"As American As Cherry Pie"

Old Rap Brown was right about that, at least...

Violence is as American as cherry pie.

So, it's only natural that we loves us our guns.

Don't you be touchin' our guns!

Maybe it's just that human beings have a strong blood lust.

Not all, of course.

But enough.

And it seems like many have landed here, in the land o' the free...

We Yankee Doodle Dandies have a lot of blood on our hands: Native American, African, Mexican, Phillipine. Each others.

To be fair, it takes a certain amount of violence to build an Empire.

And that kind of behavior gets ingrained in a culture. It also attracts a certain kind of people. Just ask Wayne "A Gun Is A Tool, And So Am I" LaPierre.

So, of course the older brother shoots the younger sister. And the teenager shoots his best friend. And, my personal favorite, the 4 year old shoots his Dad.

Bang Bang--you're dead!

They're just kids after all. They don't understand the consequences of their actions. And they've grown up in a Shoot 'em up society.

Forget that "In God We Trust" nonsense. "I Didn't Know It Was Loaded" should be our national motto.
  
Anton Chekhov's famous maxim about writing is this: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be there."

We Americans, being uncomfortable with metaphors in general, and those coined by foreigners in particular, have taken Chekhov literally:  If there's a gun on the table, someone is going to get shot. Accidentally, of course.

And also, of course, there's nothing we can do about it...