I am an education writer. I write about children and their schools. I write about curriculum, class size, facilities, teachers' unions, school board politics, budgets, principal training and other areas of critical importance to children and their future.

But really, student massacres trump everything, don't they?

How is it remotely possible to have a productive discussion about education issues like funding when students get picked off like fish in a barrel every few years?

Coupling easy access to guns with the devastating effects of anger, aimlessness and neglect that ravage too many of our children means that madness and mayhem can strike anywhere.

In 2001, after the local Santana High School shootings, Bill Berrier, former superintendent of North County's San Dieguito Union High School District, expressed concern about the availability of guns. "We've had kids bring guns to school, and we have expelled kids with guns," he told me, chillingly.

As we face yet another school tragedy of ghastly proportions, we can expect the usual apoplectic reactions from those who think owning guns is a God-given right.

We've heard it before -- guns don't kill people; people kill people.

And here's the corollary -- people can't kill people in such horrific numbers without the help of guns.

After the Virginia Tech killings, the National Rifle Association ("from my cold dead hands") was asked for a statement. Spokespersons said, predictably, that they are so sorry.

But they are not sorry. If they were truly sorry, they would destroy their weapons, urge everyone else to do the same, and rend their clothes in utter despair over what their misguided ideals have wrought.

They would shed copious, remorseful tears of anguish over their delusional interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant by the right to bear arms.

Much has been made about where the killer got his guns. Honestly, the question is ludicrous. He could have bought them anywhere. It's as easy as buying deodorant from a drugstore.

It's a buffetlike array of choices for the gun-loving folk -- a veritable arsenal fit for an army that any maniacal lunatic can easily obtain.

The Crossroads of the West Gun Show, which organizers proudly claim attracted more than 400,000 customers in 2006, comes to the Del Mar Fairgrounds five or six times a year. Crossroads promises exhibitors "an intensive multimedia advertising campaign guaranteed to bring thousands of buyers to your tables."

Ironically, exhibitors are not allowed to sell food or candy without prior approval from the show manager. But a terrifying assortment of guns and ammunition? No problem.

When gun dealers say they regret that guns bought from them were used to kill people, as in the case of Virginia Tech, it sounds slightly disingenuous. We are left to wonder what they thought the guns would be used for. Paperweights?

The remarkable argument that this could have been prevented had students been allowed to carry guns on campus is a preposterous, wild-eyed extension of the paranoid attitudes that got us into this mess in the first place.

President Bush has expressed his sorrow and outrage but will continue to support the radical view that everyone should be able to buy a gun -- anytime, anywhere and in any quantity, with minimal restrictions.

This glorification of a lawless, Wild Wild West mentality reflects our oh-so-principled president's yee-haw philosophy of bring-it-on street warfare.

Every generation, we renew our promise to the children of this country, the offspring of the American ideals of freedom and liberty. We grant them the right to life, equality and justice. We promise them self-determination and the opportunity to become anything they dream to be.

And the rest of the promise? We will protect you, we will defend you when you are judged unfairly, we will stand by your side when injustice occurs.

Can there be any greater injustice than being shot in a college classroom by a wanton killer who doesn't even know your name?

The fault for this deplorable condition of society rests solely in the hands of those whom I call accomplices, those who holler on behalf of the rights of any homicidal nutcase to purchase a gun and use it. Sorry, but you can't advocate that anyone can buy a gun of any kind at any time and not take some responsibility when someone actually does.

Until we challenge powerful gun lobbyists and spineless politicians who have the authority but lack the will to pass meaningful gun-control legislation, nothing will change.

Meanwhile, we will express our indignation and horror, but eventually everything will die down (so to speak), and we will quietly go about our business.

And I will go back to debating the merits of charter schools, whether students should be allowed to procure sodas on campus, the benefits of P.E. and art, test scores and other really important issues that we preoccupy ourselves with until more children are slaughtered.

And the cycle begins again.

Marsha Sutton is a Del Mar-based freelance writer who has covered education and children's issues in San Diego County for the past 10 years.