Someone visiting from Europe was asking about the U.S. gun culture

 This was after the Buffalo, new York incident but before the Texas mass shooting by the way.

I told him that the U.S. couldn't exist in the first place without guns like the musket that won the revolutionary war. But, I said that Most Americans now who live in the western part of the U.S. don't see guns as weapons but rather as tools. This is how I was taught too. It has to do with the 50 to 100 mile stretches you find west of the Rockies with no people or law often to the point where you are the only law there is in these kinds of places still here in the U.S. So, if you cannot defend yourselves from whatever happens you are just dead because no law is there or could even get there (if there is even cell reception where you are) for 1/2 an hour or 1 hour or more even if they aren't busy doing something else.

So, even now in the west if you aren't armed in many country situations you could be killed by people, bears, mountain lions or literally all kinds of strange situations that come up periodically in the country away from cities. 

I also said that unless one large nation is fully armed like the U.S. that soon the whole world will look like China and Russia do now.

Any country would be out of their mind to attack the U.S. with an army because they would all be sitting ducks to Americans who would all become snipers picking that army off one by one.

This is the reality the world lives in right now.

This is the reality of where the rubber actually meets the road in real life on earth.

Also, I told him that in California where I live almost any car could have a loaded gun or rifle in it at any time. This is why people are polite when they drive in California because if you are not a polite driver you could easily be shot by someone who is armed. This sort of thing happens all the time in road rage situations in the U.S. So, as a result people are very polite drivers because they don't want to be shot by another driver here in California.