The only way that America will get over guns

It does not really bear repeating the fact that America has a deep-rooting philosophical problem with guns. A frontier nation which won its freedom due to the bearing of arms is now enslaved to them, and it seems no atrocity can possibly burn with an intensity strong enough to melt away the intransigence.

Not 20 schoolchildren in Sandy Hook, not 49 gays in Florida, not 5 police officers in Dallas. Even after all these atrocities and countless others, the political will for even a modicum of restrictive change - such as the refusal of firearm sales to those on the FBI's terrorist watch-list - is diluted by the liquid flow of dollars from the arms lobbyists.

Even the supposed radical Bernie Sanders shied away on his Democrat nominee campaigning from any form of substantive proposal, himself having voted against the 1993 Brady Bill that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers.

By deferring to the Constitutional right to bear arms like a sacred text, the US demonstrates the same fundamentalist mindset that corrupts the religious extremists against which they wage war.

It seems there is only one way that America has a chance of freeing itself from this arms enslavement, which shackles them to a septic root of paranoia and anxiety. It will require something far broader than the Black Lives Matter movement. It will require something on the scale of the civil rights movement if enough pressure is to be brought to bear on the political system.

But more importantly and more fundamentally than this, it will require an entire shift in attitude. Even if Congress passed anti-gun legislation overnight, there would still persist the reality of an estimated 300 million guns in circulation. These will continue to circulate on the black market, perhaps with the added cachet of being an 'illegal' item.

Therefore, it will be necessary to create a taboo of owning a gun. It will need to become something embarrassing, something you wouldn't readily admit to others, something that reflects badly on the individual's character.

This can start right away with individuals making a powerful statement about refusing to bear arms. Only by rejecting the hyper-security narrative that perpetuates the gun industry's power and influence, only by making a defiant pledge that guns are not needed for safety or defence, only by choosing to adopt and promote a gun-free lifestyle, can people really take power into their own hands.

Waiting for political change is futile, with a head of state who is straitjacketed by the myopia of Washington and who can only stand at a lectern after each new atrocity with a tear rolling down his cheek.