Margarita: It is innate in permissiveness that one permits others to differ. Thus if the Jocks at Columbine were properly socialised to recognise a permissive society that socialisation would have prevented their victimisation of the Geeks - prevented the same sort of high-school social stratification which many (I think)of us non-Americans find so alarming in much USTV we see. Rather (gosh, on this site I seem to find myself writing American almost by instinct) it is the small-town insistence on sameness and intolerance of difference which leads to the treating of a minority as underdogs - almost outlaws - to be persecuted with impunity, indeed for that persecution to be approved and treated as if it presenves and staabilises society. Hence the recent small-town homophobic murder, and the situation portrayed in the Ode to Billy Joe (as I recollect, a vulnerable teenager being so terrified of the potential small-town condemnation of an isolated homosexual act that he committed suicide). These victims are, or feel, powerless in present societies to achive redress for the injustices piled upon them. Thus they turn to violence against themselves or others. Fix the alienation and you solve not only many gun deaths but also many other deaths.

Llanfair: You remember a different Wales to the one reported by HTV, for whom I used to do some work, and a different one from the Wales where a schoolfriend of mine later had a farm (near Lampeter). In the former the Cardiff gangs routinely go armed. In the latter every Landrover carried several shotguns (some over-and-under pump actions) and most farmers one met out walking carried a twelve bore and at least some swan shot cartridges. Some were pointed at my friend when he showed interest in local farmers' daughters!

BobS: perhaps you have put your finger on it. The genetic imperative compels us to seek genetic survival. That means, in the ultimate solution, killing those who would prevent our gene pool continuing. If that's a desing flaw, and you eliminate it then we will be wiped out by the first competitor that comes along. How does it go? In a closed ecosystem with one dominant predator, if you introduce a superior predator, the former dominant predator will become extinct.