BS.

They had a revolution with the gun in 1776 and a bloody Civil War 150 years ago, but they are still THE developed democracy and they are not more violent than us - they just have far too easy access to weapons.

The bloody standoff over there is a kid with 3 automatics, over here it is a kid with a knife.

Blaming 'culture' is a cop out.

Indeed, see my post about Walmart above. Access is a massive issue.

So do you reckon this is easy access, culture or both?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-IS6wUyzjA

Wish I could watch youtube at work, looks interesting.

This one is a better production: http://www.theage.com.au/tv/award-winners/show/vanguard/guns-in-america-4201205.html

You can't tell me this type of behaviour and culture is just a question of 'easy access'. Maybe the gun culture has provided the environment where access is easy.

Edited January 8, 201312 yr by maurie

This one is a better production: http://www.theage.com.au/tv/award-winners/show/vanguard/guns-in-america-4201205.html

You can't tell me this type of behaviour and culture is just a question of 'easy access'. Maybe the gun culture has provided the environment where access is easy.

Or maybe easy access causes that culture to arise?

I suspect that both feed off each other, enhancing each other to an obviously detrimental effect.

Let's hope that their government can sort out this mess. Not only would it save lives, but it would demonstrate that the government is capable of reaching a consensus when lives are at stake. The realist in me says that that would be extremely unlikely though.

I don't know if you read my post a few pages back where I spoke about an American friend who kept assault rifles 'in case his neighbour wanted to bulldoze his house'. I lost touch with him years ago, but over new years spoke with some friends who didn't. I turns out he and his house-mate were arrested for growing large amounts of weed. He told my mates that when the police came to the door, he looked over at his rifle and his first thought was 'is this the day I finally shoot a cop?'

I never knew he thought like that. Scares the crap out of me that I knew this person, pretty happy he's no longer in my life.