Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

ThePanoptic t1_is9875d wrote

A couple of differences between the US and much of Europe:

- U.S. citizens have open access to guns, which most Europeans do not.

- Europe is largely homogeneous, while the U.S. is very ethnically and culturally diverse.

​

You can certainly argue that we need to restrict guns. It is true.

However, the U.S. prides itself on individuals in society being widely different, and different individuals will always disagree and have different values, which on the national scale often leads to more escalations than societies that are wholly homogeneous.

​

This is only part of the story obviously, but I believe this to be the largest difference between why countries that are similar in most metrics, such as England and the U.S. could have widely different stats on some issues.

3

but_nobodys_home t1_isdtoa7 wrote

In what way is Europe more homogenous than the US? My perception as someone from neither place is that Europe is much more culturally diverse.

1

ThePanoptic t1_ise73a1 wrote

Europe is divided into countries that are not very diverse. At the same time, the U.S. is not divided and has very integrated societies.

The U.S. is only nearly 65% white, trending lower, and has a high percentage of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterns.

No European country has the U.S. demographics or is even close to it. While European countries have different cultures, no individual country has as much cultural diversity as the U.S.

Europe is split into very small homogenous countries. The U.S. is a very big integrated society, with much more tension because different individuals will have different values and everyone will be more likely to resort to violence, especially when guns are very easy to access in most states.

1