>>The same careless parenting that leads to children drowning is similar to the careless parenting that leads to young children finding unsecured guns in the home.

Got it. So poor parenting causes kids to find weapons and that's why they go and shoot up schools in the US. But not elsewhere, since shooting up the school is almost completely a US story: see http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html .

The tragedy of little ones drowning is completely different from this. One of my enduring memories was of a 3-year-old who somehow weaseled through a fence and was found in a neighbouring farm's pond. Beautiful child, body alive and breathing but no consciousness 6 months later. May well be in the same state quarter of a century later and I hope his mother may have found some peace in the meantime- but nobody pushed that kid in or shot at him.

Quoting Obama: "Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There's no advanced, developed country on Earth that would put up with this."

Fair?

He carried on "This is becoming the norm, and we take it for granted, in ways that as a parent are terrifying to me."