“AFTER NEWTOWN, I was optimistic that the US might commence a steady, albeit slow, arduous and hard fought journey toward gun laws and policies that that the rest of the civilised world would regard as sane. I’m no longer optimistic. I despair.”

These were my words in this space in March of 2013. 

They are repeated here not out of self-reverence, but to illustrate the sense of futility and exasperation with which I and the majority of Americans approach the issue of gun control each and every time there is a mass shooting in the country we dearly love.

Yet there clearly are things about it we don’t quite get. If more restrictive gun laws could not make their way into the statute books after the slaughter of little schoolchildren and their teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, there is no cause for positivity.

I am repeating my three paragraphs here from October 2017 after 59 festival goers were shot dead in Las Vegas. And I wrote something similar last December following a gun massacre at Oxford High School outside Detroit. In the wake of the crazed deeds of an 18-year-old boy – he shot his own grandmother before murdering 19 little girls and boys and two teachers, for God’s sake – in Uvalde, Texas, here we are again.

Like many children around the world, I suspect, my son Larry Óg got an extra-long hug and a kiss from his father this morning. What the parents of similar-aged kids in Uvalde are going through right now is unfathomable. My heart is broken for them.

I ordinarily pride myself on offering dispassionate, objective political analysis, which provokes the ire of the left and right equally, on The Journal and elsewhere. I can’t do that today, however. The pronouncements of Ted Cruz, a United States Senator, in the aftermath of this unspeakable tragedy in his home state put paid to that.

Senator Cruz’s evidently considered response to what happened to his constituents? The answer is not gun control legislation. The answer instead is to have heavily armed security personnel on the campus of primary and secondary schools. The mind boggles.

Inculcating in young, impressionable children that it is normal to be surrounded by the rough equivalent of military police while they are trying to learn and have fun with their peers is a price he is happy for them to pay. Why? Because it is of paramount importance to the senator and many of his colleagues that anyone who wants high-powered weaponry can access it swiftly – without even so much as a waiting period or a background check.

An unfortunate aspect of the fallout from tragedies such as this one is that outside observers understandably form the opinion that most Americans endorse the extreme views of Senator Cruz and others. In truth, solid majorities of citizens favour reasonable gun control measures.

Gallup polling reveals that 52% believe that the laws regulating gun ownership should be stricter in general. 61% desire a ban on the assault rifles that are typically used to carry out mass shootings.

A whopping 96% support background checks prior to the purchase of a firearm. 75% back a 30-day waiting period for all gun sales. And 70% want all privately owned guns to be registered with the police.

Why then does this not translate into legislation that reflects where ordinary Americans are?

The reality is that countless conservative politicians on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures around the country are “sponsored” by the disproportionately powerful and influential National Rifle Association (NRA). Once a mainstream grouping that represented the interests primarily of hunters and sportspeople, it has morphed into a radical entity that vigorously opposes any restriction when it comes to gun ownership.

The NRA floods the campaign coffers of US lawmakers – mostly Republicans, but also some Democrats – with cash and expects 100% fidelity to its agenda in return. Those who dare to deviate from dogma can, in some instances, find themselves staring down the barrel of a well-funded primary challenger willing to unthinkingly do the NRA’s bidding if elected.

Hence, the downright perverse sentiments of lots of the individuals, like Senator Cruz, who Americans place their sacred trust in when they cast their ballots. Gun control doesn’t work. Mass shootings are attributable either to mental health issues or a lack of armed security, or both.

A further strange element of this debate is that many who refuse to act or lay the blame on everything or everyone other than the gun when innocent children are slain profess to be pro-life on the issue of abortion. Speaking as one who shares their anti-abortion stance, the two positions are inherently irreconcilable.

I often think people looking in on the US from afar cherry-pick the news they read to suit a negative, condescending perspective they have on the land of my birth. In short, America is completely messed up. Most of the people are insular and, frankly, dumb. Who would ever want to live there?

I have no time for these attitudes that are borne out of ignorance. I will always love the US. But as for the gun culture, I can’t really push back on the unfair critics. On this front, America is broken, probably irredeemably. I still despair.

Larry Donnelly is a Boston attorney, a Law Lecturer at NUI Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie. His book – The Bostonian: Life in an Irish American Political Family – is published by Gill and available in bookshops.