It seems the polarisation in American politics is going to change. Let's hope for the better. Having lived a time in the US, I know that debate is raw in tooth and claw for many. The problem is that the real problems facing Americans, like the British and others, are never really addressed. Ron Paul has done his best. He's tried telling an eye-blinking Bernanke that printing money is no use. What happens? The computers are still spewing out dollars in some kind of Mary Poppins meets Willie Wonka fantasy. If ever the dollar ceased being a reserve currency.....well, I suppose that's why conspiracy theories are better than reality. Reality hurts.
Guns, guns and more guns. A woman in Tucson thinks that the whole USA should have towns with armed citizenry. It doesn't seem to stop. Jared Loughner was by all accounts a depressed loner who, for everyone who came into contact with him, thought odd at best. Most gave him a wide berth if he hadn't chosen to avoid them himself. Yet this paranoid loner was still capable of walking into a gun shop and purchasing a semi-automatic weapon. The gun shop owner just looked him up on a list and found he wasn't a proscribed person. One has to wonder what sort of character you need to be in order not to get a gun in the USA. If those who are now saying how much they thought was odd about him had been able to say he shouldn't have a gun, we would all be better off. But they weren't called to give character assessments. I'm all in favour of people have the freedom to own guns. But not all and sundry bar a few known hoodlums.
I never wanted a gun or felt the need for a gun in America. I was near a shooting in Atlanta. We've all known of some crazed outburst of gunfire. Is it all necessary? The Constitution is paraded as an excuse for Tea Party types to bristle with bazookas. It was never meant to be an such thing. I doubt the Founding Fathers had any notion that "the right to bear arms" was a right for deluded souls to fire off at them. Benjamin Franklin would be horrified if he thought unstable types could brandish firearms willy-nilly, let alone use them in dastardly circumstances. No, "the right to bear arms" is all about the local citizenry guarding themselves from outside ambush. That, and that alone, is what they meant by the right to bear arms. 240 odd years ago the United States was in need of citizens looking after themselves. In 2010, it should be another matter entirely. The police, the sheriffs, FBI, et al. Can they not cope?
Loughner bought his weapon either to fondle in his bedroom or to create uncivil mayhem. Only a lunatic legislator could gainsay that! I hope attitudes change. If this doesn't do it, well...!! Can anyone say that another loner like Loughner isn't buying such a weapon right now in some gun shop? These guns aren't for hunting. They are not for defence. So what the hell are they for? 
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