Iamon lyme:

> some kind of tension has obviously been brewing for some time.

Divisions of social class, income inequality, unemployment among youth and harship in the immigrant community are a legacy tht goes back to the Margaret Tatcher years, and even earlier. This is a problem that has been in the making for decades. People in the the riot areas of the UK (as in most other places in the world) feel that they can effect no political change through the electoral system. Since communism died the wroking class has no ideological compass. instead of protesting for legitimate reasons, they are rioting and looting to get what the middle class has. This is a side effect of anticommunism. Anticommunism took the ideology out of social protest, and left in its wake an ideological void. Now people don't protest about issues that matter and there is no real avenue for social discontent.


> btw are you sure about that 30% gun ownership in the US?

In answer to your question:

"In 1995, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms estimated that the number of firearms available in the US was 223 million. About 25% of the adults in the United States personally own a gun, the vast majority of them men. About half of the adult U.S. population lived in households with guns. Less than half of gun owners say that the primary reason they own a gun is for self-protection against crime, reflecting a popularity of hunting and sport-shooting among gun owners."

That was 1995. After 9-11 gun possession increased since many people bought firearms to protect themselves from terrorism.

300 million people. 223 million firearms. It is a staggering statistic.