> So if a person from Europe starts to lecture you on guns in the USA, you're going to get a little defensive at their incorrect assumptions, even if you agree

> So if a person from Europe starts to lecture you on guns in the USA, you're going to get a little defensive at their incorrect assumptions, even if you agree with their stance in general. That is very much unlike, say, "defending all American gun laws to a T, without mentioning at all what you actually think, because they made you do it for being unfair or mistaken about something". And where that is the case, how you say things doesn't really matter, you won't get anyhwere either way. So you might as well be blunt, and if they want to correct something, let them. If they want to make excuses about being offended and not correct anything, it stands as is. I know, because I get that all the time, when Americans say "Germany doesn't have freedom of speech" or such, because glorifying Nazism is illegal. I don't start pretending Germany is perfect in response to that, I quote them some basics about freedom of speech, stuff about American law and whatnot, and try to explain how there is no "totally unrestricted" free speech anywhere there is a listener. Then they always (no exceptions so far, probably because intelligent Americans don't even say "there is no freedom of speech in Germany" to begin with) drift off into nonsense or fall silent, because their brain seems to be unable to process what I'm telling them.