. The point is that there is something wrong in American society when citizens arm themselves and go kamikaze style into schools or malls. There is something wrong when cops murder suspects for no clear reason.
I would also suggest that guns are not the the issue, though, either.
I've lived all over the world. In countries, like mine, that have firearms? Yep. Those tend to be the weapon of choice.
But in countries where firearms are illegal / difficult to obtain? People simply switch weapons. Usually, my experience is that people use bombs and fire to make statements, knives in their daily lives. Also institutionalized rape, where that's an accepted form of control or retaliation. (
In this country : Bombings here are extremely rare, and arson is almost exclusively in the realm of "firebugs" (thrill seekers) not people using fire strategically. Most people don't even think of knives as a weapon, and rape (while fiendishly difficult to prosecute) is still considered criminal and reprehensible, not accepted as a tool. Even amongst most criminals.
I think what you're driving at, though, are signs of a sick or dying culture? That goes far beyond weapons choice. And one of the classic signs is losing faith in police/judiciary.
Like up here, while there is quite a bit of dissatisfaction with our police and judiciary... We still trust them. We still have faith in our judiciary as a people, even if individuals do not. Not as much faith as up in Canada, and nowhere near as much as in Japan, ...but it's also night and day between here and down in Mexico (where you have to bribe the police at a traffic stop or be thrown in jail &/or raped and thrown in jail, and you never phone the policia in an emergency, because it's only going to take a bad situation and make it worse, and in many places the police are split into as many different factions as the cartels), where kidnapping for ransom is fast becoming an institution, there are open revolts in some parts of the country... or even worse in any of the countries which the entire nation is in active revolt or war.
So, from an on the ground point of view, while the US has problems... They both tend to be fairly isolated, and we tend to make a whole lot of noise about our (rare) problems. It's our institutional problems that we are radio silent about. Except during elections.
Case in point:It's abnormal for police to be killing suspects in this country. If it weren't, it wouldn't be in our news. Yes. There are dozens of these cases. And they make the news. Because that's dozens out of hundreds of thousands. So rather than it being our losing faith in our judiciary... People demanding that they adhere to their own standards, is rather the opposite. We still believe in our police, and our police is predominantly outstanding, and we get furious whenever there seems to be some slipping in those standards. Or we wouldn't be calling them to account.
