American attitudes to guns?

The American attitude in the United States with guns is somewhat bizarre. It isn't that they wish to uphold a constitutional right for the purposes of resisting tyranny. I understand that. And there's nothing wrong with owning a gun for self-defense......IF one lives in a dangerous area, and not tucked away peacefully in the countryside or in the suburbs. If you have to live in Camden, New Jersey or the east side of Detroit, Michigan, it's probably a good idea to arm yourself.

However, Americans seem to really coddle their guns. They have almost a pathological fetish with firearms that seems strikingly odd to anyone outside of the United States. And it's not because there happens to be a lot of guns there. Here in Canada, there are a lot of guns. Finland has lots of guns. Sweden has lots of guns. Norway and Switzerland have lots of guns. But neither here, nor in those European countries is there this fanatism about having them that permeates the United States. Gun owners here are willing to make concessions and they rarely complain when saddled with more gun laws. As long as we're aloud to hunt, we're fairly content. The Swedes like to hunt too, as do the Nordes and Fins. This is part of our culture, our heritage. BUT, guns are not. The rifle is only a means to get a steak onto the barbeque. They come out during hunting season and are put away for the rest of the year and forgotten about. We have some gun enthusiasts here too but they are very few. Nobody I know that owns firearms ever mentions them.

The guns in the United States though are part of their identity. Their is a pride about them, a fervent adoration of them that is strange. Any mention or allusion to a new gun law sets them on fire, even after Newton. I can't explain this. If there were the number of mass shootings in any other developed western nation, as there are in the United States, massive reforms would be signed into law immediately and few would complain. But nothing jars the American gun-owner. It is mysterious.

Americans are also afraid of just about everything. They're afraid of the government, they're afraid of their neighbours, they're afraid of immigrants, they're afraid of drug companies, they're afraid of Muslims, and terrorists, and vaccines, and chem-trails, and asparatame, and flouride, and and on and on and on. They are paranoid beyond description. This might explain in part why they clutch their guns so tightly.

I don't know. All I know is that they've got a real problem. I hope they find solutions.

You're not going to get a rational answer I'm afraid.

They genuinely do not understand that they don't need to live like this. They live in an imagined world where every other person is a potential killer and think they need to defend themselves. It doesn't bother them that there have been dozens of shootings where armed police, security guards, civilians and even military people have been unable to defend themselves.

The only way to stop this is to reduce the number of guns. Other countries have done it and it has worked.

But it won't happen in the US.

Americans have a huge culture of fear. We have been told for years that something is going to come out of the dark and get us while we sleep. By name, one of many of these issues was the cold war. Some mysterious group is going to bomb you and take away your rights when you least expect it. It's just the same reason children have nightmares. The unnamed fear manifests into something. If you prove something harmless, they will move on to something else. After columbine I remember being in school where 5 year olds were being arrested for talking about violence, from TV shows or playing cops and robbers, etc.

First of all the last three shootings that occurred in the US were done with stolen guns. Criminals don't follow the law so that's what makes them criminals. And automatic weapons have been banned in the states for at least 40 years now. I don't care how we appear to the rest of the world. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in the US, 19 of them children under the age of 6 and he never fired a single shot. The Newtown shooter shot and killed his Mother and then took her guns without her legal permission which by definition is stealing.

Come back and compare statistics when you have the same demographics we do.

We'll be glad to ship you large number of inner-city ghetto-bangers from LA, CHicago, Detroit & NYC. Adding those subhumans to your already increasing number of wogs, and see how long your stats stay the same.

I am American. I love having my guns, Many around me depend on them for food, home defense. Most the criminals who kill people get them through the black market. Which means they buy them from people with clean records. For example, someone with a clean record can buy a glock for 500 dollars, sell them for 800, easy money. Killers gonna kill. Guns are amazing, and it would be sad if you've never shot one. ask yourself this, do we blame cars for drunk drivers? no we play the driver, why don't we start blaming the idiot behind the gun...

AND THAT IS NOT TRUE SUNSHINE... we don't all use guns for self defense LOL... more people use them to hunt, which trust me, is more challenging than taking a trip to the store, you lazy *****. I don't think you other countries will ever understand why we love guns. All you guys hear about is murders with them. less than one percent of gun owners are murderers, quit acting like just because they have a gun means they kill...

See this video if you really want to know. It will answer the question of who the biggest murders

really are, that no one talks about.

"Innocents Betrayed - The History of Gun Control"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUmKT43j4Tc

If guns were taken away those figures would quad triple, guns keeps down clubbing, knifing, and chemical weapons, the list go on,

Because guns were band in Britain, the white population has went down to a dangerous level, they have no protection.

wow dude serious Piers Morgan hang up. I see you forgot to mention how many murders were committed by Brits with knives and if you actually go "per capita" rather than just pick on America you'd see you have just as many murders there per year. The fact you AREN'T allowed guns because you can't be trusted with them is besides the point. america is the 3rd most populated country on earth where as UK is far smaller. Ben Franklin who's a Brit I might add, said of guns a couple hundred years ago "he who turns his sword into plow shares will wind up plowing for those that didn't". After centuries of the Catholic Rule of England where you got dipped in boiling oil for no reason at all, or put on the rack or various other atrocities to human beings all allowed by its population BECAUSE it had no weapons or a way to fight back, America was formed to OWN guns to keep our own untrustable government from doing the same to us. You want to boil in oil and simply stand back while they cook your children you are welcome to it. You also negelected to mention the very day of the Newtown killings in Connecticut where 18 children were murdered, in China, one lone man killed a teacher and 22 children with nothing but a knife. Not a machete, not a gun, just a plain simple knife. Altho it did not make major headlines, of course since gun control is the issue they want us to focus on, and nobody cares what goes on in China nor do they want us to care, still you can look it up anywhere of your choice in any search engine "man in china kills students". That should get you started before you open your mouth and begin pointing fingers. 300 million guns in America. 99.9999999999 percent have never fired them on the populace nor would they. However we have a government with TIA agents, with secret societies, who worship demons leading us, who write laws like the NDAA which says they can arrest any of us, for no reason whatsoever, send us all off to a foreign prison with no lawyer, no mail, no phone call and hold us forever with no proof. No trial no way to prove your innocense so no way in hell are you going to put down our guns. What should we fight these maniacs off with instead? Our mouths? Did that work for England under catholic rule while millions upon millions of you were burned at the stake and 99 percent were probably all innocent of the crimes they were murdered for by the church with your blessings as you all publicly watched and cheered. I'll never let a Brit make my moral judgements for me. Nothing against brits personally just in the moral department you are the last people o n earth to point a finger about things you can't even understand. If you don't like our guns, I suggest you stay the heck out of America where you belong, home of the boiling pots to dip people into.