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>> police are not routinely armed I'm a gun owner and this is the key point for me. No politician is in a position to tell me I don't need my semi-automatic pi

>> police are not routinely armed I'm a gun owner and this is the key point for me. No politician is in a position to tell me I don't need my semi-automatic pistol if every day I see a patrol car go by my house with 2 fully automatic AR-15s locked between the front seats and my local police department owns an armoured vehicle. If you really think you have a plan for getting rid of guns for bad guys as well as me, prove it. Demilitarize the police at the same time. edit: To be fair, I think such a plan is possible, but it requires fixing other problems that too many politicians are afraid to touch. It's obviously been done successfully elsewhere, but only when cultures and geographies were more ready for it. I enjoy shooting and prefer to own a gun, but I'd give them up for a plan I thought would work. I just haven't seen one proposed in the US yet.

forgetsusername 11y ago
This is a good point. I think it's ingrained in American culture (and the Constitution) that part of the purpose of personal gun ownership is to curb governmental power. How can gun control be justified when police are roaming around like a para-military group?
- skewart 11y ago
  I completely agree that the "curb government power" is a common argument for gun ownership in the US. However, I've never understood the logic behind it. Do people really think their handgun is going to help them resist a predator drone strike? The US military is vastly more powerful than any gun owner. Do people really think they can compete? What's more, advocates of legal gun ownership often also push for more military spending (though that might be less true here on HN). Am I missing something here? Edit: To be clear, I certainly don't mean to be dismissive of legal gun ownership - I tend to argue in favor of it. What I don't understand is the argument that gun ownership curbs government power in any meaningful way. Guns and/or shooting and/or hunting seem like great hobbies.
  - LyndsySimon 11y ago
    > Do people really think their handgun is going to help them resist a predator drone strike? For a single person, or a small group? I know of no one who believes that. > The US military is vastly more powerful than any gun owner. Do people really think they can compete? The US military is composed predominately of gun owners :). > What's more, advocates of legal gun ownership often also push for more military spending (though that might be less true here on HN). Am I missing something here? From my perspective, this is almost pure cognitive dissonance. They also tend to support things like NSA spying and restrictions on effective encryption.
    - skewart 11y ago
      > For a single person, or a small group? I know of no one who believes that. Fair enough. Neither do I. I meant it as a rhetorical question because it's such an absurd thing to think, but I realize that wasn't necessarily clear. > The US military is composed predominately of gun owners :). So is the thinking that people in the military would disobey commands and join the uprising? (Or are you being entirely facetious, like the smile might suggest?) > From my perspective, this is almost pure cognitive dissonance. Exactly. But there are presumably smart people who make this argument. There's got to some kind of reasoning behind it. Right?
      - unethical_ban 11y ago
        >So is the thinking that people in the military would disobey commands and join the uprising? Yes. tl;have work to do: The knowledge of the potential for large portions of the population to resist oppression by use of small arms is sufficient to deter governments from radical, direct assaults on human rights.
        pjc50 11y ago
        The knowledge of the potential for large portions of the population to resist oppression by use of small arms is sufficient to deter governments from radical, direct assaults on human rights No it isn't; the US has massive gun ownership and direct assaults on human rights. Especially of nonwhite people. The US never really "signed up to" human rights in the modern (postwar) sense.
- pjc50 11y ago
  the purpose of personal gun ownership is to curb governmental power No, that's what the legal system is for. The idea of trying to have some sort of legal right to political violence (terrorism) is bonkers. Maybe it comes from the Lost Cause or something. The AR-15 has been mentioned in a couple of places in this thread. It has rather different connotations in the UK, being one of the favoured weapons of the IRA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army_arms_importation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_A... (The Troubles seems like the exact nightmare scenario pro-gun people talk about when they talk of armed resistance to the government firing on demonstrators, coming round to the houses of dissidents in the middle of the night, etc., and yet I've never seen it discussed)
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    You don't have a "legal right" to political violence, by definition. You have a moral right under some circumstances and the legal right to own guns helps gives the ability to act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide#Rwandan_Patriotic_Front_military_campaign_and_victory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide#Rwandan_Patri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising
    - pjc50 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29 ?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  I thought the purpose of the militias and the 2nd amendment was to suppress slave rebellions.
amelius 11y ago
I guess this amounts to a chicken-and-egg problem. In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances).
- HelloNurse 11y ago
  Unlike USA police, for a typical European police officer shooting at someone is a career-limiting move. Even self-defense guarantees an unpleasant trial.
- zeveb 11y ago
  > In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances). And yet when I've been in Europe I've seen plenty of police and/or paramilitary units carrying submachine guns, something I never saw here in the U.S. even after 11 September.
