Is the USA a mini Somalia?

Do you collect anything? stamps, butterflies, coins? we tend to collect a more functional hobby item.
Firearms are more complicated as are cars if you get into where they came from and what their condition and worth is. Cars may be an easier parallel comparison, discussions about the camshaft lifters fuel etc. can get very involved. People spend years restoring them, and making sure they have the correct bolt, even though they can get one from Home Depot for a dollar. Instead they send to another state and spend $20.00 just to have the original bolt that came with that car.
There is no difference with guns, it depends on how far you want to take your hobby. Do you race your car on the weekends, go to rally’s etc. Then you would see how there is little difference in this sport than others.
People have been using guns since they were invented, like cars. The only difference is that you can't own guns in Britain, and we can, otherwise you wouldn't be asking this question. Obviously when the IRA was busy blowing up half your country a while back, you could have studied the effects of guns even in a population that doesn't allow them. Even though they used more bombs than guns. But if you want to see gangbangers, I can give you a list of places that you can go to in most cities that would accommodate your curiosity for the more extreme action you seem to be missing.
You simply are looking in the wrong places for the type of venue you appear to be interested in. If you let me know the next time you are in the states, I can forward you a list of places near where you are staying, that can guarantee you will see some of the action you are interested in. I just would not go there alone and unarmed if I were you.
Also Firefights are more reserved for battles in Afghanistan or a war zone. Although we do have crime as do you, firefights are rare. Movies are probably a better place to see these things. You own prince Harry was in a few Firefights and did rather well, so it intrigues me that this all seems so foreign to you.
I have heard you have some pretty tough areas in your neck of the woods. Places where a tourist may not wish to wander off on their own, perhaps he might get slashed or even shot with one of those guns you guys don’t carry. As far as threats go, you really should check you statistics with Scotland yard, you will be surprised to see the level of threats made against the UK every day, they just keep things under wraps a bit more than we yanks do.

To the OP, when you were here, did you feel like you were on the streets of Mogadishu?

I would suggest that the circumstances which make Somalia Somalia have little to do with guns, and much to do with poverty, racial strife, and a failure of a nation to take ahold of itself. Guns neither cause nor prevent crime. Crime is a socio-economic problem, not a gun problem.

This leads to the obvious conclusion, that if you did not in fact see blood running in the streets of Denver, that a cultural fascination with guns does not cause violence.

As for background checks preventing weirdos from getting guns, has it prevented gun crime in Britain? Has violent crime gone up or down since your laws locked pretty much everyone out of gun ownership?

Self-defense (and thereby the means to practice it,) is a fundamental human right. It exists whether or not a government allows you to exercise it or not. You have the same rights there which we have here. It is just a difference in how your government chooses to restrict them.

@ Highgate

And you think that we should have the same restrictions that were forced on the people of your country correct?

Some of us like football and can talk incessantly about it. Other are as deeply involved in baseball. Since we don't have cricket, we have to settle for guns.

You guys must not have a NRA-ILA

In the UK owning a firearm is a PRIVILEGE not a RIGHT.

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How very unfortunate.

We retain RIGHTS precisely because our rulers are frightened. Too frightened of a heavily armed populace for them to attempt disarmament of 80+ million American firearm owners and their 300+ million weapons*. This simple reality is the ultimate guarantor of our other legal rights...and our Freedom. By design, the State is incapable of massing the military and police might that would be required to enforce dictatorial powers over the Citizenry.

Which is exactly as it should be and exactly as intended by our founders.

Gun rights in my country are actually on the rebound as average Americans have let their elected representatives know that advancing liberal gun control issues is a sure way to the un-employment line. Americans are pissed off about the encroachment against ownership that was advanced by our socialist clique for a few previous decades.

We've started to do something about it...beginning with re-socializing the premise that the 2nd Amendment means Individuals have the Right to Own and Bear Arms...and that every citizen is ultimately responsible for his own defense. And that guns are inanimate precision tools to be used lawfully and for enjoyment as well as for protection. And that our children will not grow up in a educational vacuum of paranoid fear concerning safe firearms usage. Big Boy Rules. We prefer it that way.

