"The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to
overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today, she's gonna make them
stay at home
And Daddy doesn't understand it, he always said she was good as
gold
And they can see no reason, 'cos there are no reasons. What
reason do you need to be told?"
He is Sir Bob Geldof these days. But many, many years ago, before raising money for Ethiopian famine relief with Live Aid, before shaving off his nipples as the star of Pink Floyd's The Wall, he was leader of a group called the Boomtown Rats.
And the Rats wrote that song about the true story of a schoolgirl who grabbed a gun and went berserk. When they later asked her why, she replied: "I don't like Mondays..."
While Bill Clinton trotted across Africa in a self-flagellating orgy of remorse over the evils of his country's history of slavery, back in the state of Arkansas - where Clinton ruled as governor before Hillary became the most powerful woman in the world - two schoolboys recreated the nightmare world of the Boomtown Rats.
You have probably heard the story. The two, aged 11 and 13, pulled a fire alarm on March 24, then ambushed classmates and teachers as they filed outside. Body count: four students and one teacher killed; 10 others wounded.
There were a couple of things that happened as a result.
First, the entire town of Jonesboro suddenly discovered religion - they flocked to church in their hundreds turning to their gods for answers (for they could see no reason).
Second, the authorities began to look for ways to try the boys as adults rather than as juveniles - under Arkansas law juveniles can only be held until 18.
And I scanned the news reports on the unfolding saga, searching in vain for a sign that someone, somewhere was going to suggest that maybe, just maybe, possession of such firearms should be outlawed.
I finally found something close to it. Politicians called for a ban on 75-round drums, such as that used in the Jonesboro shooting. The maximum load capacity of such weapons, they said, should be 10 rounds.
And this made me scratch my head, because I don't think I'm particularly stupid and this logic definitely confused me. Help me understand this ...
These kids had many handguns and automatic rifles. How exactly would restricting their load to 10 rounds per rifle have helped prevent this tragedy?
Meanwhile, a lawyer got in on the action. He has been instructed to file a lawsuit on behalf of the family of one of the dead children. And he thought it would be a good idea if gun manufacturers installed trigger locks or "some type of computer chip" to prevent kids firing the weapons.
Presumably, had such a computer chip failed he would still be filing a lawsuit on behalf of the family.
I'm not sure whether or not I support gun control. There's something to be said for the gun lobby's propagandistic slogan: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
The Swiss, for example, have a heavily armed populace, but you don't find their kids making ... well, Swiss cheese out of each other with AK-47s.
But surely for a part of the world where a significant number of people believe that the sun revolves around the earth, that Jesus spoke English, that a Coca-Cola douche will prevent pregnancy and that Kuwait is a democracy, someone would have the courage to say maybe, just maybe, most of us are too stupid to bear the responsibility of keeping automatic weapons at home where our kids can get at them?
(No Marthinus, Kuwait isn't, really.)
Thank God I'm agnostic or perhaps I, too, would be flocking to church in despair.