Why Yanks love guns -- a British view

Alex Massie, the well-known haggis masticator, is perplexed over why his fellow Brits are perplexed at America's love affair with guns. Alex thinks it has to do with the circumstances of the Founding:

Other developed countries - Canada, Switzerland - also enjoy high rates of gun ownership, yet do not suffer American levels of gun violence. But, rather importantly, neither Canada nor Switzerland was founded at the point of a gun. Timing matters. I'd suggest that had the United States been in a position to declare independence from Britain in 1676 rather than a century later, American culture might be rather different. As it was, the revolutionaries launched their war just as guns became sufficiently reliable and affordable to be everyday purchases for "ordinary" people. Swiss independence, of course, pre-dates the gun while Canadian independence was, generally speaking, a peaceful, negotiated affair rather than the consequence of an armed insurrection.

Read the whole thing. I find it quite plausible. His argument is not necessarily that US laws and attitudes towards guns are a good thing, but rather that American freedom was won and order during the pioneer period was maintained with guns -- IOW, that in American folk memory, the gun is not a symbol of violence and oppression, but of ordered liberty.