We might have expected it in the Bronx or some gang-ridden suburb of Los Angeles but when a monster walked into that school in the small Scottish town of Dunblane this week and tried to kill every pupil in its primary class it was literally beyond comprehension.
Journalists often overstate a case. They use silly words such as 'shock' and 'row' for the most mundane of upsets.
Yet believe me when I say there is a genuine state of shock across the United Kingdom over the shooting of 16 five-and six-year-olds.
The topic on everyone's lips is how could this society have produced such a man as the murderer, Thomas Watt Hamilton.
There is a feeling of anger but it is more than something addressed at Hamilton.
There is almost a feeling of common guilt that this dreadful state of affairs could ever arise. But then how do you manifest collective guilt, how do you indict all of modern society, and how do you turn the clock back to what we assume must have been a kinder age? We know there are times throughout history when men have gone mad.