Sujet: The USA is often called a « gun nation ». Explain why.


	In 2011, there were 89 guns for every 100 Americans, which amounts to roughly 270 million guns owned nationwide. This is by far the highest gun ownership rate in the world. America's population represents less than 5 percent of the world's population, yet 45% of all civilian-owned guns on earth are located in USA. Since its conception, the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the « right to bear arms », has been one of the most controversial clauses in history. To understand where the « gun nation » nickname comes from we should look into the gun-related culture America has.

	 The gun culture in the USA is a culture shared by people who want to preserve gun rights and who are against more gun control. This USA gun culture is essentially based on three factors: the proliferation of firearms since the beginning of the nation, the connection between personal ownership of weapons and the country's history, and the cultural mythology about the gun in the frontier and in modern life. Since the earliest days of the country, two elements of the modern American gun culture have survived: the hunting mentality and the militia mentality.
When America was an agrarian nation the hunting culture emerged, essentially because it was a source of supplying food for settlers and guns were a kind of protection against predators. Basically you couldn't survive without a gun, and you weren't a real mature man without a gun. Today, the role of guns as a mark of maturity still exists, and hunting is the central component of the gun culture.
The militia mentality, on the other hand, emerged when early Americans were dependent on their guns to protect themselves from hostile Native Americans or from foreign enemies. That mentality resulted in every man carrying a weapon. Back in the days, a service in militia, where you brought your own weapon and ammunition, was obligatory for all adult men.

	Today, this worship of weapons has left a general thought that guns are part of USA's culture  and its history, they are part of the improvement of Americans' feeling of security, even if today there are a lot of debates about banning or not the right to bear arms in the USA.