This is about the strange phenomenon of gun laws and usage in the United States. As I see it they are trapped by their own history and traditions. In fact, we are all to some extent trapped by the past of our particular group or nation. The USA story goes something like this.
During the US revolutionary war of independence against England (which ended in 1783), it was clear to them that the reason that they won this war against such a political power as England was because the American citizens had organized themselves into armed militias. They obviously thought that since they gained freedom (from England) in this way, that it was important enough to put this fact into the US constitution. So the second amendment was passed, and it reads " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." You can see that the newly independent country of the USA was getting itself ready, if England or any other nation were to try to take their new found freedom away.
That very briefly is the background to the problem. There are at least two problems with this 2nd amendment.
The first is that since it is an amendment to the US constitution it is very hard to change it. To change or create an amendment to the US constitution requires that 2/3 of all the 50 states, or 2/3 of both houses of Congress, must agree to the change. This makes it almost impossible to change the second amendment or in fact any amendment to the constitution.
The second and bigger problem is that historically the cultural setting of the USA has changed dramatically. When the amendment was passed the USA was largely rural and the guns that they were talking about were long bore rifles that were often musket loaded, one shot at a time. Now the USA is largely urban in which people live very closely packed together. And to make things worse they now have multiple firing hand guns and even military style semi-automatic machine guns.
It is easy to see how explosive things have become. They now have an out of date 2nd amendment and a modern urban setting, with I might add lots of returned soldiers and a fair number of mental problems. Now we in Canada have many of the same problems as urban USA, except we do not have a dreadful 2nd amendment to make the whole situation so much worse. If you Google you can find a chart of the deaths by firearms in the USA compared to all other industrialized countries. The difference of the USA with all other countries is astounding and shocking.
Finally, one needs to add the role of the National Rifle Association (NRA). They support the proliferation of guns. They say the only way to be safe is for all the good people to have guns so that they can fight back when the bad people attack them with guns. The only problem is that all the statistics show that this method does not work. Underneath it all is the old profit motive. Gun manufacturers favour the present system, and the USA is the largest manufacturer of firearms of all kinds in the world.
I know it is baffling. When I go to the States, most of my relatives are against the present system. Some however, favour it. When you talk with them you soon see that they are fixed in their ways. When you cite the experience and statistics of other industrialized countries they say, "Well, we have a different cultural attitude to guns here". They sure do!
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