King, I know you like to bash your neighbors south of the border, but you ought to be factual when you do so. I have purchased a gun in England and had it sent across the sea. It was not particularly hard to buy, but it took me 6 weeks to get the improved import permit back from ATF, and from what I've read from others here, I got pretty fast service.
I can buy a long gun in any state and take it home with me, crossing all kinds of state borders, with only a phone call from the dealer selling it to do the required background check. (Unless the state law prohibits said transaction where I make the purchase, but relatively few do.) Because I have a concealed carry permit (are those easy to get in Canada?), I can buy ANY gun in my home state and take it home without any phone call whatsoever.
Which restrictions do we have on civil liberties that are not found in other countries, King? I think you've been OD'ing on the US liberal media. I've lived abroad, and even as a diplomat, I was under greater restrictions than I am in the US. Had to have a firearms owners card, and I couldn't own anything except a shotgun.
Great Britain has far greater restrictions on firearms ownership. They also have the Official Secrets Act, which means that ANYONE who reveals classified information--including the media--can be prosecuted. We have no equivalent of that in the United States, and frankly, I'd like to see penalties for the media when they knowingly disclose classified information.
Following WWII, most of the Allies demobilized to a far greater extent than did the United States. And then, for about 45 years during the Cold War, the United States paid a disproportionate part of the burden of defending Western Europe (and Canada) from potential attack by the Soviet Union. It still takes the United States to get anything done internationally, when any sort of significant military force is required. Witness Bosnia and Kosovo. The Europeans couldn't even handle that problem--right in their own backyard--without us.
Bashing the United States is a popular sport in places like Western Europe and Canada. Almost makes me wish we'd abandoned those folks to the gentle mercies the Russkies exercised over Eastern Europe following WWII.
