Do you mean that some fathers do honor their offspring by naming them after themselves ? Of course, it is not the child who decides to honor his father by choosing his own name, so that means the father must really have a pretty high self-esteem to "honor his son of his name" !
Hawaiian custom is to have at least 7 or 8 names, all of which have different purposes and different meanings for certain people. You've got the name that appeared in a dream to your birthmother, of which only she and you are supposed to know, you've got popular nicknames, and you've got your official name. Mine's four long, but if I decide to (under U.S. law) legally add my mother's last name then it becomes five. My name was supposed to be given to my great-grandfather, but it was discarded for some reason and passed through the male side until it reached me. Of course, according to my mom, she was totally unaware of the significance of the name and simply gave me my full name by pure luck, i.e., she thought they were significant names to her at the time.
@the gun issue: it's one of those things that state and federal governments constantly fight each other on and rarely agree. Someone mentioned that the First Admendment was the most important because it came first; if the admendments are ranked in order of importance then guns were a pretty big deal back in the day because the Second Admendment expressly provides for its citizens the uninfringable right to bear arms.
What Americans call the Bill of Rights are just the famous "ten admendments" that were added to the U.S. Constitution back in its original signing and every other admendment since the official recognition.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
In the U.S., you have three general categories of firearms: rifles (which shoot various kinds of bullets,) pistols (which also shoot bullets) and shotguns (which generally shoot pellets and slugs.)
No one really argues with the value of shotguns. They fit certain qualities that people need for different purposes: loudness, power and less of a worry about accuracy. They also don't hold much ammunition, they're not very effective over long distances, and it has to hold its general shape in order to maintain its effectiveness (i.e., you can't saw off the barrel and the stock for a hideable weapon because the increased recoil will tear your hands apart. I can't explain the science behind it, but it is on the net.) From self-defense to hunting to target practice, shotguns are effective tools for getting a job that requires a firearm... done.
Rifles and pistols are where the U.S. start to get a bad image in terms of crime, media coverage and the worldview. Unlike a shotgun shell, a bullet is a dense metal object tightly packed with gunpowder designed to penetrate through, tear large holes in or damage the internal system of a target. (Again, I don't really know the science, sorry.) Unlike a shotgun shell, bullets can travel over long distances. Unlike a shotgun, you can pack many bullets into a single magazine of a rifle or a handgun. Rifles themselves come in a variety of shapes that can easily be hidden or disguised, and pistols are expressely designed to be hidden.
Because of the designs and effectiveness of certain rifles and pistols, you can easily kill a human being with one of those certain models. There's no question about that. But everyone in America has a different opinion over what type of rifle and pistol is considered unallowable in society, where they should be allowed in society, and under what circumstances.
The trouble is, what causes firearm-related fatalities and crime in America isn't only stemming from the fact that the gun exists. There's a million different variables as to why a crime occured in the first place.
...and I'm sorry, I've been sitting here for half an hour trying to write up a well-reasoned argument for individual responsibility that Americans are proud to have in themselves, and why guns are seen as part of that responsibility.
Maybe that ties in with regional pride too. Maybe that ties in with the whole thread.
America is different from other developed countries in that more pride is given and taken in the individual's responsibility to creating a better life for themselves in which other people may benefit, rather than helping to create a community for all.
I dunno. You can argue with what I've posted so far. ^_^
For some reason, I feel that French people are the closer to Americans among all Europeans.
That seems true enough. Two countries unafraid to tell each other to go to hell. ^_^
