Yes. As an American I am completely and utterly baffled as well. My son was just graded down on a paper on the comparison of crime statistics between some European countries and America, when he added the cultural difference between them of gun rights and ownership and murders and crimes committed with guns. Graded a whole letter grade down because despite statistics, the professor gave the irrational but strange American mindset slogan of the infamous NRA defense, "people kill, not guns". So, my son learned in American education that it is better to tow the party line of America than to think. (Thankfully, he has parents who won't really allow him to do that, I hope, but...) America, in our arogance, pride, and self-centered short-sightedness on the gun issue and several others (systemic racism for one), has become so, so sad to me. I am not one to rubber-neck at the upcoming wreck on the side of the road, but alas, any one with a brain (and heart) surely can see the wreckage strewn across these shores, and one day, unless we can make progress in our thinking and caring for others, we will pass the way of all great nations who are not conquered from without, but implode from within. Keep speaking. We desparately need young voices like your own. That way, we old ones, can keep hoping.