Amongst the things I find most fascinating about social media are the “Spotted” Facebook pages where people make others in their community aware of events going on and things or people that are potentially suspicious.

I read something the other day on a “Spotted” site that went something like this.

“I saw a man in a blue shirt coming out of some bushes by the park earlier; it may be nothing but please be aware.”

This is fair comment as it is just a suspicion that was worth noting, just in case.

The first comment was more of a concern.

“Fuck the police, stamp all over the vermin and set his balls on fire.”

Forget the fact this was merely a suspicion and it could have been a bloke who was taking a short cut or had just had a pee, this guy and several others after, were proposing a vigilante style lynching.

Imagine if blokes like that were able, as they are in the States, to purchase guns and ammunition in Tesco’s?

 “Oi pervert, what you doing in the woods with that camera you sick bastard.”

“I am not a pervert; I am taking pictures of pair of Reed Bunting’s nesting in that hed…”

BANG, BANG!

There is a perception in the UK that all Americans are mad and we are more civilised than they are as we don’t have their frankly, hideous, record on gun crime.

There is some truth in that, as we certainly don’t seem to have the type of gun toting extreme right-wing alleged Christians of the Deep South, but we do have plenty of maniacs like the nutter above.

The one difference between the civilised world and the USA is we have laws to stop people buying guns from the local barber shop, or receiving one free if they open an account with Santander.

It’s just a hunch, but if assault rifles were available in Lidl, I reckon gun crime would go up in this country. You see, it is not just that we have fewer maniacs; we also make it harder for them to get weapons.

I don’t follow American politics as much as I should, but I have felt sorry for President Obama in recent days because even if he dares to mention that something has to be changed in gun laws, maniac Republicans and those unsavoury lot, the NRA, turn on him with vengeance.

 “Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns” is their motto.

After the Charleston Church massacre the other day, Republican presidential candidate, Rick Perry, not only criticised Obama, he also described the whole event as an accident.

 “Oops I just shot a black guy…oops there goes another one, and another, this God damn gun just won’t stop shooting black people.”

Rick Perry: Republican Gun Lover

Perry said, “This is the MO of this administration, any time there is an accident like this, the president is clear. He doesn’t like for Americans to have guns and so he uses every opportunity, this being another one, to basically go parrot that message.”

A president that doesn’t like American civilians to own guns? What is the world coming to when an American president wants to tighten laws to stop massacre after massacre.

Across the globe, in places like South Africa and Australia, tighter gun controls have seen an end to mass slaughters that happen every couple of months in America but sadly, a huge number of Americans still see violence as the only way to solve an issue.

Is it America’s historical policy of international peace by violence that turns its citizens towards a structure of paranoid self-armament to solve their own domestic concerns or fear of another race?  Maybe, but to be honest I just don’t know.

However, you won’t get healthy debate from nutters like the NRA or Rick Perry, you just get…

“IT’S IN OUR CONSTITUTION BUDDY!!!

Remarkably, when I tried to find a summary of how I, and the rest of the civilised world felt about guns, it came from an Australian comedian.

You must watch this, it is funny but also, exactly to the point….