Why I Left the U.S. 20 Years Ago and Why I Won't Be Coming Back
I only want to say something about the &quot;gun&quot; subject in the article, since she gives it a prominent place.<p>I&#x27;m from East Germany originally (used to live in the US for a decade). That country was the true successor of Prussia as far as militaristic traditions go. While we did have &quot;gun control&quot;, so no weapons other than air guns at home for most people, shooting was very much part of culture. I was taught marching like a professional soldier as part of school, before job training and studying. Same goes for shooting (small caliber weapons), throwing hand grenades (replicas of hand grenades were used in throwing exercises during normal sports lessons), how to use chemical protection gear and a gas mask, and a lot more.<p>The real difference, and this is my point that I think is usually missed about US gun culture, was that never, ever did it occur to me as a gun-obsessed child that if I had more than two air guns at home, or even for those, <i>that I should ever want to use weapons against my fellow citizens</i>.<p>Weapons were always for only three purposes: sports, hunting (organized and government regulated and controlled, not &quot;for fun&quot;) and military.<p>In all the discussions about US gun culture, to me this is the far larger factor than just having access to guns, that the thought that this could be used in &quot;self defense&quot; against your own people exists. I sure had a lot of &quot;gun fantasies&quot; as a child and would happily have owned a &quot;real&quot; gun, but never, ever would it have occurred to me that I could use this against people, except for in military conflict.<p>You can restrict access all you want, and I&#x27;m sure that will limit some problems, but to me it seems unless there is a much, much deeper change in attitude that will only be a band aid removing the worst symptoms of a problem that goes deeper and is much more broad. This probably cannot be changed though. It&#x27;s an attitude I find in too many movies produced in the US (unless it&#x27;s romance or comedy and has no guns), it&#x27;s all about fighting&#x2F;shooting people.