No one is talking about eliminating violent crimes and you know it. Gun control and cultural differences go hand in hand. While you're working on solving a problem that you could never solve, people are being killed - and you have the means to physically prevent a lot of that from happening.
You keep saying that, but it simply isn't true. Even if you could magic away the existing gun supply in the US, they'd just pour in across the Mexican borders. It would be the best gift anyone has ever given the Mexican cartels.
[quoteI'll take that as a no.[/quote]
Given how many governments just about every western Europen country has gone through in the past 200 years, its a bit hard to narrow it down.
What does the past matter now? People are dying NOW.
That same attitutde is why Japanese Americans got internned during WWII just for being of Japanese decent. Advanced societies don't succumb to knee jerk reactions.
The reason we're so far ahead of you today, is that we've been able to progress.
Except that you're really not ahead of us today. Western Europe's social system is crumbling under back breaking debt from the social promises you think everyone is entitled too. We certainly have issues there, but I'd take ours over yours any day of the week.
The Constitution was great when it was formed - and the core is still solid. But if you refuse to change it out of pride or tradition, you're only holding yourself back.
The right to bear arms is part of that core. We don't refuse to change it, we change it when it is necessary. As horrible as this tradegy is, even if you total up all the school shootings that have ever occured in American history, the death toll is less than the number of people that die in one year in the state of Texas in highway accidents. To the individuals directly affected, it is obviously a horrible, unfathomable tradegy, but statistically, its not even a blip.
Yes, it's cultural - and that's what I'm proposing you change. We're a less violent culture, and there are many reasons for that. One reason is that we don't have guns as an integral part of our culture, and another reason is that we don't let people suffer in poverty.
One can own guns and not be violent. As for poverty rates, umm, yes you do. Poverty rates vary from 10-23% (
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102640.htm).
No, because I'm not talking about all of western Europe. We don't have a shared constitution or shared background. We're all individual countries with an invididual history. You can't lump us together - even if it makes it easier for you to dismiss the good parts of us.
The point is that what works in a small country such as Denmark doesn't necessarily work in a large country like the US. Just as the countries of Europe have individual histories and cultures, so does the United States. As someone who grew up in Texas, I can tell you that moving to New York was as much of a shock as if I had moved to another country in many ways.
You sound like a fanatic here. You sound like a religious nut holding on to the Bible. If you really think you understand progress in every European country and you can proclaim it all as inferior to what has happened over the past 50 years in the US - then you're being delusional.
No more delusional than you thinking you can understand the culture and problems of the United States.
