Odd set of comments.

On full prisons on sheer numbers you’re right though the UK is no slouch when it comes to packing prisons either, Then again, if China didn’t quickly execute people for a wide range of offenses up to and including looking the wrong way at a party functionary they’d easily win that award.

Your screed gos on to criticize American gun culture, largely handgun culture. For what it’s worth there are about 50 different sets of rules in the United States about who can legally purchase a handgun and whether or not they can carry one. (More if you total up cities that can have their own too.)

Coming from England which has a thriving custom hand and log gun industry that’s a bit rich. And, even with relatively tight handgun ownership rules and registration still has one of the highest per capita possession of the things in the world.

Not all Americans love their handguns in the mad, passionate way you think they do. Most, in fact, loathe them. A small minority make most of the noise. But all agree, however that their Constitution is right on protecting the right to own them. Most of the discussion and argument is around the “a well regulated militia” bit.

And given the UK’s recent record of shooting sprees I’d not point an accusing finger at the US when it comes to that. Or the relative safety of malls in the UK compared to the USA.

I’ll agree with the high murder rate in the United States but like anywhere else it’s rarely stranger murder. It’s most often immediate family or friends and associates. Even in the UK. And while I’m on the topic of high murder rates; until the end of World War I it was England that had the highest murder rate in the world by handgun or any other means.

For what it’s worth I feel safer in New York City than I do in London. I’ve never been mugged in the Big Apple. I wish I could say the same for London.

As for race relations and ethnic tensions I would advise you that England is hardly the place I’d look to for an example of good relations. Let me expand that to most of Europe as well. Just so you don’t feel too, too picked on. At least Americans are struggling to get their relations better. The English seem to be getting much, much worse. (We Canadians are somewhere in the middle. Sometimes perhaps much worse because our racism is expressed quietly or silently though while denying it we act on it.)

Oh, and while I’m on that sort of thing have you lot solved your class problems and wars yet? Please let me know when you have.

“We in the UK are quite lacking in guns and the gun culture.” Bull. Complete, smelly cow patties. Fail. Untrue. A lot of Englishmen want to kid themselves that they have no gun culture but you have a rick history of same. Remember, you’re the lot that invented such “sports” as fox hunting and where the middle class still spends weekends skeet shooting so they can pretend they’re upper class. I’d go on but it’s likely pointless. Of course England has a gun culture, Scotland has a gun culture, Wales has a gun culture. Northern Ireland certainly does.
Oh, and as for numbers you Brits are swimming in firearms. A lot of them in finely crafted wood display cases but you’re still swimming in them. Like most people you just ignore that detail because life has to go on, the mall must be visited and one occasionally has to walk down the street.
Oh, and Canada has at LEAST one gun culture. More than likely two. One for the big three metro areas and one for rural and semi rural areas. The other major cities seem split. BUT, like my relatives in England and Scotland we all know at least one person who legally owns at least one weapon and probably more people we know and where the subject just hasn’t come up.

The only thing funnier than the English is their occasional burst of confused morality. To which I’d add, a close second are the outbursts of superiority and smugness from south of Hardians’s Wall.