America's deadly devotion to guns

"All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first appear to a stranger to be incomprehensible or puerile," suggested the 19th-century French chronicler Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. "And he is at a loss whether to pity a people who take such arrant trifles in good earnest or to envy that happiness which enables a community to discuss them."
America's deadly devotion to guns | World news | The Guardian


While this might be taking it a bit far, when it comes to guns, I have to agree with Tocqueville. Surely there can be no more nonsensical concept in the modern day, than that citizens should be armed to keep the government in check. The whole point of modern democracy is that people have yielded this right in return for the benefits of a working modern society; otherwise it is mere temporary pause from anarchic feudalism.  How to differentiate between the terrorists, the Timothy McVeigh's etc, and justified cause? Why when have a democracy which can vote out politicians could it ever be the only option? And finally, how could it ever work, since surely no matter how many assault rifles the average joe has, if it ever came to an actual conflict the US army would decimate them. Unless of course private air forces and perhaps nuclear arsenals are formed. Lunacy, utter lunacy.
The only halfway reasonable argument is ironically the ability to defend oneself due to lack of government rather than too much - i.e. when under threat in one's own home, but even then I am convinced that arming both sides increases the risk, since the stakes are so high for the burglar, and the facts are it doesn't work as a deterrant. And of course despite being pragmatically against the interests of the average citizen, the willingness to tolerate as necessary cost the annual collateral damage of dead and disabled kids is disgusting.

Maybe the deep problem is that, as is evidenced by calls for 'small government' and endlessly lower taxes, the US still has trouble as viewing itself as a society at all, an evolved and chosen insitution where government is overall a benefit, and reason to discard the tools of our primitive past. As the article says :
"Ultimately it comes down to whether you trust other people or not," says one gun control activist. "We do, they don't." The ideas that the government might protect you, that the police might come, that if nobody had guns then nobody would need to worry about being shot, are laughed away. "By the time you call the police it could be too late," says Britt, who has never had to pull a gun on anyone but has had to make it clear he might a few times. "All they can do is write the report." When the breakfast is over I tell Britt that I am heading into town to see some people. "Be careful," he says. "St Louis is a very dangerous place."