If two white men in a southern American town could have strapped a Black man to the back of their pick-up truck and dragged him through the streets until his head rolled off nearly 35 years after Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality, is it really any surprise that the youngsters who targeted the Columbine High School fancied themselves as anti-Black vigilantes? They reserved much of their gunfire for the Blacks and Hispanics among the schoolchildren. The tragedy is also a comment on the nature of American exceptionalism. While those who excel in publicarenas like the sportsfield become instant heroes, many are left out of the warm gaze of public adulation to stew in their own insecurities and hatreds. While most youngsters cope with this situation as best as they can or are fortunate to have a more secure family background to help them negotiate bumps on the road to adulthood, some look for other sources of self-esteem, whether it is in a music that glorifies the rule of the knife, or strange avenging cults that make hatred an article of faith. The latest shooting spree, coming as it does after a string of similar incidents, reveals the pernicious effects of this rage within. But it's the easy availability of firearms and ammunition that results in this insane anger being given free expression. There are many in the US today who argue that owning a gun is an expression of personal freedom. Indeed, societies like the National Rifle Association, supported in turn by powerful gun manufacturing lobbies, have eloquently and passionately defended sucharguments.

The effects of the misguided laxity in gun control laws in that country are being felt in every school. Schoolchildren have been routinely found carrying guns to school like they do their textbooks, and there have been several incidents of kids casually pulling out a firearm to settle an argument. A recent survey revealed that 43 per cent of US homes with children have a gun. According to another estimate, 4,463 children died of bullet wounds in the US in 1996. It is to be hoped that the latest incident, which President Clinton has described as an ``open wound'', will fuel some much-needed rethinking on the vexed issue of gun licensing. Then there is the problem that doesn't go away: violence in the media. Children's television shows in America have an estimated 20 violent acts per hour on an average. New media technologies have followed the same formula to entice the young consumer. The computer games that today's children imbibe almost with their infant formula are replete with shooting,killing and bombing metaphors. There's something terribly wrong in a society where children kill children. And it can only get worse.