For the record and then I'm done with this thread:

"Why such a fuss, in a country where people shooting each other is a normal part of life and death?" People don't normally shoot each other here. Guns are most often used as tools for hunting or target sports. I believe people who carry guns for "self-protection" or stockpile them for the coming Armageddon are a minority of gun owners (although they may own the majority of guns).

I do not believe "that the whole nineteenth century in the USA was punctuated by the sound of private citizens filling each other with lead."

I do not believe "during the Stone Age we ALL went around bashing people over the head with clubs and transfixing them with spears etc."

"Americans are so intent on murdering each other..." Nope, don't believe that.

"Well those are the liberties you hold dear as a nation, so wouldn't a few kids getting their brains blown out be a price worth paying??" Nobody said that.

And I don't believe, "Young children up to the age of eight or so have to be protected from any sort of risk/danger around the home." If I had waited until they were eight, my boys would have been in real danger. They needed to be engaged in modifying their own behavior waaaay before that.

As for, "Guns would have aided in that situation in Boston?" There were plenty of guns there - they didn't help at all.

I don't believe that I live in "a country where people shooting each other is a normal part of life and death"

It saddens me no end that so many people have such a warped view of American life and are so smug and gleeful in expressing their disdain.