YES, THIS IS REALLY A STORY FROM THE BBC: “Despite the fact there are more than 200 million guns in circulation, there is a certain tranquility and civility about American life. . . . I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns. . . . It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.”

An armed society is a polite society.