The love of guns in the United States has been well documented, as have multiple mass shootings across the country such as those in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown, and Virginia. The ease of access to guns in American society comes at a shocking cost.
As of September 2016, almost 11,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence. Despite this high death toll, mass shootings in America show no sign of disappearing.
The Stateside obsession with guns can appear baffling to UK observers unfamiliar with its origins. So just how did this gun culture become so deep-rooted in the American psyche?
BBC source: Why Are Americans so Obsessed with Guns?
Wikipedia: Gun politics in the United States
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @07:28AM
Oh, come now. I expect much better than this sort of facile (and erroneous) analysis from a reader of SN. Do I really need to rehearse one more time his public statements about Mexicans, specifically, and minorities more generally? [huffingtonpost.com] Or his blanket proposal to deny approximately a fourth of the world's population their basic human rights? [cbsnews.com] Well, OK, he only wants to deny First Amendment rights to Muslims living inside the borders of the USA. But that is a rather Earth-shattering departure from the ideals that our nation's leaders have touted since before I was born that the First Amendment is considered sacred for all Americans and that we would champion basic human rights for everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, wouldn't you say? This goes far, far beyond mere "concern over illegal immigration or islamic extremism". Yes, this is bigotry and xenophobia we are talking about here.