  - TallGuyShort 11y ago
    Curious, as I haven't been to Europe - were these at border posts? Public transit hubs? Anything else?
    - zeveb 11y ago
      I've seen them walking around in train stations, airports, public squares and on the sidewalk. Remarkable from an American perspective.
      - anu_gupta 11y ago
        I guess it's almost as remarkable as the number of people in the USA who actually get killed by police.
        oldmanjay 11y ago
        Do you feel like this was a useful comment? If so, to what end?
jcromartie 11y ago
And part of the reason why cops are armed to the teeth is because the citizens are. It would require real total mutual disarmament of citizens and police to change anything in the USA. So I don't see it changing any time soon.
- talmand 11y ago
  American citizens have always been armed to the teeth, so to speak. American police departments were not, this is a more recent phenomenon. It's partly due to the Federal level programs that are equipping the police with surplus military hardware. I find it doubtful that a regular street cop is going to encounter a situation in their day-to-day to justify the level of armament as if they were on the SWAT team.
- hnal943 11y ago
  ...because the criminals are. And therein lies to fatal flaw of gun control - only people who are law abiding would comply with the new laws.
  - LyndsySimon 11y ago
    I don't believe that US criminals are more heavily-armed than those in other countries. In fact, the opposite is likely true. In the US most criminals who are armed have inexpensive, unreliable handguns. An armed criminal in the UK (while less common) would seem more likely to have something like a submachinegun or a machine pistol. If the penalty is severe and the gun is rare and expensive... why go through all that trouble and risk for a .32 revolver, when you could just as easily obtain a Skorpion?
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      What about the criminals in the UK that do not obtain any firearm? Someone carrying a cheap pistol is still more heavily armed than someone carrying brass knuckles. I'm not going to go find the facts and figures, still, I'm pretty sure that the incidence of gun crime is higher in the US, pointing out that gun buying criminals in the UK probably buy nicer guns doesn't change that.
meaot 11y ago
Everday patrol officers having an AR-15 in the trunk is a fairly direct consequence of the North Hollywood Shootout [1]. The Miami FBI shootout also contributed to the adoption of conventional semi-automatic handguns over revolvers [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  I'd also like to point out that in the case of the North Hollywood Shootout, the responding police were able to effectively arm themselves within minutes by requesting the assistance of a nearby gun store.
optimuspaul 11y ago
Huh, what's wrong with me then. I absolutely do not need a gun, ever. Nobody needs a gun. If you think you need a gun then you have serious problems. Let's talk about basic human needs. Food, water, Air, and to a lesser extent clothing and shelter. You don't need a gun for any of those things. Sure a gun can help with food, but guess what, you don't even need to eat meat, there are so many other sources of food. So no, you don't need a gun, and you sure as hell don't need a "semi-automatic pistol".
- swah 11y ago
  You also never need to defend yourself in this hypotetical situation.
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  What about a musket, one chosen purposefully for inefficient reloading speed. Is that more appealing for home protection because we'd be prevented from committing a mass shooting? "nobody needs a gun" This is a statement that for anyone to take seriously requires you to say your age and approx geographic location as it clearly is informing your belief.
- jksmith 11y ago
  Imagine the absurdity of US citizens being told this by their government, who then drafts their 18 year old children and sends them to a foreign land to kill people with the most lethal technology the US military industrial complex can come up with. Paid for by US citizens tax dollars.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  Respectfully, what right do you have to determine my needs? From a more practical perspective, what are you going to do about it? Are you proposing to take arms from the American people by force? How many deaths are acceptable to make that happen? To be clear, I don't mean the above as a threat or anything of the sort. I'm merely pointing out the certain result of a policy of disarmament, and the hypocrisy of using force to render a population defenseless.
  - 11y ago
chishaku 11y ago
> Demilitarize the police at the same time. Unfortunately, we're going in the opposite direction. -- http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-america... SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising cockfights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. Federal cash -- first to wage war on drugs, then on terror -- has paid for much of the heavy weaponry used by SWAT teams. Between 2002 and 2011 the Department of Homeland Security disbursed $35 billion in grants to state and local police. ...it is hard to see why Fargo, North Dakota—a city that averages fewer than two murders a year—needs an armoured personnel-carrier with a rotating turret. Keene, a small town in New Hampshire which had three homicides between 1999 and 2012, spent nearly $286,000 on an armoured personnel-carrier known as a BearCat. The local police chief said it would be used to patrol Keene’s “Pumpkin Festival and other dangerous situations”.
piyush_soni 11y ago
As an outsider, I've always wondered about this: Since a lot of people in America are so much hell bent on keeping a gun for a hypothetical future situation of government turning hostile (completely ignoring the 'real, actual' killings that are happening very frequently because some psycho got access to what they obtained for their own safety) - will all these people be personally willing to take responsibility and go to jail for (mass) murder if some psychopath gets access to their gun and shoots people because of their negligence? I mean someone sane should be responsible for the continued acts of psychopaths after all.
