The Newtown school shootings have revived debate in the US media about gun control - the same debate that raged, for a while, after previous atrocities such as Columbine and Virginia Tech.
Having watched the same debate, over and over for more than half a century, I wish that our British friends would make a firm and lasting decision, one way or the other, and then work hard in light of whichever way it goes to do what is best for Britain, Europe, and transatlantic ties.
It's hard to see that a rational approach to these problems will come from the government, when in the same debate that promised protection for homosexual people from incendiary speech, other clauses were hailed in the Commons as tackling "perverts" and "degenerates" and seeking to jail sadomasochists merely for photographing their love lives.
In the same debate, George Galloway "will not apologise" for being a straight white man and rails against "rightwing Ed Miliband".
In the same debate, George Osborne was mocked by Labour for claiming the government's £130m deal with Google was a "major success" after No 10 failed to show similar enthusiasm.
Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, jabbed at Mr. Romney's health care credentials in the same debate, stating that "I was always for having the government out of the health care business and for a bottom-up, consumer-driven health care, which is different than Governor Romney and some of the other people on this panel".
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the same debate that there was a need for member states to "share refugees geographically".
I remember being in this same debate in 1988, when we called for our party's platform to include "mutual recognition, territorial compromise, and self-determination for both peoples".
For them this echoes the same debate that surrounds the wearing of the Muslim niqab.
The proposal to abolish tax privileges for foreigners is part of the same debate.
