This is where chaps rode into town with guns on their hips.
For it was every American's right to bear arms.
It's in the constitution where the second amendment to that declaration reads "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".
So yesiree.
You want a gun, then you go get one because you have every right, under the eyes of the law apparently, to do so.
There's an odd and unsettling component here and that is that in countries like Mexico and Brazil and other more wild lands (in terms of arguably more massive gun ownership and unpredictable use) there are no school shoot-ups.
It seems to be a terrible US trait and I daresay many folks in that fine land are simply now resigned to such nightmares and step back to concede "well what can you do?"
Sadly they have a point, as there appears to be a huge and effectively influential gun lobby in the US and they are like the very guns they hold in righteous esteem...they are rather powerful.
They also appear to have the ears of quite a swathe of the political crews over that way, because nothing really gets done.
I watched and heard the friends of some of those poor kids who were gunned down in Florida and rather than slip into a maudlin mode I smiled and simply thought "you beauties".
Because they are not going to let this dissolve.
The street marches were sparked and politicians, including the seemingly bewildered President, are being pursued to do something.
The kid who carried out the shooting had a dreadful record of uncertainty and thinly-veiled threat, and it was clear, through his online posts, that he also had an arsenal of weapons which he had managed to collect up...illegally, and in the case of the killing weapon, legally.
Which in itself is quite staggering.
But no one called by wearing a badge and took them off him.
Law change required.
You don't have to break a law before the law should be able to step in.
If you are perceived to be a potential human hazard then you will be visited and whatever required actions taken...along with any firearms found tucked under the bed.
Yep, the guns are already pretty well all out there and I daresay there is a healthy black market operating, so it's the human element that has to be very strictly focused on now.
A case for people who may come across a potential time bomb on two legs to embrace the philosophy of "any doubt...shout".
On a rather more positive note, it was grand to see two great cruise liners call by into Napier last week, bringing wide-eyed people to the eastern seaboard's finest town.
They are wide-eyed because for many it is their first visit here, and it clearly impresses them.
More so given it was the Tuesday when the remnants of Cyclone Gita were supposed to have brought rains and gale force winds this way, according to the forecasts three days earlier.
They got warm winds and moderate breezes that day.
So yep, they were impressed and this situation impresses the local retailers too, in what is effectively the "make hay while the sun shines" segment of the year.
The cool streets of July and August will not see those wide-eyed faces, although I daresay it will continue to see the faces of people seeking money in doorways.
I spotted about five on the day the cruise ship hordes were in town, and I could only smile when one camera-equipped chap with the giveaway cruise-ship passenger ID hanging from his neck, paused and said to one of these early pension seekers "why don't you try singing a song or something".
