Apart from gun control, there is another problem that the authorities in the US (and in most of the world’s societies) avoid addressing: the culture (or subculture) of violence in the electronic entertainment era.
While some Americans think of firearms only in terms of sporting and hunting guns, many others believe weapons offer a measure of security in somehow allaying their fears of a changing - and in many respects declining - US society.
The western Balkans are caught between internal dynamics acting to couple borders with national myth-making, and post-modern Europeanizing forces hoping to nurture cosmopolitan polities.
A collision of events - a misjudgment in the Persian Gulf, an attack in Damascus, a visit to Israel, a bomb in Bulgaria - hands militarism a further advantage over diplomacy in the region. The dangers of a sudden escalation are increasing.
