The terrors of hearth and home

TO be American is to live among guns. They are central to our history, our nightly news, our national mythology. Americans' intimacy with firearms was written into our founding document.

The availability of guns provides a sense of security to those who wield them and of vulnerability to those who don't. Nowhere is this tension more stark than within America's homes, where so much of its lethal violence begins.

In nine of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern American history, the gunmen had records of threatening, stalking or physically abusing loved ones. An analysis by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety found that 54 per cent of mass shootings were connected to family violence. Indeed, most mass shootings - which are often defined as shootings of four or more people - are episodes of domestic violence.