I have a friend that is now 16.  When he was 15, he father gave him a gun and my friend started open carrying it on his waist, everywhere he went.  No problem with me :)

Some people just don't want freedom and safety, which is fine.  Other thing which I consider a plus, but most people would think is a negative, most people in NH take their garbage to the town dump, or pay someone else to do it.  This might also scare you.  In NH, the state parks are paid for by user fees (only state like that in the US).  In NH, if you are hiking a mountain and get injuried, and it can be proved that you made mistakes, you get a bill for your rescue.  Or how about this, the Governor only serves two years (unlike 4 years in every other state).  Or the State Senators and State Reps only make $100 in salary a year (plus travel expenses).

However, on the videogame front, the world's largest arcade is located in NH, http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/inside-world%E2%80%99s-largest-arcade  Funspot rocks!

And not without reason.  Compared to someone in North Korea, you are free.  Although, I'm not sure if you have as much freedom as someone in China.  But yeah, the least free place in the entire US, is likely more free than some parts of the world so no big deal.

Firstly, I can't believe the stepdad would leave a gun on a table within the kid's reach. Second, why didn't the mum do anything when she saw her daughter wave a gun around? Because she thought it was 'okay' since the daughter's assuming it's for the Wii? Um... what?

Why is a 3 year old playing a shooter game in the first place.

You realize no one can take you seriously when you say things like this right?

The bolded statement is incorrect... at least in part.  I read several British journalism reports that heavily criticized the response *before* it was determined that the man was innocent, and at least one report was specific in mentioning that firearms should not have been used.

So while I agree that many citizens in the UK may not have found the use of firearms offensive, in at least one of the reports I read (and I believe it was two) the author was upset that firearms were used by the police.  If you re-read my post, I said it had the UK media in an uproar over police use of firearms... I should have said it had some of the UK media in an uproar over police use of firearms.  I didn't say it had the UK populous in an uproar.  Sorry, I should have been more specific.  I really didn't read any sort of man-on-the street interviews in those reports, so I would be just guessing at what the average Brit thought of that situation.

As far as having our "guardians/protectors/overseers" with guns, but we cannot have them (I assume this is what you mean), then I guess I have to disagree with you.  The reason our founding fathers in the US put that in place was so that we would not become a helpless, defenseless society subject to the whims of a tyrannical government.  Government of the people, by the people, and for the people is our way.

If instead you mean to say that the UK government is and always will be completely and utterly trustworthy to never abuse power, and that Americans are too lawless or irresponsible to own firearms, then I say that the first is completely wrong and the second is somewhat wrong.  Governments change and can never be trusted with absolute power, while we in America do have issues with much of our culture.

What do you mean?  Also, when did you move to South Korea?

I literally couldn't agree with you any less, but I'm happy to have a mature debate about it.

I think the fact that Americans hide behind guns being 'constitutional' is ridiculous and archaic. Your country bases a fundamental law on a bit of paper that was created 200-odd years ago? Times change. We no longer live in a state of near-anarchy and we don't have to have guns in case the government goes on a bender. The government is there to protect us, to serve us, and yes, occasionally, to control us. That is inevitable. The American populace, like in any other nation, are controlled and manipulated by their government. The US people have guns, but that is still true. Guns haven't changed that - so I don't accept the argument. It isn't like the government will ever become tyrannical, either. We live in a democracy. 2010 is not 1800. Even when modern atrocities happen, guns wouldn't have helped. In Nazi Germany, if the people had had guns, would that have changed things? Not one bit. Hitler manipulated his people and gained popular support through propaganda and campaigning - he was elected legally in 1933. He still had the support of the German people through most of WW2. Guns, in such a situation, are irrelevant.

Your argument about absolute power is wide of the mark. We can, and must, trust that governments will never have absolute power or abuse it. Governments are elected in a modern democratic society. Even if, for some unknown reason, an American or British government was to start behaving tyrannically, the people owning guns would not make the situation better. It would make it much worse. A state of civil war, of lawlessness and 'every-man-for-himself' style uprising would result. There'd be riots against police and armies - we'd look like the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan. The point is though that the government will not behave tyranically, ever. They are elected, not dictators, and laws are in place to control that elected leader's power. In the UK, a law must pass through the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and approval by both of these groups is necessary before it is passed.

Guns are made for one purpose - to kill or injure. The very idea that weapons can be 'defence' is very, well, American. Give people guns, and they will kill others. Hell, the majority of shootings are by family members to each other - proof that they do more harm than good. It is also a fact that gun crime, murder and crime in general are all lower in the UK than the US, even in proportion in terms of population.

America needs to modernise, desperately. It cannot cling to a tatty old document to maintain that guns are lawful. In the UK, we have no constitution. None. We continually review our laws and update them if necessary, and America should ditch its reliance on the constitution and outlaw guns.

You may some interesting points, but the biggest problem is that you're viewing history through a 20th-century "enlightened" lense.  It seems just so obvious to so many people around that world that the way things work right now is modern democracies is the right way to do things.  Unfortunately, it's still a lense, and it's not necessarily any more enlightened that the views of those who lived 200 years ago.  I'm fairly certain they would look at much of what we have accomplished today and be saddened by how much we've lost, particularly in the areas of freedom, with notable exceptions such as the abolishment of slavery, expansion of who has the right to vote, etc.

I think to a large degree we're like frogs in the pot of warming water... our freedoms/liberties are very slowly removed from us, yet most of us never notice because it's done very slowly and we feel no pain.  Let's disallow handguns in New York City and the UK.  See... nothing bad happened.  People are still free.  Let's remove the right to own semi-automatic weapons now.  Still, everyone seems to be free... no harm done.  Let's put security cameras on every street corner in London to monitor the populace to deter crime.  See, crime went down and we're still free... no harm done, no Orwellian 1984-like society.  Now let's install face-recognition software in every sports stadium to make sure terrorists or other violent offenders do not pose a threat.  See, no government abuse of all that tracking information... no harm done.  Everything is still just fine.

If this trend doesn't change over the next 50 years, the society in the UK and other societies around the world may become completely unrecognizable.  One day your grandson may be asking you "But grandfather, how did you feel safe without the authorities knowing where you were or what you were thinking in case someone was considering committing a crime?  I just can't understand how you can have a safe and effective society where people are not monitored electronically for improper or dangerous thoughts, or where they can actually live with any amount of anonymity.  That is so primitive and unenlightened."

The scenario I just described may sound ridiculous and scary to you and me, today, but may not sound ridiculous at all to our children or grandchildren.  After all, the liberties we enjoy today are being *slowly* eroded... as a society we don't feel the pain.  Yet I would look at a society like that and think what a horrible world it would be to live in... we are becoming sheep out to pasture.

And our one hope here in the US is to cling to that crufty old document called the Constitution that tries to prevent that slow erosion.  Owning guns won't stop the erosion if we willingly embrace it and redesign our constitution, but they may allow a revolt if our government official decide that government of the people, by the people, and for the people is no longer the "enlightened" way.  And guns also allow us to defend ourselves instead of relying on the state to do so... oh, how primitive, eh?