You will notice the plural in the headline. This is deliberate. On the one hand you have the trauma and grief of those caught in this mindless atrocity and this blog can do no more than declare solidarity, kinship and sympathy with all those brave people whose lives have been torn apart. Sympathy too for the whole American nation whose confidence and pride in itself is shaken but not shattered by this assault upon its values, its integrity and its purpose.
But then we come to the political aftermath. Here America can, as it did post 9/11 squander the international goodwill flooding towards it from all across the globe, by vengeful and incoherent responses which do no better than make matters worse. Top of that list would be some kind of assault upon the freedoms and dignity of US Muslims, or restrictions of entry of Muslim visitors from overseas. That would make no more sense than curbing the rights of Christians because Hitler was nominally one of them. Next would be some increase in air bombardment of towns held by IS, which always kills civilians and is precisely the reaction IS hope to provoke.
Finally, but significantly, to fail to bring some kind of restriction into force about who can own guns, of what power and for what purpose. It is this failure in gun control which baffles the whole world and does more than anything else to deaden the power of American influence. It makes the tracking of potential suspects more difficult than other countries, where lone perpetrators have to access assault weapons and guns via the underworld, which is both monitored and infiltrated by the security services. In the US the killer only has to go into the gun store to kit up for mass murder, transgressing the law only at the moment of launching the attack.
This dreadful event will undoubtedly drive many into supporting Trump for President. But his pronouncements upon it cast serious doubts about whether he is, after all, the right man for the job.
