Guns are an important part of American history, particularly in stories about “cowboys and Indians”. Sadly, these stories falsely portray cowboys, settlers, soldiers, and guns as good, but Native Americans, tribes, teepees, and bows-and-arrows as bad. Of course, these stories cover up the lies and exploitation perpetrated by a young, exuberant America that didn’t understand or practice civil rights. To be fair to America, neither did the rest of the world. Nevertheless, these self-serving stories are canards that can be dispelled by the insightful words of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull who aptly said about Americans, “The love of possessions is a disease with them...If you have one honest man in Washington, send him here and I will talk to him."

Competing interests: None declared