Re: not allowed access to firearms
I like your posting... it contacts on what is really the problem (though who am I to suggest I even understand the problem well enough to know what it is)... haha I'm a poster on The Reg... therefore I'm an expert on everything in my own mind... so bare with me.
Wait... the same thing which makes me feel as if I should post here on this topic... this feeling of expertise of some type... this feeling I have that I should add my two cents and be part of this battle. This is something close to the problem.
Let's be fair, you said that American's have a different set of values that the British or well anywhere else in the world. I have spent much time in America (as I am from there and have spent time in 42 states) as well as spending a few weeks in England.. London specifically which obviously makes me an expert on everything British... and I live in Norway now for 17 years.
England and Norway have a single cultural difference which makes a gigantic advantage over America. The mass population of the U.S. (myself included) are descendants of "The crap from the bottom of the barrel" that entered the U.S. through Ellis Island fleeing from bad situations everywhere. Landing in America to feel like they're entitled to something better than before and having been for many years earlier the underdog... the weak... the people unable to accomplish any greatness in their homes, but now have become great by joining a club made up of "The other crap from the bottoms of the barrels in other countries"
Many many many Americans are descendants of each countries religious outcasts... people who fled their countries because they believed the right way to pray to their god was wearing a hat with a flat top instead of a round one. People who believed their messiah was white instead of brown. People who made religion such an incredibly important part of their lives that they fled their home and ran off somewhere they could build their churches and not be infected or inflicted by the heathens. Did they build schools? Hell no! Who needs a school if we have a church?
We Americans have this in-built obsessive need to always believe people want to take what we have. We know we wouldn't steal from our neighbor, but we're sure our neighbor would steal from us because they weren't raised as well as we are. We have values and we're right. Oh, those neighbors aren't so bad in a kind of uncivilized way, but you know how it is, not everyone had our benefits growing up. Our entire country is populated by people who think they're special and better than each other. They preach competition in all things... not just when watching uneducated boys in shorts kicking balls around for millions of dollars. They compete on everything and are sure that everyone must want what they have.
It's amazing how most people I've heard that have a gun in case someone breaks into their house to rape their wife or daughter have the ugliest wives and daughters I've ever seen.
In the end, the non-American culture regarding gun ownership is much better and much more mature because :
a) Americans are the only people on earth who are so hell bent on everyone wanting what they have that they feel an irrational need to arm themselves to protected it... eventually extending this desperate fear of "they're coming to take my stuff" to a freakish belief that their most valuable possessions requiring protection are their own guns and rights to hold them.
b) Americans are the only society on earth where gun owners are strongly opposed to proper training of how to own and manage guns. For example, here in Norway, people with guns in their houses are required to store their ammunition separate from the firearm itself. That means no round in the chamber. The bullets are locked in a safe. Americans all seem to believe that if a highly alert, armed burglar were climbing though their bedroom window, they could wake up, aim, shoot and actually hit something in a few seconds. They need to have a loaded weapon with the safety off one each side of the bed and one under the pillow. These people preach how they have freedom and liberty and yet they live in such utter fear that they will forfeit their own liberties to be armed at all times to feel safe and free.
American gun owners actively fight any suggestion that people should have to take proper training to learn how be mature responsible gun owners. These courses aren't the ones run by the redneck in the shop selling assault rifles with bayonets for slicing onions while camping. I'm talking about courses run by military professionals or police professionals who focus on how to manage a situation so a gun doesn't need to be fired instead of teaching under what conditions you can legally kill someone.
It'll be 500 years and many generations before Americans can start to own guns responsibly. To see them more as a tool like a hammer or a screw driver than as a snuggy security blanket. It will take a long time before American's see that a massive chunk of the rest of the world has so much more that they do that while we were busy bickering little little kids thinking someone wants to steal my toy... those other kids got better toys and just stopped looking at us other than to laugh.
I am extremely happy I left the U.S., there is so much I love about the U.S. but the constant bickering and generally white hat/black hat bullshit is toxic. It's a nice place to visit, but it's so far behind most of the world on most things that it would be like moving from the city to live in a cave to go back there.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
