US politics is part of my teaching load here in Korea where I live. Inevitably, part of that is the US gun debate. The US fascination with guns bewilders foreigners – and that is putting it mildly.
I have lived outside the US for almost 18 years – in East Asia and Western Europe – and I have discussed guns in America with non-Americans countless times. I am a political scientist by training, so this comes up a lot. Non-Americans are genuinely curious why we allow private fire arm ownership, especially when it so obviously correlates with gun violence. I can say that I have never had a non-American tell me they wished their country had US gun laws. Not once.
I have written a lot on foreign perceptions of US gun ownership on Twitter in the last two days. Try this, this, this, this, and especially this.
In short, there is no other country in the world which approaches guns with the laxity we do. More importantly, no other conservative party in a democracy approaches guns as the Republican party does. Often my foreign students do not even understand how gun ownership is a ‘conservative’ or partisan issue, which I think would surprise a lot of Americans. Conservatives in other countries are not gun fetishists. Even other societies with a frontier tradition – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia – do not have the gun culture we do.
No one else thinks about Mad Max/government collapse scenarios which would require you to be armed for the end times. (Trying to explain American apocalypticism to non-Americans is almost impossible.)
No one else talks about an ‘armed citizenry’ resisting tyranny, like in the movie ‘Amerigeddon.’ In trying to explain this one, my students often can’t even figure out why they would be battling their own democratic government. Good question!
And then they wonder how regular Americans with guns could outshoot the heavily-armed cops or military. They can’t, of course. Another good question!
And very definitely, no one wants armed teachers, metal detectors in schools, open carry, concealed carry, and so on. Hardening schools and letting regular people walk around packing guns strikes non-Americans as insanely dangerous.
Inevitably then, I get three or four papers about guns in my US politics class each year. They are uniformly negative and incredulous. One particular title I remember from years back: ‘The US is a Gun-ocracy.’ That just about sums it up.
Robert E Kelly 
As a Canadian gun owner, I totally agree with you. When I visit gun stores in the States, they think that WE are the crazy ones for NOT wanting to carry. They just don’t get that there are countries where people feel safe enough to NOT be armed and ready to kill at a the slightest provocation.
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If we can’t control guns then we can control ammunition.
No ammunition will be manufactured, nor any products that relates to it will be made for the next three years.
After three years, ammunition will be regulated as to how many each individual may have, and must be signed for.
Ammunition must be controlled as if it were opioids.
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Why would anyone care what someone from another country thinks?
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Why would anyone ever examine themselves from someone else’s perspective?* Fixed it for you.
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You must have missed the part where he’s a political science teacher. It’s his job to discuss this with his students.
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I have lived in Canada for 18 years. I was born in Indiana and there are two types of people from there. Those who realize it’s a hellscape and do every thing in their power to get out and those who don’t realize it’s a hellscape and consistently vote against their own best interests because some cynical Republicans told them to. The most common bumper sticker people sported on their pick up trucks was: “guns god and guts built this country, let’s keep all three.”
You just can’t reason with people who think this way.
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