Nowadays, gun control advocacy in the USA has become a political "Third Rail" issue (the kind that will electrocute the career of a politician who unwisely grasps it). Our leaders are windsocks, regardless of their personal feelings on the issue. For the most part, they know which way the current political wind blows...and are beginning to support Gun Rights as never before.

* Those figures are the generally accepted Low Estimate for firearms ownership in my country.

If there's a country that's a mini Somalia, it's England, not the US.

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You beat me to it, Ranger. After the riots they had recently.

For decades GB got away with being holier than thou on crime and public civility - until their demographic and social diversity (in urban areas) started approaching ours.

I suspect, however, that the main purpose of his post was to get a lot of responses. And he is succeeding. It's very doubtful he wants to "understand Americans" or to have anything "clarified." I'm getting the impression he pretty much knows everything he wants to know already.

In Switzerland, more citizens own actual assault rifles then here in the US, they've had a very long history of gun ownership and things are very secure there.

Welcome to to THR, Highgate. Let me echo BenEzra's comments and add a bit to it.

I've often commented that if you want a snapshot of America, stand in the middle of a large shopping mall on Christmas eve. What at first glance seems like chaos, is not. You will see, in most communities, a vast crowd hurrying here and there. There will be tall, medium and short. Fat, medium and skinny. Every color of skin on earth. The cultural leavings of about every place in the world. Male, female. Red heads, brunettes, blondes and a cornucopia of hair color, sometimes on one head, and no hair at all. Beards and clean shaven. Tats and no tats. facial hardware and no hardware at all. In other words, just about every critter on earth.

Now the test: Smile at any one of them and say Merry Christmas and you will get nearly universally a smile and a Merry Christmas in return. That is the real America. The land of the free and the brave and the noble.

We have firearms because our founders knew that it was better for our government to fear the people rather than the people fear the government. So far it's working very well. In other places in the world, change comes by bomb, fire, fear and death. In America change comes at the ballot box. That change can be a pardigm. Watch this November. Another pardigm change is slowly and inexorably occurring.

Freedom is a messy thing. The more free the more inherent the danger. The more inherent the danger, the fresher the wind of freedom. But, freedom also brings peace and contentment. Sometimes it seems like irony, that we must shed our blood for peace and contentment. Nobody ever said that freedom was free.

"Somalia style war zone" would imply a largely disarmed populance caught between various cliques of war lords, the cliques armed often by foreign meddlers via black market proxies.

Locally, a wile back we went about three years between homicides, broken by an unintentional killing as a result of a domestic squabble in an immigrant family.

Recently we did have a drug user commit a murder with a knife then a double murder with a baseball bat. That's the kind of thing that prompts folks to sleep with a pistol in the nightstand.

Plus you can count on a rise in violence coinciding with the "New York boys" (out-of-state crack gangsters) showing up in town.

But Somalia style war zone? No.

It is not a war zone, although with the infiltration of the Mexican drug gangs thru Texas, I expect civilization to go downhill a bit. And I saw on Fox news, that the gangs are moving into Britain and the Continent. Some of your people were in El Paso recently getting their eyes opened on what can happen.

You may need that firearm of yours yet.

Highgate said:

Hmm. Not sure about your wording - but I suppose that I don't really like the idea of people owning guns without a fair deal of checking. There are too many weirdos out there.

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I have seen some others hinting at the core meaning here, but I'll try to make it as clear as possible.
When Americans originally revolted, we became very scared of oppressive government. That is why we chose to not control the right to own peacekeeping tools much. We also believe that "an armed society is a polite society." Compared to the violent crime rates in many places like UK, America is astonishingly low. And the places where it is the highest are usually where guns are the most controlled, like Chicago and New York City.

I went to England once, years ago. As my family and I shopped in Harrods, I dealt with the fact that the store had been car bombed before. It felt so uncomfortable being constantly surveilled by cameras I did not return to England. I wondered if a country's fear of life's dangers and even inanimate objects like guns lead to their willingness to be under the constant eye of their government.

Personally, I'm more comfortable with people who carry guns. I've noticed they are more likely to be honest and accountable. And when things go bad, they are more likely to show up, rather than hide.

