Why so many in the USA have such strange and irrational attitudes towards guns

Dear Joe, The one thing I cannot understand is your position on guns. In Australia, which has relatively tough firearms laws, the homicide rate is about 1.3 per 100,000, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In the United States, the homicide rate is about 5.7 per 100,000, according to the FBI.

Joe Bageant answers a puzzled Aussie, in one of the clearest explanations of this apparently self-destructive streak that I've read/heard.

JOE: To me, even the school shootings and the attending meaningless discussions about gun ownership are a distraction from the real problem. And that problem is a complex one having to do with such things as the decay of our social support network and families, the unacknowledged fear permeating this collapsing empire, the exploitation of the citizenry by telling them there is danger at every turn - Muslims, crime, etc., and the vast unarticulated rage and insecurity that lies just beneath the surface of everyday life here. It's hard to see it if you are a visitor, but even harder to endure if you happen to be a citizen of a country that holds a quarter of the world's prison population, yet represents only six percent of the world's population - a system that teaches us to value punishment and revenge over keeping our common society in good repair.
Read on

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