""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.""

Which would seem to clash with the stories of range wars, the guerilla activities of Quantrell and "Bloody Bill" Anderson and the need for town tamers such as Hickock, the Earps, Bat Masterson etc. etc, not to mention the "Indian Wars" and the Civil War.

Even allowing that their stories were somewhat exaggerated, the Colt .45 calibre that most of them used was actually named "Peacemaker", which suggests that Boot Hill may have been the most, and in some cases the only, peaceful place in the nineteenth century USA.

It gives me no pleasure at all to point out to people I would classify as friends that the path they are on leads to more, not less, killing of innocents, and I am very far from feeling smug and gleeful when I do so.

I look at their situation from a place which once had the same problems, but where I can now walk the streets at night in safety and often do, and I feel a deep and abiding sadness that they cannot (apparently) see beyond the outdated and outmoded comments of men who could not have foreseen the changes to come, nor the effect of what they chose to enshrine in a document, upon a totally different society 237 years later.

Genuine heartfelt sadness for the innocent victims and the families condemned to mourn their lost ones till the day they die.

Don T.