Sydney Opera House - love it or hate it?

@ArishMell Just ask Sydney people in the rich areas - they'll tell you 8-)

@ArishMell Sydney is actually a very good city in which to be a tourist. The sights. The harbour itself and the nightlife are first class. And I speak as someone who doesnt live there But has visited often.. However. To live, work and raise a family there... Not so much. Melbourne is way better for that..😷

@OriginalNedKelly There is that, of course. But since they only seen to be attacking each other and in the western outer suburbs, its less risky than being caught in a random house shooting involving Lebanese or Armenian crime families..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman That's probably so for many cities around the world now, not least because city life can be very expensive.

@ArishMell So True. I think we can both be glad we dont live under the threat posed by guns in America.😷

@whowasthatmaskedman Yes! Though I do wonder... The USA has more gun crime than any other stable democracy but I don't suppose most Americans are at any more risk of being murdered than anyone in Australia or the UK or most of Europe. It's hard to know because we only hear the bad news, not much of the good.

@ArishMell Of course. Bad news sells. And guns exist everywhere. The best countries still have an incident or two. But not a weekly toll of dozens, who just went shopping or went to the movies..Or heaven forbid, went to school..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman Sadly, yes. I cannot understand it, but even the Americans themsleves seem not to comprehend it either. If SW is a guide their own arguments about its possible causes and cures usually descend into a mixture of blanket-blaming mental illness and party-politics.

Terrorist outrages with political motives apart, I think there have been just five, random multiple murders for no clear motive, in Britain, in at least as many decades. Four by shooting, the most recent by stabbing. Plus a few, thankfully very few, shootings of innocent strangers by drug-gangsters missing their intended targets - usually gang rivals.

@ArishMell I think most people see the society they were born and raised in as "normal". So the violence and gun culture so obviously wrong to us is part of life. In the case of America this is reinforced by the media and hero images on the screen. And again the colour and movement of those images appeals to Americans particularly. The British have a different experience entirely.. Having spend part of my childhood there I experienced some of that. As well as the hybrid culture of Australia..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman Interesting point. Yes, I am sure that is so.

Possibly too, because Britain and much of Europe were so embroiled in the two World Wars and would have been in the front line if WW3 had started, and some have been victims of terrorist attacks, they do not worship guns and violence to any great extent.

Apart from farmers, I think over my half-century and more with many friends, work colleagues and others, I have known only three who owned guns. Two had shot-guns for clay-pigeon shooting. The third had a few antique fire-arms that could not be used, at least not safely, though he sometimes used one to demonstrate its flintlock action with a little gunpowder - and no shot.

There is no popular need or desire here to own guns - and in turn, Americans find that puzzling!