What science says about gun control and violent crime - Boing Boing

http://boingboing.net/2012/12/14/what-science-says-about-gun-co.html

For one segment of American society, guns symbolize honor, human
mastery over nature, and individual self-sufficiency. By opposing gun
control, individuals affirm the value of these meanings and the vision
of the good society that they construct. For another segment of
American society, however, guns connote something else: the
perpetuation of illicit social hierarchies, the elevation of force
over reason, and the expression of collective indifference to the
well-being of strangers. These individuals instinctively support gun
control as a means of repudiating these significations and of
promoting an alternative vision of the good society that features
equality, social solidarity, and civilized nonagression.

---SPSmith