Guns are such an ingrained part of the US lifestyle that they are not seen as a problem. Photo / AP
The US South is famous for the warmth of its welcome. Two weeks ago, travelling through it with my son, I met a Reese Witherspoon lookalike who was the personification of southern courtesy on a grey Saturday afternoon in Natchez, Mississippi.
"How y'all doing?" she said.
"We're doing just fine, thanks," I said.
"Where y'all from?" she asked.
"We're from New Zealand," said my son.
"Noo Zeeealand! I just love the accents."
"That's good, they're the only ones we have," I said, deftly employing a joke to make absolutely clear which one of us was the Dad.
"Y'all here on holiday?"
"Yeah, we're doing a kind of road trip," said my son. "After this we're going to Memphis for a couple of nights, then Nashville."
"Well, when you're in Nashville, make sure you go to Tootsies."
"Tootsies? They have live music?"
"Yes, it's great. People says folks in Nashville is kind of snobby but I never found that."
"Are you from Natchez?"
"No, I've come over from Atlanta."
She had come over to sell her T-shirts at the Natchez Gun Show. Admission is $7 for adults, $1 for children aged 6-11. Absolutely no loaded weapons permitted inside. Door prizes drawn on the hour. "This one is very popular with the men," said our new wardrobe adviser, holding up a shirt bearing an image of a rifle and the slogan: "Winning hearts and minds - two in the heart, one in the mind."
But my attention had been caught by another shirt that showed an automatic rifle under the legend: "Muslim conversion tool". There was also: "What part of semi don't you understand?" and many more.
"Well," I said, "we better keep looking around. Gotta get back on the road soon."
"So long, then. Nice meeting you."
The Natchez Gun Show didn't just sell guns and T-shirts -- there were also knives, personal defence sprays and, least expectedly, handbags, whose feasibility as weapons I thought existed only in the minds of British comedy writers.
Everyone was friendly. The Sons of Confederate Veterans under their Confederate flag were having a fine time. Even the man who interrupted his phone call to warn me that I better not let anyone see me taking that photo was as amiable as all get-out.
"If we'd tried to tell her there was anything wrong with the messages on those shirts," said my son, "she just wouldn't get it, would she?"
Nope. For the people at the gun show, guns weren't a necessary evil; they were an inviolable part of what it means to be free and American.
Five days later, free American Chris Harper-Mercer shot nine people dead at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. It was the 45th school shooting in the US this year.
In the days following the shooting, wall-to-wall media commentary, occasionally by intelligent people, failed to see the problem in context.
It focused on whether mass shooters are mentally ill, when they are not. Whether stricter anti-terrorist - read, Muslim - measures are necessary, when most mass shooters are white Christian US citizens. Whether stricter background checks on gun buyers are necessary, when most mass shooters don't have criminal records. And whether the US really was unique in this respect - what about that guy in Norway?
The Natchez Gun Show was family-friendly with free home-cooked snacks, children everywhere, advice for tourists and an arsenal.
When something is normalised and ingrained in a culture, it's impossible to make people step back and look at it from any other perspective. Umpqua? Nothing to do with them.
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