Crazy people.

Editor,

I am an American expatriate living in Canada. Occasionally I encounter an American visitor, certain of whom steer the conversation to violence, liberty, peril, freedom, self-defense, terrorism, war, etc., etc.

Americans who carry this stuff -- these exaggerated, ever-present thoughts of fear and violence -- around inside their heads assume they are the most natural thing in the world. They order their understanding of their world around them: Crazy nonsense.

There is a lot of talk now in the US media about mental health and crazy people. I can't communicate my perception any more clearly than this: People who own military-style weapons, and people who walk around with apocalyptic fantasies in their heads, are mentally disturbed.

And there are millions of them in the USA.

Re: "The Deadly Fantasy of Assault Weapons" (12/29/2012)