I've often commented that if you want a snapshot of America, stand in the middle of a large shopping mall on Christmas eve. What at first glance seems like chaos, is not. You will see, in most communities, a vast crowd hurrying here and there. There will be tall, medium and short. Fat, medium and skinny. Every color of skin on earth. The cultural leavings of about every place in the world. Male, female. Red heads, brunettes, blondes and a cornucopia of hair color, sometimes on one head, and no hair at all. Beards and clean shaven. Tats and no tats. facial hardware and no hardware at all. In other words, just about every critter on earth.

Now the test: Smile at any one of them and say Merry Christmas and you will get nearly universally a smile and a Merry Christmas in return. That is the real America. The land of the free and the brave and the noble.

We have firearms because our founders knew that it was better for our government to fear the people rather than the people fear the government. So far it's working very well. In other places in the world, change comes by bomb, fire, fear and death. In America change comes at the ballot box. That change can be a pardigm. Watch this November. Another pardigm change is slowly and inexorably occurring.

Freedom is a messy thing. The more free the more inherent the danger. The more inherent the danger, the fresher the wind of freedom. But, freedom also brings peace and contentment. Sometimes it seems like irony, that we must shed our blood for peace and contentment. Nobody ever said that freedom was free.

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Very well said grampster, I think that's an excellent post.

Highgate, come on over! Shoot some trap, fire a few rifles. Maybe shoot one of Ohio's monster bucks. You night like it.

Having lived and worked in the UK for ten years I can share this simple observation in the two cultures.
In the UK they are subjects.
In the US we are citizens.
We have the freedom and right to own firearms and do this responsibly.
In the UK it is a privileged to be honored upon those loyal subjects that can be taken away at a whim.

You guys must not have a NRA-ILA

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I'm sure they don't, but they do have an IRA.

Wait...that would make them look like Somalia.....

i love guns i could talk about them all day, argue calibers and barrel lengths and more, but that doesnt make me an average citizen. i live in a rural area and most people i know own some kind of gun either for hunting or skeet shooting or home defense or just because it was dads or grandpas "so we take it out and shoot in once a year."

my opinion is that i have this right to own several guns and the ammunition for them is because when we earned our independence our elected officials had the foresight to protect that right. mostly from fear that our government could eventually end up like the one we had just rejected. and because our current elected officials havent given in to the un yet. hopefully they never do because all hell will break loose if that happens.

as an aside i have a carry permit as do a few of my friends but neither i nor anyone else that i know has ever been in a firefight outside of military service. we carry guns for the same reason we buy health and life insurance or stick a few franklins in the sock drawer. because even though youll probably never need it if you ever do, you will really need it.

Huh. I saw this thread when it had zero posts and passed it by because I was sure it was a troll post. Is the US like Somalia? Seriously?

Hmm. Not sure about your wording - but I suppose that I don't really like the idea of people owning guns without a fair deal of checking. There are too many weirdos out there.

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Well, the 2nd largest black market trade in the world involves arms (drugs are #1). Though I would agree that I'd prefer sick, predatory scumbags to not have guns, it simply isn't gonna happen. Not without massive infringement on the rights of the people by the State, and even then it is doubtful you could ever keep criminals from getting guns or any other weapon. Or preying on innocents.

http://old.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel120501.shtml

Movies are probably a better place to see these things.

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This brings up an interesting point. Unless one has spent a lot of time in another respective country, you are going to probably base your thougths on that country on a lot of stereotypes, many perhaps incorrect. We yanks probably have a lot of odd notions about our British friends on the other side of the pond. The same is true the other way as well.

Probably a lot of people who've never been to the U.S. form their opinions from what they see and hear on TV, online, etc. I get the feeling that many in the UK that have never been here think most of the U.S. is like a giant Die Hard movie. I recall reading comments in The Telegraph (IIRC) after a shooting rampage in the U.S. about being able to walk into any grocery store in America and buy a machine gun ! I almost posted a question asking where these grocery stores are, as I've never seen one .

Lastly, as others mentioned, Americans are generally more distrustful of their government than the citizens of most (if not all) other free nations. It's in our DNA.

Highgate

As a teenager I would sometimes visit Karl Marx's tomb ... it was regularly attacked, burned, blown up etc.

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Now that! sounds like Somalia.