> But it also remains to be explained why we have all those guns.
>
In spite of the best efforts of the NRA and the officeholders who benefit from their lobby, the people can read, and the BOR clearly makes the point that bearing arms (ie - the means to organize a resistance to restrictions on human rights) is a responsibility of citizenship. It doesn't have anything to do with personal protection, property protection or squirrel hunting. You were advocating (hyperbolically, I assume) a policy of universal access to nuclear arms recently, so I think that you understand the reason.
As to the fact that guns are utilized in violent crime, their wide availability is certainly connected, but the violence is just as clearly connected to anger and desperation re social conditions in US culture. The violence in Iraq seems far more destructive (for much the same reason - presence of USG) and it doesn't employ guns. I personally would prefer to be shot than to be cut or burned or bombed.
Ya' can't do nothin' wrong ... !
sez martin.