[Jesse Anger]

Ok,

It's my fault for not looking into the site first, I read the article and looked up Niall Bradley, he seemed alright as far as I could tell. I'm not down with VT and I don't co-sign any of their racist bullshit. I'm sorry if anyone was offended.

J

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Jesse Anger

Ok,

It's my fault for not looking into the site first, I read the article and looked up Niall Bradley, he seemed alright as far as I could tell. I'm not down with VT and I don't co-sign any of their racist bullshit. I'm sorry if anyone was offended.

J

No worries, Jesse. I didn't know who the guy was myself -- a lesson learned, by both of us. If creepy people couldn't appear at least momentarily plausible, they'd never get anywhere, would they?

Best,

Ed

[John Whitworth]

I do not think there are more seriously deranged and racist people in the USA than in Europe. We have plenty of nutters over on this side - possibly the entire population of Albania for a start. And as for GB, try the Spectator websites, plenty of right wing nutters there. As for left wing nutters, we probably lead the world.

[Gregory Dowling]

Maybe you're right, John. But very few of ours have guns (not so sure of Albania).

[Rory Waterman]

Oh John, sure. We have our share of thugs and whatnot too. And when a man in a pub momentarily loses his senses, or whatever, the worst he can dish out is fist or a pool cue in the gob, not a bullet.

[John Whitworth]

What you both say is true of here, though not, I think, Albania. What I was commenting on was a general breast-beating about American people which seems to me quite uncalled for. Of course a change in the gun-laws will make bugger all difference with three hundred million in circulation. For myself I'd ditch the American constitution and start again, but I can see that wouldn't answer either.

So the fault, as I see it, is in the constitution.

I think I'd rather live in the USA than any European country - except for Ireland and Italy that is. And surely EVERYBODY would like to live in Italy. Such a pity they don't have cricket.

[Rory Waterman]

It worked in Australia. You'd need to have a system whereby currently owned weapons are declared illegal and are bought back to be destroyed - which I think is what happened there. It never will happen in the US, though, because there are too many millions and millions of voting gun-adorers and they're not declining in number. And I don't see any such breast-beating about the American people - which would be especially misplaced in a thread about gun massacres, even if it happened to be a thread started by one such gun-toting American at least partly in order to extol the virtues of gun ownership. Tim, for example, is a kind and wonderful man, but I find his attitude towards guns utterly bewildering. There are lots of people with very similar or identical views in the US, quite obviously, and I think they would feel very lonely living in almost any other country on the planet where people do not share and can't entertain their views. I think it is fair and justified to say that the pervasive attitude towards guns in most of the USA seems manifestly insane and reckless and frightening to almost everyone in this country and probably every other country - and to a sizeable minority of Americans, too. But the gun lobby will go nowhere and next year there'll be 11,000 more - or more than a third as many as there are road traffic deaths in the same (car-loving) country - including twenty or so massacres. It's too fundamentally awful to breastbeat about.

[Rory Waterman]

John, when I lived in the US my in-laws took me to see a cricket match in Hartford, Connecticut. I think they thought I'd love that, but unfortunately I don't share your enthusiasm. I'm with Bill Bryson when it comes to cricket.

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Rory Waterman

I think it is fair and justified to say that the pervasive attitude towards guns in most of the USA seems manifestly insane and reckless and frightening to almost everyone in this country and probably every other country.

I wonder if anyone has written a history of this idea, and how it came about? Other countries have been settled, had internal strife and gone to war since gunpowder was invented, but none of them have as many guns or cling to them as tightly as we do.

For what it's worth, there are some of us here who are all for following Australia's example. Maybe in a couple of decades the tone of our national conversation will change.

Ed

[Gregory Dowling]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

What you both say is true of here, though not, I think, Albania. What I was commenting on was a general breast-beating about American people which seems to me quite uncalled for. Of course a change in the gun-laws will make bugger all difference with three hundred million in circulation. For myself I'd ditch the American constitution and start again, but I can see that wouldn't answer either.

So the fault, as I see it, is in the constitution.

I think I'd rather live in the USA than any European country - except for Ireland and Italy that is. And surely EVERYBODY would like to live in Italy. Such a pity they don't have cricket.

John, you're right. My remark about greater numbers of deranged people in the States was over the top if taken in a general sense. It is specifically on the topic of guns that, as Rory says, the pervasive idea in America seems "manifestly insane and reckless and frightening" to the rest of the world. And, as Rory also says, many of the people who express these ideas seem perfectly normal in other ways.

On a lighter note, you might like to check out this link . Judging from the photo and the names, the team mainly consists of Indians. Not sure where they play in Rome: perhaps the Colosseum?