This was the year of the war against children. I live not that far from Newtown, Connecticut, so the small-town scenery of our freshest butchery, executed by someone who was himself not much beyond childhood years, is my back yard: picket fences, intensively tended lawns, a plethora of churches and those schools with their locker-lined polished corridors and the smell of cafeteria pizza. Since Columbine we have wearily come to expect that when carnage erupts, it will do so in the habitat of American domesticity – a shopping mall, a movie theatre, a college and, over and over again, a school. If you live outside the US and do not belong to a nation where there are more guns than people, you may just shrug this off as a peculiarly American blight.
2012年是对儿童们开战的一年。我住的地方离康涅狄格州的纽敦市不太远，因此这个刚刚发生血案——行凶者本人也才成年不久——的小城的种种场景对我来说就像我家后院：尖桩篱栅、细心照料的草坪、遍地的教堂，还有那些在擦得光亮的走廊两边摆满储物柜、楼道里充斥着自助食堂比萨饼味的中小学。自科伦拜(Columbine)惨案以来，我们对于发生在美国各种日常生活场所——商场、影院、大学尤其是中小学校——的屠杀已经见怪不怪了。如果你居住在美国以外，而你的国家又不像美国这样枪支比人口还多，你也许会把这个问题当成是独特的美国病而置之不理。