Good point. You really got my attention this morning, James. I believe gun control works generally in Canada because of the people we are. Granted our laws are expressions of the will of our people through legislatures but our country developed differently under circumstances different from others.

The German ambassador to Canada referred to us this way a week ago when he said Canada is the only friend Germany has, as a multicultural country coping with freedom and liberty more in the collective than singular, reflecting perhaps the idealism of the priest's daughter, Angela Merkel.

In my view, Americans are good people. They live in a violent country burdened by their history.Twenty per cent of its population were slaves in 1776. For all good intentions of Jefferson and Patrick Henry, the country couldn't give up its slaves or its army taking by force indigenous lands.

The Revolution and Civil War made a new political order based on greater meritocracy but with it came notions of liberty that didn't include other people. What currently looks from the outside as incipient civil war---police killings, BLM, gun violence---would be unthinkable in most western countries.

I believe culture causes less violence. Least violence seems to come from a collective will of what the Founding Fathers aspired to---equality and liberty for all. That's what Canada strives toward, as America does in its historically fettered way. Bless 'em both.