A huge debate is underway in the US over whether more could have been done to prevent Wednesday's high school shooting north of Fort Lauderdale that claimed 17 lives.
The suspect, 19 year-old Nicholas Cruz, was a former student at the school with a long record of disciplinary problems.
He's now been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
Several of his fellow pupils had claimed that he had the capacity to launch an attack.
President Trump insists this latest horrific crime is a mental health issue, and there are no indications that gun control laws will now be tightened in the US.
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
IN: "In this era…."
OUT: SOC
DUR: 3:41
AIR: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-air.mp3
ARN: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-arn.mp3
938 NOW: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-938.mp3
FM4: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-fm4.mp3
ICRT: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-icrt.mp3
NIGERIA: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-von.mp3
RNZ: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-rnz.mp3
VATICAN: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-vat.mp3
ZIZ: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-ziz.mp3
GENERIC: http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0215shootingpkg-sm-generic.mp3
In this era of modern technology, you no longer have to imagine the scene.
You can listen to it.
Valentine's Day….a building full of excited 14 year olds at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The day interrupted by this.
AXX
The suspect in the attack, 19 year old Nicholas Cruz, was arrested without incident after fleeing the scene.
He left in his wake 17 people dead …. each of them cut down by his legally obtained AR-15 assault rifle….the same type of weapon used in last year's Texas Church Shooting…last year's Las Vegas music festival shooting….the 2016 Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.
On this occasion, leading the local response….Broward County Sherrif Steve Israel.
AXX
No words…and yet words of warning were articulated by the fellow students and teachers of the suspect.
Nicholas Cruz was banned from bringing backpacks to school….teachers e-mailed warnings of his threats to fellow students.
Students told one another that if anyone was ever going to attack the school it would be him.
Jim Lewis, an attorney for the family Nicholas Cruz had been living with since his mother's death last year, says they never saw it coming.
AXX
President Trump issued a proclamation and ordered flags at government buildings to be flown at half mast to honor the victims of the shooting.
In one Tweet, he suggested neighbors and students could have done more to alert the authorities about the gunman's mental state.
He has said nothing about gun control…but one teacher at the school, Melissa Falkowski, is not so reticent.
AXX
She spoke to NBC.
There will, though, be no meaningful fresh gun control laws arising from this shooting despite the efforts of some members of Congress like Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.
AXX
But he knows the power of the National Rifle Association is insurmountable.
It has scores of lawmakers from both sides of America's political aisle in hock to America's gun-owners and their perverse reading of America's 2nd amendment which they say guarantees the rights of people to own assault weapons like the AR-15.
So President Trump talks about the shooter's mental problems….soon, the NRA will repeat its claim that if only the teachers in the school were armed they might have been able to save lives.
On and on it goes….and with school shootings happening every other day in America….there will be another awful one along soon.
SOC