A Non-European Attitude Toward Guns
The patronizing tone of Europeans toward Americans for our stance on gun ownership shines through in a recent BBC article. Many here in the U.S. consider gun ownership not only as a fundamental right but a serious responsibility. Not so in Europe.
Top Gun [a shooting range and gun store in Houston] is the kind of business that simply could not exist in Europe – the staff wear holstered handguns both in the shop and on the shooting range. …
No area of American daily life makes this country feel more foreign to Europeans
I always find it amusing when foreigners appear shocked that the employees of a gun store would be carrying guns. Heck, in Arizona more than 1% of adults have concealed carry permits and open carry is legal and not terribly uncommon, so chances are very good that there are handguns being carried in every store (or other public venue) you visit. You often simply don’t know it because it’s not a problem because law abiding citizens don’t misuse guns.
England really should take notice. According to The Times Online, gun crimes have almost doubled since England banned handgun ownership. And the Dutch Ministry of Justice (Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries, 2001) notes that
Many of the countries with the strictest gun control have the highest rates of violent crime.
Australia and England, which have virtually banned gun ownership, have the highest rates of
robbery, sexual assault, and assault with force of the top 17 industrialized countries.
The author does get one thing right. There are a lot of us who consider restrictive gun regulation as a first step in eroding our rights as Americans. I’ll take the American view of gun ownership any day.