if yes what should be changed and why
if no, reasons why
from Scotland and have to write about the American constitution in a modern studies essay. need to get primary source info from Americans on their views if the second amendment (sorry the question is a bit vague)
When I worked in Europe, the two things I was asked about the most frequently about America were guns and the death penalty.
Attitudes towards government and guns are very different over there and here. Here are some of the highlights of points I made that Europeans thought made the most sense.
1) Guns are a lot more engrained in our culture historically. By the time guns came to Britain and Europe, you were already largely in towns and the country was not expanding. Sure, there were hunters and sportsmen, but the main populace had no need for guns. Most guns were used for war, which is your primary association with them. Here, we expanded west, which involved hunting, defending ourselves from indians, the French, the Spanish, Mexicans. Guns were far more critical to eating and survival on a wide scale than they ever were in Europe. We passed that on to generations and we still hunt and have a lot more shooting sportsmen.
2) You are a lot more homogenous. People in towns know each other, you have a common background, common attitudes. Someone gets out of line and commits crimes, you are a lot more likely to turn them in. Crime rates are lower. Here, there are a lot of groups and some are reasonably a threat. We are also not as dense and there are Mexican drug cartels, gangs and gangsters on a far wider basis than you have. Note as Europe is becoming more diverse, those areas are also increasing violence. I am not saying the diversity is bad, but I'm saying there is bad with the good.
3) You view your governments more trustingly than we do. Some of that is that we can view our governments as the threat, as they were in Ruby Ridge and Waco and as the IRS and DOJ in the war on drugs are. But some of that also is we don't expect our government to protect us as much. They come and draw lines around the body and ask a few questions to see if they can figure out who did it. You call them here and say you are being threatened, they pretty much tell you to call back when you have been killed.
4) It's a lot harder to keep guns here from bad buys. Our borders are long, we are flanked on the south by the third world and we are a lot less densely populated. And our citizens are not nearly as likely to turn people in for possession of a gun.
If you want to understand it, you can't explain it in your culture, you have to explain it in ours. The reality is guns are not going away from bad guys. All gun laws do is keep them from honest citizens who want to protect themselves. We follow the law, the bad guys don't.
