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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
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Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Guns?
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There's no such thing as an original sin.
-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:09PM
US is now a police state
extensive gun ownership can help prevent the authoritarian boot from reaching your face
On the assumption that the US has extensive gun ownership (which seems fair, given that it's got the highest guns per capita, 50% more than the next country) I would suggest your two statements are incompatible.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 10 2017, @08:07PM
All the apparent incompatibility indicates is that things have not yet gotten bad enough that a violent uprising seems to most to be worth the cost. But note the yet - if there's one thing that history teaches it's that governments almost always trend towards becoming more authoritarian and abusive over time, with periodic uprisings (violent or otherwise) making for occasional large jumps in the other direction.
And many times it's not clear that a non-violent uprising would have been effective - Gandhi was able to organize a massive non-violent protest that became expensive enough to drive the British out of India (after almost a century of subjugation), but could he have realistically done so within the fiercely independent Americas?