Here's a naive question from one in the UK:

Why do so many US citizens - unlike citizens in Europe - feel the need to own a handgun? Is there significantly more danger of being killed or wounded in the US by a criminal? Is the US inherently so more uncivilised and brutal than Europe that handgun ownership is deemed necessary? I don't get that impression, given the number of kindly and sociable and intelligent correspondents I have in the US. Perhaps I'm wrong. I can understand hunting for game (with rifles) as a sport, but why are handguns so essential?

And - let's be honest - why so many rifles? I have a sister in Tucson. She's been there many years. Three years ago, her son (my nephew), who was in his early thirties and who had been bipolar for most of life, went to the closet in his bedroom, took out a rifle left there by his father and killed himself. The odds are that, with his then state of mind, he would probably have found some means or other to take his life - but the rifle made it just that little bit easier for him.

I sometime wonder if the rifle had not been there he might have been alive today - but I'll never know.