People with guns kill people

Just listening to a televised interview in which some clean-cut macho-man general actually said about Americans "i don't think we're a bloodthirsty people" - i'll try to get through this reaction post without foaming at the mouth.. much.

Along with the hispanic side of the western hemisphere, the U.S. began its history with the most notable genocide in the history of the world. It followed this up by becoming the last militaristic imperialist power. It is still the 'civilized' world's leader in incarcerations, executions and military murder on foreign soil. Americans are obsessed with glorifying the hired muscle of various power-structures. Cop dramas, war movies, police procedurals, gangsta-rap, crime novels - yes, this is a culture with murder on its mind. It is a culture continually looking for acceptable motives to kill, maim and torture to the point of semantically redefining the word 'enemy'. This is not anecdotal evidence, but as clear a behavioral pattern as you could want.

And it's not just about killing. This is an over-competitive culture, an aggressive culture, a vicious and amoral one. It's a culture where children's moral development is crippled from grade school by being thrown into competitive sports and getting bombarded with idiotic catchphrases like "second place is another word for loser", "all's fair in love and war" and "you can't argue with success". It's a culture where cheating and stealing are lauded as long as you can get away with it, where brown-nosing and backstabbing are legitimized ways to "get ahead" - how's that one for the most moronic catchphrase of all? How sick is a culture that constantly pushes its populace to get ahead by any means available at each others' expense and why are we always expected to act surprised when someone gets caught doing just that?

Now, regardless of all that, have a look at this.
It's a picture of a gun. Unless you stare at it until you starve to death, it can't kill you. I'm pretty sure that no matter how many times i blow some idiot's head off in an online game, it won't do anything to him in reality. Believe me, i've tried. If that aggression is really such an intrinsic part of ourselves, then keep it in the land of make-believe and remove it from physical interaction. Keep the violent movies, games and books and address violence where it matters. No more killing animals for fun, no more macho strength contests with rubber balls, no more measuring to see whose assault rifle's bigger.
Guns are good. A pistol is an equalizer between a pasty bookworm and the petty thug looking to cut him up for black-market organs. This does not, however, encompass the gun fetish.

You don't need a bigger gun. You don't need ten thousand rounds of ammunition. You don't need guns in 31 flavors. Normally, if you don't need something there's no reason to keep you from getting it anyway since hell, it's your money, but since your fetish is a danger to the rest of us i'm afraid we'll have to chop off your beloved phallic symbol. You'll have to make do with one undersized pistol for self-defense.