Stop Thief! There's Never a Bobby Around When You Need One.

Hey, and welcome back. Got something of a different subject for my rambling today for you.

I was talking with a couple of men over here from merry old England on work visas the other day and we started talking about guns and the difference we Americans and the Brits have in our attitudes towards them. I admitted that I did have a CWP (Concealed Weapons Permit for those new to the term), and they were very interested in the process involved in getting one. Indeed, they were originally under the impression that open carry was legal everywhere in this country and that all one had to do to get a CWP was to apply. Needless to say they were rather surprised to find out that not only was open carry not legal here in South Carolina, but that to get a CWP one had to take a state mandated class and pass a fairly stringent back ground check. They were also rather taken aback when I pointed out that different states had different standards as to what made shooting in self defense justified. One of the examples I gave them was to compare South Carolina with Deleware. Here it's considered self defense if a reasonable person in the same situation would feel that his or her life was in danger, such as a frail 60 year old lady with osteoporosis being threatened by a large, muscular man in his 20's. In Delaware that same lady would have to wait until her attacker had actually made a physical attempt, preferably by shooting at her before she could legal use a gun to defend herself.

But all of that aside, there is a very real difference in the way most Europeans look at any kind of weapon and the way most Americans do. Why is that? I've heard and read lots of different theory's, from social media bias to changing societal mores; but one thing they all seem to ignore is a simple fact of history.

If you look at history as a whole, the fact is that we are a very young country that derived much of our way of looking at things from pioneers pushing into Indian land; often as small groups or single families who then had no one to turn to except themselves when they needed defending. Add in the need to hunt in order to assure enough food, and for most of our history no household outside of major cities lacked at least a rifle. This held true right up to WWII, and in many areas all the way through to Vietnam!

In Europe on the other hand cities and towns are often 1000's of years old with well developed militias and police forces to defend them. As a result no one really needed to be armed except those in the militias or police forces since the early Middle Ages. And back then the average person was under the protection of a local Nobleman, who really didn't want his peasants armed in case they might decide to revolt. In fact, this was true in most of Asia as well. Most modern martial art weapons were derived from farming implements and walking sticks because it was a death sentence for someone who was not of the proper class to be caught with a sword or spear!

So what is my point? Simply that in most of the world people were conditioned for thousands of years that weapons were not something the average person had any need for. As opposed to here in the U.S. of A. where guns were simply a fact of life until very recently, just another tool like a hammer or wrench.  True, trappers and hunters florished the world over; but except for here in the States or places like parts of Africa and the Middle East, they were never really considered part of everyday civiliazation.  Yet I can still remember childhood friends running trapping lines with their fathers, and even today it's not uncommon for people to take the first day of deer season off to go hunting.  Both of these things astonished my new found British friends to no bounds.

No, this little forray into history won't explain all the facts that go into the difference between the way many, if not most, Americans look at guns and the way most Europeans do.  And there's little we can do to completely counteract the portral of Americans as blood thirsty semi-barbarians who would as soon kill each other as not that seems so prevelant in much of the European media.  But I honestly think it's something we need to keep in mind when discussing these different viewpoints, both with those visiting our fair shores and when we go visiting them.

In the meantime, I wish you all the best dear reader; and now that I have my computer repaired, I hope to see you again in this little corner of cyberspace I like to call my own.