Another college shooting in the United States - and a second multiple killing in Florida yesterday - should have millions of people calling ''enough is enough''.
Sadly, this is unlikely to happen.
The national gun lobby in the US is strong and wealthy and politicians, especially Republican representatives, hardly ever cross their campaign supporters.
Authorities were yesterday called to the Umpqua Community College, south of Portland, with reports of 10 dead, including the gunman, and seven injured.
The college was locked down, students were sheltering in classrooms as the lone shooter opened fire causing mass panic.
A young New Zealander who has been at the college for just two weeks was caught up in the shooting, although he is reportedly unhurt, just shaken.
How parents cope with the death of their children in such tragic and unnecessary circumstances is a mystery.
This year alone, there have been nine fatal school shootings in the US.
Added to those are the shootings of mainly young black males throughout the country by police.
This is a national tragedy for the US; but yet one which it is tending to ignore.
As overseas criticism of the US, its President, Barack Obama, and its lawmakers started to flood in, gun lobbyists drew in the wagons, circling to protect their Second Amendment - the right to bear arms.
Earlier this week, a man was shot in a bar after an argument with a gun-toting patron who was legally allowed to wear a sidearm while drinking.
Basically, supporters of the right to bear arms amendment bridle at any suggestion there should be restrictions on what they can buy, and where and when it can be used.
As the world watched Mr Obama weep with the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012 when 26 people died, there was a sense of hope the president would make a difference.
Sadly, he has not made any inroads to the desperately-sad situation in which Americans find themselves.
Can parents honestly wake up feeling secure in the knowledge sending their children to school will mean them coming home safe at night?
Research shows although the mainly male and white school shooters are often intelligent, high-performing boys, their peers tend to see them as unattractive losers, weak and unmanly.
In a school culture that values sporting prowess over academic accomplishment, they face rejection.
The shooters are rarely loners, but tend instead to be failed joiners, and their daily social experience is full of friction.
At first, a shooter-to-be might just be prone to clowning around and being obnoxious.
Shooting is the last act in a very long drama in which all the other attempts to gain attention have failed.
And sadly, shooting works.
It works because when these kids start to talk about shooting - and sometimes they talk about it for as long as nine months in advance of their actions - they start getting the attention they are looking for, sometimes from other boys who are egging them on, sometimes because they have a sixth sense they are dealing with someone who is psychologically vulnerable.
A chilling message was posted on an internet forum the night before the Oregon deaths, hours before the shooter opened fire at the college.
The message read: ''Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest''.
Part of the problem is said to be a frequent lack of trust between high school pupils and adult authorities.
The children have a very sceptical view of what adults do with unpleasant information and think they may not keep it confidential or they will overreact.
Blame will be apportioned but, in the end, no-one in particular will take responsibility for trying to stop the rise of domestic gun deaths.
Americans need to take ownership of this ongoing tragedy because the continuing deaths of their young people will become an unbearable burden at some stage.
Mr Obama has nothing to lose by taking head-on the keepers of guns, but he has much to regret by leaving a legacy of unnecessary deaths of the young.
