Scary gun violence should be kept away from children

In the United States, you may not legally purchase alcohol until you are 21 but you can, at age 18, buy a semiautomatic assault rifle.

That is what one 18-year-old in Texas did – and then used the gun to kill 19 children and two adults at a school.

Mass killings at schools and elsewhere seem to be increasing in America – and most ascribe that to the ready availability of firearms.

After a similar school shooting in Scotland in 1986, the UK introduced harsh gun laws … and there has not been a school shooting since.

Watch: Texas school shooting leaves 19 dead

Yet, even as we look at what is happening on the other side of the world, we should not forget that this week, children at a school in Cape Town had to cower for their lives under desks in their classroom while more than 30 shots were fired outside in yet another gang-related firefight.

Inasmuch as the US massacre should create a sense of outrage in that country and force changes to be made so, too, must we sit up and take notice of the war going on in Cape Town.

Action must be taken and our children must not be allowed to suffer as those in Texas did.