Actually, us USAers will use any excuse for this be it independence day, battle of flowers day, and even valentine's day. I mean, how else do you show your significant other you love them if you don't go out, shoot a large wild animal and cook it over an open fire as men were mean't to do since the caveman days?
Note:Canada also is working on self-goverment by first-nations giving among other things certain areas/communities the right to collect all the federal tax for themselves and not give a cent to the government.
I've always wondered how Australia didn't end up being a big country where everybody's murdered. Maybe it's because they decided to take all their aggression out on the Koalas.
Now, did they still line up and blast away at each other when the French Revolutionary, and Napoleonic Wars came about? I don't know about when land changed, but Horatio Nelson sure changed the usual old tatic of lining ships up in a long distant column and blasting away.