We are unlikely to learn much from conversation with each other, we appear to be too close to total agreement. :-)

Personally, I would be a gun owner even if I was not a shooter. I conceive it to be an ethical obligation to exercise the right, much as many people regard voting. That's completely aside from issues of possible necessity.

>>a large number of folks believe that bureacrats in Washington are more worthy of trust than their own neighbors<<

Or, more distressingly, more worthy of trust than they judge themselves to be.

I've had people (who think nothing of guiding two tons of steel machinery through crowded streets) ask me seriously if I didn't fear that sudden insanity would overtake me and firearms would provide the means for mayhem, or perhaps just the ownership of firearms themselves (with the presumed evil demons that the media seems to believe that they contain) would tempt me to start randomly shooting people.

But, the subject under consideration isn't our feelings on the subject, but rather the fact that they don't seem to be shared by most of our cousins across the water with whom we share so much common history, and so many other cultural elements.