Denis Leary - Coffee flavoured coffee.

I'm not convinced Serbians would blow even more money on firearms - they don't have to, they've a massive surplus of weapons left over after an incredibly bloody civil war - there's a firearm for every 2nd man, woman and child.

Look at it another way, large ownership of weapons are a result of wars in the country
1 - USA - In the constitution as a result of the war of independence
2 - Serbia - A succession of wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia
3 - Yemem - Take your pick - there are 4 since 1994
4 - Switzerland - No civil war since 1840s, but instead had been surrounded by countries at war for the following 105 years, while attempting to stay neutral
5 - Cyprus - A country which has been a host to sectarian violence between Greeks and Turks since the Ottoman Empire

Similarly, for the UK, Northern Ireland has over 3 times the number of firearms than the rest of the UK, again a history of bloody sectarian violence. I'm not saying that I'm right, just that it the history of the country should be considered when looking at the reason for firearm ownership rates.

Interesting, but I think I broke it's brain

No I didn't mean to, for that reason I did state "solely" - normally I reread my posts to remove any ambiguity, but I think I was concentrating on the numbers part of my post. I certainly didn't mean to imply that gun ownership isn't part of the culture of violence.

So you arbitrarily multiply double the number of firearms, because of a feeling - basically saying that 30% of Swedes are lying about possessing unregistered firearms. Then you add the number of government firearms (920,000* + 32,652**) which adds an extra 10 firearms per 100 people, but keep in mind that only a small percentage of these may be in possession of a civil militia, however, and this is a big one - a Swedish colleague of mine said that they don't have government issued rifles in almost every house, like they do in Switzerland. Certainly I can find no mention of one online, so please link to some sources.

He did however say that he's heard of stories of weapons caches, but mainly among Hells Angels type groups who stole them during national service - but again I can find no solid evidence of that. Plus, it doesn't fit in with the idea of repelling an Eastern foe, more like a gang wanting a stash of weapons for turf wars, crime, etc. Moose hunting is a big thing, but do you really think that 30% of the population have an illegally owner firearm for something as public as hunting?

Even with your plucked out of the air numbers you haven't even reached gun ownership levels in the USA. And surely, if you feel it's ok to arbitrarily inflate gun possession level in one country, you should inflate it for the USA too, but you haven't.

* 920,000 in the defence forces
** 32,652 in law enforcement
Source: Guns in Sweden

While I completely agree with you on the violence being cultural rather than due solely to firearm ownership rates, I do have to disagree with you about Scandinavia having higher ownership rates. According to this the US (89/100 people) has 53% more firearms per person than Serbian (58/100 people) who is second in the list. Sweden and Norway are ranked 10th and 11th respectively with almost 32/100 people.

This is a list of privately owned firearms, not possession, so state owned firearms (like in Switzerland) are not included. However to bring the possession rate of Sweden up to the ownership rate in the US, the government would have to give a firearm to every 2nd person.

One of the reasons why gun control works isn't because it stops sociopaths doing crazy things, it works because it's a lot harder to damage with a knife than a TEC-9 in one hand and a shotgun in the other. I was appalled when I came across this page detailing US school shootings while looking up the numbers.

Not necessarily - they could just go straight over (or under) the North Pole, It may not be the shortest route (I haven't checked distances), but it's certainly the path of least resistance, unless of course Canada has armed their polar bears and mooseseses

If that's the case, then we've gone backwards in the last year. I was incredibly relieved when the CPS decided to charge Lee Rigby's murderers with murder, rather than elevating them to terrorists. This meant that they could be shut down when they started sprouting their insane bullshit - which is what happened during the trial.

When that happened, I thought we'd started to reach a turning point - that terrorism wasn't a simple way of getting us to agree with policies - and I haven't received or heard any of the ridiculous ACPO* "suspect your neighbour" leaflets. We do have an election coming up next year, so maybe that's the reason.

The sane way to deal with this would be to charge them attempted murder, thereby making any political statements irrelevant to the trial.

* The ACPO is tentatively a non-profit organisation, but they do like to lobby and earn cash for selling records at 11667% of cost (£70 for a 60p cost)

I think they'll be called a KH11 Block V "DNE" - That'll be their revenue stream.

I had a discussion about this with my mum - she said that she never remembers experiencing a power cut when growing up in Germany, however they were fairly common in Ireland. I've only experienced power cuts in the UK at our office, which is in the middle of nowhere.

My suggestion was that Germany had the "benefit" of having its infrastructure rebuild in the 40s and 50s. Also, I have a feeling that a large amount of the low tension cables in Germany are buried, rather than be exposed on poles, though I could be wrong about that.

Not sure about the rest of Europe though.

How effective will these be when there's a car parked over them?

I think you should still be sceptical - here's an interesting critique.

I don't understand that part. Is it really that hard for a US company to manufacture these chemicals?

Bah, you have to drink gallons of that for it to have a detrimental effect. Now Hydrohydroxic acid, that's what you should be worried about.

Interesting, I'd never really looked at the knot I use to tie my laces - it turns out I've been doing it "correctly". So I had a look at the resulting knot - the correct way results in what looks like a Reef Knot whereas the incorrect way ends in a "granny knot" (I'll have to find the etymology of that one).

Odds are, I managed to do it correctly because of years of having to tie knots with cold water being dumped over me, a sailing flapping in my face, trying to steady myself on a deck at a 40 degree and with a tactician shouting "hurry up" because he gave me 45 seconds to change a sail. It turns out that I now struggle to tie knots while looking at them.