Opinion: Shootings are a massive wake-up call

In doing so, we might finally have the macro lens on the challenge that faces us all. Young people have to make a life one way or another: the direction this life takes is our responsibility, though it may be a consequence of our abdication of it.

A general contextual point that has been made in a variety of ways concerns the infantilisation of adulthood and the accompanying adulteration - and sexualisation - of childhood. There is then the question of the empowerment of children and young people but the parallel disempowerment of adults. The writer and broadcaster Beatrix Campbell observed that when public space is abandoned by ordinary people, it becomes occupied by lawless masculinity. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spoke not long ago about who is bringing up our children. Everyone is pondering as to where and how 'authority' and guidance can or should be exercised.