Not that I disagree with you about the War Zone, but the antics are not exclusively from our friend England. In fact, I don't really see anyone from England causing very much trouble.
There are antics, period.
Indeed. To place the blame at the foot of the English is a tad off.
All footy forums need sections to talk about other things. Yes, the footy is #1 but one cannot dismiss everything else out of hand. What will you talk about in the off-season? During footy breaks? Can posters not have other interests outside of football?
Now as I understand it, the Warzone (although it has been suggested that it needs a name change; perhaps simply 'Debate Desk') is a place that allows discussion to rise above the level of elsewhere on the forum. There are many contentious issues that people may wish to discuss, whereby some will see no problem with something whilst others will certainly have a problem with: guns (as you said), politics, etc.
I disagree with you that 'gay rights' is a problem area, because this forum should be not allowing anti-gay posts (I put that in our rules & regs, in addition to racism and religious attacks).
Of course there are simple subjects. I am building an arcade table, and I have spoken about it over at our place, and that will never have any problems.
There has, however, been problem posts on other matters, and once or twice a thread has had to be shutdown, but it is rare that this happens.
If the Warzone did not exist, contentious discussions would spill over into other areas, and then you would have a problem. The Mods and Admin here should be trusted to allow things to flow naturally but know when to warn and when to shut things down. Just because you disagree with something, Capt, should not stop others from engaging in it so long as it does not fall foul of forum rules.
FTR talking about United would never be in the Warzone section (not that we have one, I might add), it would just be in 'Other Football and Sport'.