Well, I would point out that one idea is not enough to base a society on.
Certainly, Heinlein <a href="http://news.google.com/news?q=road+rage&hl=en&hs=fnT&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr">missed something</a> when he wrote:
Quote:
"[...] a line jumper, a rancid tourist from Secundus sneaked in six places ahead of me."
"Why the scoundrel!"
"Didn't do him a speck of good. The bounder was shot dead."
I looked at her. "Hazel?"
"Me? No, no, darling! I admit that I was tempted. But in my opinion crowding into a queue out of turn doesn't rate anything heavier than a broken arm. No, that was not what held me up. A bystanders' court was convened at once and I darn near got co-opted as a juror. Only was I could get out of it was to admit that I was a witness -- thought it would save me time. No such luck and the trial took almost half an hour."
"They hanged him?" asked Justin.
"No. The verdict was 'homicide in the public interest' and they turned her loose and I came on home."
So compare and contrast: the exact same situation arises all the time in real life. Someone is cut off on the road and enacts violence on the other driver. Quite often the person attacked IS armed[*] and the aggressor winds up losing the fight, but this doesn't seem to deter road rage.
I think that the thing that is missing is none of the "over-armed" countries mentioned above have a good rule of law. Many people in the US have access to firearms and associate with other armed people. In areas where the law holds well, we have sportsman's' clubs, gun collectors societies, etc. Where the law does not hold sway we have gangs.
Quote:
It is neither simple nor meaningless, however, to say that "primates, including human beings, are instinctively avaricious".
We are evolved to be greedy. The whole notion of "society" is the human response to the distribution of resources. Give us weapons, and at least some of us will not let a little thing like politeness get between whatever it is we want and whomever it is currently thinks he owns it.
There is an <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00005438-F938-13D7-9FCA83414B7FFE87">interesting bit of primate research</a> on the policing effects of the dominant members of a macaque troop. Normally, the dominant males broke up fights and troop unity was high. The researchers removed the policing males for a day, and the troop quickly broke into aggressive cliques.
So perhaps, the need for rule of law is just as much a part of primate evolution as greed. If the greedy know that they will be caught and punished and things are fair, then society runs smoothly. If one person gets away with a crime, it only encourages others; not just because they believe they will not be punished, but because they know that the only way to get ahead of the cheaters is to start cheating society themselves.
The reason I think the issue is not access to "weapons" per se is because anything can be a weapon. Anything that cuts, anything that burns, anything that increases leverage, anything that can be thrown is a weapon. As I understand it, Britain has gone a long way towards eliminating private gun ownership. This has corresponded with a notable increase in knife-crimes.
Eventually all society must come down to basic trust. Society is based on cooperation. We trust that the cities will provide drinking water, so we don't drill our own wells and drain the aquifurs dry. We trust that our neighbors are not trying to invade our homes, so we don't board up our easily-broken glass picture windows. We trust that the people we meet are not killers, so we don't go everywhere armed.
Rule of law engenders this trust in a way that heavily-armed anarchy simply cannot.
* Thinman carries a surplus police truncheon under his car seat for this exact reason.