A Gun is not just for Christmas

I do despair. How can America expect to be taken seriously as the world's peacekeeper when they are completely addicted to guns. Not just any guns, like handguns and rifles, which they could possibly argue were for self protection or hunting. Although I do wonder just how many urban Americans hunt on a regular basis. I also seriously wonder what the stats for the real risk of being attacked in your home are, and whether a gun is more likely to be turned on the householder or family.

The thing I don't get at all is that they own so many automatic & semi-automatic weapons. These are for killing people - end of! It seems to me that there must be something completely deranged about the psyche of people who think that this can ever be justified.

According to the Huffington Post America is top of the rankings for the developed world for gun ownership. Between 270 - 300 million guns are owned in America - 1 for each citizen. 70 - 80 million Americans & 40 - 45% of households have guns, so they must have more than one each - Why? How many times can you shoot someone or something?

80% of gun deaths are in America. America has the truly shocking statistic that 87% of children killed by guns in all the wealthiest nations are American. The recent tragic & horrific events at a school in Newtown are only following an all too familiar pattern.

It's all so horribly predictable I can only conclude that these gun toting Americans have lost all sense of reason. But.....hang on. The firearms industry in America was worth $30 Billion in 2011. 96% of the industry political coffers went to the Republicans. The politicians have been bought - they are simply a commodity in the land of the free & free enterprise.

How free are you if you are afraid of being shot? How free are children to play at home & school. Are the Americans going to live in fortress homes, schools, places of work? Are they going to go to baseball games "tooled up" in case a mass killer targets it? A society can't live like this.

I've travelled a lot in the Middle East & even went to a market in Yemen where automatic weapons were being sold from the back of pickups & virtually every man had one. I always thought that I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I needed to be rescued by a volatile Arab with a gun. Not now. I'd actually be more afraid of gun carrying Americans.