Oh goody!
Firearms debate! Firearms debate!
Massive European/American divide!
One side essentially not understanding what the other is saying and vica-versa, just like the death penalty debate.
These debates are REAL doodies... can't think why I didn't try to start one earlier, so thanks Haereticus.
Mark you, as the gun debate typically follows the same course as a piano being chucked out of a window, we could just be wise and say nothing...
... aw, NADS to that!
Basically the Europeans will discuss the huge number of people of all ages killed by guns in the USA every year, the accidental deaths, how one's own gun is statistically quite likely to be used on you, or by you on a family member, accidentally or deliberately, about the the 'snap' killings that would probably not have happened without a gun (stabbing someone to death is far harder to do, psychologically speaking, in terms of sticking the knife in to warm moving flesh, than pulling a trigger at a distance), the easy and free availability of guns to criminals, how suicide is really easy when everyone has a gun, how the defence that guns are needed to resist despotic governments arguement is a crock of shit, as Eastern Europe seemed to do pretty well rebelling against Communism with very low levels of gun ownership, how the Ammendment giving the right to bear arms was framed in a frontier society with no police force, and therefore, as an Ammendment itself is probably due for another Ammedment to bring it up to the 21st or even the 20th Century, how the number of guns in a society is linked to the number of gun deaths in a society, but how discussing it is utterly futile, as there are so many guns in the USA there is effectively nothing that can be done to resolve the situation, especially since sending the army door-to-door to collect them (the only viable way to get them) would just make the NRA come in its pants and tell everyone how right they were all along saying you needed guns to resist despotic governments.
The Americans, essentially, will say they like having guns, how their daddy had a gun, how everyone has guns where they are from, how low crime is where they are, how important hunting is to their way of life, how it's a Constitutional right (more unbreakable than a Biblical commandment apparently, and never ever suggest that it might be outmoded and irrelevant), and get increasingly irate as they feel their rights to have guns are being attacked, and getting rid of guns would result in a huge crime wave, as only criminals would have guns, and they even utter on occasion the immortal 'the only way they'll get my gun away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands' line.
The Europeans think the Americans are gun obsessed yahoos with no real idea about how to stop people getting shot, trapped in a violent gun-glorifying, gun-filled society from which they could not escape if they wanted to.
The Americans think that the Europeans are soft, liberal glasses of water, who would have been in trouble if it hadn't been for the US in WWII (that ALWAYS comes up), and who have the cheek to attack America when they have more than enough problems of their own to sort out.
And, as everyone cannot really understand the opposite sides' point of view, everyone is convinced their opinion is right.
But, more, much more than this, I think there is no way the anti-gun lobby can win the debate.
After all, they don't have any guns, do they?
Debators ready?
On your marks, get set, go!
