"Less easily quantifiable, but I think there's a cultural difference as well. For any outsider, it's very clear that gun culture is very different in the US versus the rest of your peers. How that manifests itself in this debate is very difficult to parse out, but I would suggest it's an amplifier, rather than a cause."
To get some insight into the gun culture you should read a fabulous book written by former Sec. of the Navy and Virginia Senator Jim Webb. He is an excellent writer and I found insights I was completely ignorant of. It is very illuminating. The book is entitled "Born Fighting: How the Scotch Irish Shaped America". These people emigrated from the Lowlands of Scotland and Northern Ireland as the 4th great wave of immigrants from Europe in the 18th century after centuries of conflict with the British and the Irish Catholics.
It is hard to summarize in a few sentences but Webb describes these as warlike people who argued "with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other". They lived in clans and despised government. They were not welcome in the northern states and gravitated to Appalachia. They were an instinctively warlike people and spread across the south over the next 2 centuries. They have had a disproportionate influence on the military and gun culture throughout the South and eventually the rest of the nation.
As the bumper sticker puts it: My wife yes; my dog maybe; my gun NEVER!
To get some insight into the gun culture you should read a fabulous book written by former Sec. of the Navy and Virginia Senator Jim Webb. He is an excellent writer and I found insights I was completely ignorant of. It is very illuminating. The book is entitled "Born Fighting: How the Scotch Irish Shaped America". These people emigrated from the Lowlands of Scotland and Northern Ireland as the 4th great wave of immigrants from Europe in the 18th century after centuries of conflict with the British and the Irish Catholics.
It is hard to summarize in a few sentences but Webb describes these as warlike people who argued "with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other". They lived in clans and despised government. They were not welcome in the northern states and gravitated to Appalachia. They were an instinctively warlike people and spread across the south over the next 2 centuries. They have had a disproportionate influence on the military and gun culture throughout the South and eventually the rest of the nation.
As the bumper sticker puts it: My wife yes; my dog maybe; my gun NEVER!
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