COMMENT It began like any day in America.

With 10 days to Christmas, people were checking off shopping lists, sprucing and fixing homes and finalising getaway trips. None of the 320 million people across the country knew the horror that was going to be visited on them that morning - none, except one man.

It was around noon when they learnt what he had done, after news coverage of his act brought the first feelings of sickness to the nation’s gut.