Once on a train ride, a Frenchman on his way to his dream holiday in the American West was telling more about famous American cowboys than I knew myself including some of the oldies like Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. John Wayne's name sent him into spasms of pleasure.
As a kid in the northeast I use to play cowboy and indians too. Living on 14-acres of land, it was easy to imagine being in the wild west. Our glacier-dropped rocks became the badlands, the trees were great to hide behind to have shoot-outs. I had cowboy boots and a fringed skirt and jacket.
I did outgrow it.
When I was married to a policeman and uncomfortable with a gun in the house, my ex saw to it I could shoot it, and learn to respect it. The rule it was emptied and bullets were separate from the gun when he entered the house was sacrosanct.
However, seeing the wild west stand at the Argelès-sur-mer with wooden toy guns for sale, was disturbing. I know France does not have the gun problem that the US does, but watching how excited kids were to pick up the toy guns, their faces lit up with joy, did not feel right.
When the vendor was alone late in the morning as most people were heading home for lunch, I told him I knew he had to earn a living and he was doing his stand well, but having lived in the US, just seeing the guns bothered me.
He was nice about it, saying he could see my point of view. We both agreed that France was different. And as a Swiss, where almost every man in the Army must have a gun, I know there are very few gun deaths.
I started thinking about the factors that go into gun violence and found this chart from Wikipedia fascinating. Obviously there are more factors than availability of guns that go into the high number of guns death in countries. And it was also interesting what countries have high death rates.
I don't like guns.
But one thing is clear, it takes a gun to kill someone with a bullet.
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