[_delirium]

I've lived in both the U.S. and Europe (and have family in both places), and see it as fairly complex. I don't really see Europe as having many solutions, though, except that I do like the European economic and social-safety model better. Europe does not do well at all with violence except in pretty narrow cases: monocultural to the point of being pretty racist nation-states, with a sort of extended-family village mentality. Once you try to have any kind of diversity in Europe, people get shot, even if the differences are pretty minor! Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the French banlieues, anywhere with mixtures of populations and cultures and you've got trouble. I live in Denmark currently, and it has low overall violence, but seems to basically consider multiculturalism the root of all evil, and everyone assimilating to fit within a narrow range of acceptable Danishness as the #1 strategy to keep everyone from harming their neighbor. Seems like a pretty depressing approach to peacefulness.

And on the high-profile mass-shooting cases, there's little difference at all: Europe has its Utøyas and Erfurts, too. There's a lot less drug-war going on, though, or at least whatever drug trafficking is going on is more out of sight.