I saw this, and couldn't help observing how appropriate it was to a discussion on aggression:
While no law can be 100% effective, Britain has no “gun culture”, and much stricter firearms controls which have contained the annual tally of gun related homicides to a double digit value - fewer than one fiftieth of the American gun-related homicide rate per 100,000 population.
And virtually every male between 21 and 32 in Switzerland keeps a full-automatic weapon in their home, and 40% of the cantons do not require a permit to purchase a handgun, yet Switzerland's homicide rate is comparable to Britain's. Italy's gun laws are the most restrictive in Europe, and its homicide rate is twice that of Switzerland. Japan also has highly-restrictive gun laws, and its homicide rate is half that of Britains -- but the homicide rate among Japanese-Americans is comparable to the homicide rate in Japan, which strongly suggests that it is the
culture, not the
laws, that most greatly affect homicide rates. BTW, the homicide rate in England doubled after the last round of tightened gun control laws; in the US, states with "right-to carry" laws have a 19% lower homicide rate and a 39% lower robbery rate than states that allow little or no concealed carry. The nine states with the lowest violent crime rates are all right-to-carry states.
But to bring the post back to aggression, the US has a long tradition of gunslingers, both lawmen, vigilantes, and bandits, even though that tradition is an invention of Hollywood -- there were fewer homicides per capita in the Old West than there were in New York City. But the 'cowboy mentality' ("
It's the Code of the West, son. If it moves, steal it. If it's too fast to steal, shoot it. If it's too big to move, foreclose the mortgage.") survives, and has created its own archetype for fighter pilots. Where Europe had the 'knights of the air' stereotype that WWII mostly beat out of the pilots on both sides, the subculture of American fighter pilots pulled its ideal out of the Hollywood gunslinger image, where aggression was a prime characteristic.
The most obvious thing that AH, and WB and AW before it, has done for me is increase my SA, most noticeably while driving. It has become easier to mentally keep track of the dozen or so nearest cars (after all, it's only 2-D, not 3-D; you don't have to worry about cars merging on you from your high 7 o'clock, for example. Well, not unless someone's gotten
real gay at an overpass), so I can maneuver more confidently in traffic. From the outside, it probably appears to be more aggressive driving, but from my side, it's just better information management.
