The underlined is wrong. Centuries of warfare between frontiersmen & the "earlier settlers" (indians) is in no way equitable to being kicked out of a saloon for being a greasy wop. It's not the same.

The underlined is not wrong and your example is just relative to its time period that is all. Modern immigrants have faced their own issues, just because they didn't face getting stuck with a load of arrows, doesn't mean they didn't have it just as hard. The only type of easy immigration, is when somebody goes to a guaranteed job with decent conditions or at least has the chance of attaining that. Any immigrant that doesn't qualify for that, is going to have it hard unless they are facing persecution in their in their own country.

Now you are beginnig to sound like Bill the Butcher from Streets of New York.

The Chinese who came over during the Gold Rush were kicked out of the country. The Irish suffered many hardships as new immigrants to America, what they faced in Ireland was persecution and starvation. There was a strong Anti-Italian sentiment in the US and many left for Canada and Brazil. Each group (Indians, Pilgrims, Squatters, post Civil War immigrants etc etc) has their own story of hardships, each had a different set of circumstances. I don't see it as who faced more or less persecution.

The **** are you talking about? The Crimean War? Germany's wars of unification and almost constantly fighting with France? Napoleon? The French Revolution? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Europe's countries have pretty much constantly been at war with each other until the last half century. I might also add that the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 were about fighting European colonialism and aggression, so I think you get the blame for those as well.

So, WWII doesn't count? That's bull****. It was still an extension of Europe's imperialism, and along with WWI put any war we ever started to shame with a nail-spiked bat to the face.

Bull. ****. You had peace after WWII because your countries were too ravaged to defend your imperialist empires. Which didn't stop them from trying. France's war in Vietnam ring a bell?

Yeah, we have now filled your place and do what you used to do. You don't get credit for that.

What I'm talking about is that these wars were part and parcel of European culture and had been fought over several centuries and were very much part of the European identity, therefore European society was accustomed to fighting these wars. The USA as a country has had far less time to absorb those wars.

It doesn't count if we're talking about imperialism as being the major cause. Facism, Nazism and Communism are different concepts to imperialism and were the major causes of WWII, far more so than imperialism ever was, as far as the European powers go.

France's war in Vietnam is a bad example, as it was already part of French Indochina and the French were just trying like the British to hold onto their existing colonies before giving up on them.

You're welcome.

Awful shootings, but definitely not because of the gun laws.

If it's not the guns then what is it? The country's dodgy history perhaps? Their adoption of classic liberalism? A melting pot of too many cultures in the gene pool? The glamorization of violence in film? A lack of Education? The insular/sheltered feel of the people? The stress of being in such a developed country? A bit of everything I've put above or something else completely different or none of these things at all?

Unknown Soldier, it might be very well a mixture of all that and much more. I come from a relatively small country where these incidents rarely (actually, I haven't really ever heard of any!) happen. One has to understand that the US is a huge country. It's almost the size of Europe, and Europe is not just one country. These things are bound to occur in a country that big. It's not normal, but it isn't all that surprising. Anyway, look at Canada and their gun laws. They're doing all right with them, right?

Some good points there, small countys are the same in most places and relatively violence free, which makes the Conneticut shooting more surprising, because isn't Conneticut a relatively violence free region?

If that's the case concerning Europe's and the USA's size, why do we not have the same level of violence as you do? Is it because we don't have the same amount of guns?

Sorry, but I think you may have misinterpreted what I said. I'm European and not exactly sure where you're from now, so I can't answer your question. But I'm guessing you're European too, your location being London, and your nickname being a famous Finnish book?