There is a matter of perspective on this that only became clear to me when I lived on the right side of the Puddle and could see America from without.

It never occurred to me here that one's individual physical defence against the seedier elements was nested with anyone but oneself, simply because the population density is so low throughout most of the country that one cannot expect any manner of civil authority to be held responsible for ones defence while the situation might play out, just sort it out afterwards.

There is a huge difference in expectation between the high-density countries and low-density countries I've lived in that I had never thought about. Follow me on this one and suddenly many things make sense.

In the UK and on the Continent, one expects the police in some form to be to hand when things go down and for the large part they can do it. The size of the territory covered is such that it is a practical thing to expect, at least in part. One advantage of such a high population density.

Also, historically Europe and Britain have been highly mono-cultural; Scandinavia full of Scandinavians, France almost purely Frenchman, &c. Tribes gave rise to city-states that banded together with other city-states fo form countries and, in some cases, empires. Still, mono-culturalism has the advantages of a single code of morals and ethics, unified social expectations, &c, which as a result give a predictability and stability to individual inter-relations. There are behavioural expectations to be expected from both the mainstream and the seedier elements of each culture, and behaviour can be collectively "regulated" much easier in a well defined culture whose definition coincides with national borders. A generalisation, to be sure, but Europe has enjoyed the benefits of monoculturalism and arguably most of its bloodier moments have been the result of trying to either protect or project that monoculturalism.

So now we come to arguably the first of these "Great Experiments" in multi-culturalism, the US. It's been a struggle from the off, really, as people are naturally uncomfortable with "difference". They band together with those who share similarity; family, tribe, city-state, nation. It is no mistake to note that multicultural nations are often the result of colonialism by mono-cultural ones and America in colonial times was populated and evolved from what really were many of the unwelcome "different" elements from Europe, already suspicious of governments and kings, persecution by state religions, getting hacked up by their neighbour, &c. Put these people in a stew and stir gently, add the indigeonous and the odd enslaved (either economically or physically) to taste and watch it simmer. It is no wonder the then natural choice of a state religion was resisted, why personal rights, defence, and responsibility are stressed (even over-stressed in the eyes of the monocultural Europeans) even today. Indeed, a standing national military was initially very strongly resisted in America, its establishment generally viewed as perhaps too much power in a central government (hence the specific mention of "militia" in the Constitution).

It can be argued that multi-culturalism actually goes against human instinct even when human inellect celebrates it. Thus, the best you can expect in a multi-cultural experiment is a simmer of mutual suspicion occasionally coming to a low boil as another group comes into view; the Irish, Jewish, Chinese, black, Hispanic all through America's history, and the rather odd constant that last decade's "suspicion" invariably joins this decade's "suspicious". Understanding the existence of that suspicion even though this multi-culture has existed as a concept for 400 years and a nation for 250 years now explains what easily is seen as an almost psychotic embrace of that body of individualism; individual rights, responsibility, yes even defence.

This rather clarifies why people of blended cultures look at Europe's travails with immigration today as a bit curious or over-reactive. Yes, the odd looks go both ways, made all the more ironic perhaps because those same people react strongly and often violently to their own immigration issues, perhaps even more strongly than those of the monocultural nations.

Many Americans are their own worst evil as they believe "American", especially white Christian American, is a monoculture and was somehow created such, when America is quite possibly the first attempt at blended-culturalism and was intended from the very beginning to be so.

Of course, this latter half is a bit of a simplification and generalisation, but it really boils down to the struggle between the human instinct of collective security with ones own kind defending against others and the human intellect that says we have reached our pinnacle of social development when our differences don't matter and we can accept all equally.

This also might give perspective to those of us with long experience in the mono-cultural environment why such things as the enshrinement of the concept of self-defence in blended cultures aren't over-emphasised after all, especially in countries with both blended cultures and low density.