> "won't" implies much too strongly that a fairly common attitude can be extrapolated to apply to a class (the 'country' as a collective noun).

I disagree, at least to the extent that I'm thinking not of "the country as a whole" but of the majority of our state and federal legislators, who would have to pass any new gun laws.

So far, those individuals, as a group, show not the least inclination even to close the gun-show loophole, an incomplete but simple remedy.

For the oft-repeated reasons, their attitude is "No New Gun Laws." Period. It may well be possible to close the loophole one day, but that day seems far off. One reason is that preventing a seemingly unknowable but (some will assert) small number of shootings is a less attractive option politically than to do nothing while saying, "I support the Constitutional rights of responsible citizens to own and bear arms!"

My pessimism comes also from a belief that, with millions of guns in existence, the rate of gun homicides cannot be significantly reduced by any new law that I've heard of that has even the faintest chance of being passed.

But maybe I'm wrong. Any reduction would save some lives at the price of inconveniencing gun dealers and buyers.

Are they ready for that inconvenience? The NRA and plenty of our leaders say no.

And getting back to comparisons with Australia and Canada, my impression is that despite their "frontier heritage," Australians and Canadians have never fixated on firearms (pistols especially) as an emotional symbol as we have. (Consider Oldie's recent post about "roads.") For many Americans, firearms bring pleasantly to mind history, individualism, nonconformity, personal skill and power,the romance of the West, the thrill of the hunt, freedom from tyranny, and the ability to defend oneself and one's family against otherwise unstoppable aggressors.

You don't even have to get Freudian to see what a heady mixture that is! Does it makes sense? It doesn't even have to!