in every school in Kentucky," Mr Jones said. "That is a small price to pay if it saves one child's life."
"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun,"
If only we were a bitty mair like America.