And I managed to write all my verbiage without once mentioning the quasi-religious belief in gun ownership.I hadn't considered the modern day implications of the religious beliefs of those early settlers. Very good point.
Alas, this seems to be embedded in the DNA of Americans across the political spectrum.
(Even after loved ones are massacred by a random mentalist with a gun there is no obvious Damascene conversion to gun control.)
I think this says a lot about people and how a belief can trump all reason when it seems that everyone shares that belief. And we are almost all susceptible to this. Fitting in is incredibly moreish.
(And I haven't even mentioned how a whole nation of Europeans became relaxed about disappearances, pogroms and genocide in the 1930s).