- geodel 11y ago
  Strange line of argument. But I will be okay if such policy is broad based. All good doctors to be responsible for some one in their professional indulged in massive malpractice, all s/w developers be responsible for someone writing virus or other kind of malware and so on.
  - piyush_soni 11y ago
    The primary purpose of s/w / computers / medical profession is not killing.
- TallGuyShort 11y ago
  I think it's irresponsible to not take reasonable precautions with guns. I keep mine in a GunVault. But mandating that by law and assigning liability to the owner is a slippery slope. I agree it makes sense with guns, but if someone breaks into my house looking for prescription medicines and I failed to adequately label poison, am I liable? If they ban guns and an armed robber breaks into my house, are the politicians who wrote the law liable?
  - piyush_soni 11y ago
    To this and all such similar analogies, sure, anything can be used to kill, but let's talk about only the things whose primary purpose is to kill. Like Guns. Bombs. Canons. etc. Now one might argue that the "primary purpose" for them is their safety and not killing, but no, it's not. That is assuming safety by creating a 'threat of getting killed' to the opponent. I know this punishment is little harsh (and should be decided on per case basis based on the level of negligence) - but we should also agree that if there's no punishment whatsoever - this will continue happening. Mass killings is a real problem that needs to be solved, and most of them get access to guns in their mom's drawers or something like that.
ksk 11y ago
You don't need a gun because nobody is going to shoot you. And secondly because even if you had a gun, I don't trust YOU to not flip out and go postal when someone looks at you the wrong way, or carry your loaded gun in an unsafe manner. From my point of view, and for anyone who doesn't know you, you are no different than a criminal with a gun. By simply owning a gun YOU increase the threat level for other people.
- salgernon 11y ago
  For a slightly different take: I won't let my seven year old have play dates at the houses of her friends when there is a gun in the house. And yes, I do ask.
  - knz 11y ago
    I think it's great that you ask (as a parent unsecured firearms also concern me) but wouldn't it make more sense to ask what type of firearms are in the house and how they are stored? There is a huge difference between an unloaded rifle locked in a safe and a loaded pistol in a drawer. Even then, how can you be sure that people respond truthfully? I intend to teach my kids about the hazards of firearms in the same way I would with chemicals and tools.
    - salgernon 11y ago
      I don't differentiate because I don't believe that those are sufficient safeguards. I believe this because when I was 12, friends routinely accessed firearms that their parents believed were secured, and many a starwars figurine was thus destroyed. Your comment about chemical safety and tools bring up a very good point - a gun is just a tool, like a woodchipper, and while I wouldn't let my kid play with a woodchipper, I've never asked if there's one available at her friends house. I'll freely admit that I'm inconsistent on this, and my attitude is based in part on my general anti-gun stance, and the easy moral superiority I feel when asking the question. But seriously, my 12 year old self and friends never treated guns with the respect that we would a woodchipper. Possibly too many TV shows where guns were just bang bang bang, or that _Fargo_ hadn't come out yet.
themartorana 11y ago
Upvote upvote upvote. The whole point of the 2nd Amendment was that the country was founded by taking up arms against tyranny, and the framers knew that the new government they were forming could just as easily lean towards tyranny. Well, we're here. The police are no longer community organizations, rather they're full military units charged with waging war against the citizens they purport to protect. Personally, I lean towards the side of always needing guns available, as a check. Quote nukes and F-16s all you like, civil uprisings are much more likely in a country where people are armed, no matter how poorly in comparison to the military. That said, as I see tyranny increasing and police militarization increasing there is no part of me willing to now part with the rights I have left. All that said, guns are not safe, they are for killing. The woman quoted in the article got lax in a place that requires constant vigilance (gun safety). One of the biggest problems with our gun culture is that the divide runs along the "don't take our guns!" line, and rational discussion, where we can admit the truth about the dangers ownership presents aren't heard.
- pjc50 11y ago
  > civil uprisings are much more likely in a country where people are armed* Yes - but this is not a good thing! It's a bug not a feature! I started this thread mentioning Dunblane, but perhaps I should have mentioned the Easter Risings and the Good Friday Agreement instead. The UK had an armed uprising for decades in Northern Ireland and it was terrible. I can't seem to get any of the guns-are-important-for-fighting-the-government advocates to engage with this and look at what actually happened when people responded to civil and human rights violations with AR-15s and Semtex.
  - krapp 11y ago
    >Yes - but this is not a good thing! It's a bug not a feature! From the point of view of many Americans, not only is it a feature, but the defining feature of a free state. Then again, many Americans take to heart Jefferson's line about the 'Tree of Liberty needing to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants' without realizing what he actually meant by referring to both patriots and tyrants as 'its natural manure.'

forgetsusername 11y ago

This is a good point. I think it's ingrained in American culture (and the Constitution) that part of the purpose of personal gun ownership is to curb governmental power. How can gun control be justified when police are roaming around like a para-military group?

skewart 11y ago
I completely agree that the "curb government power" is a common argument for gun ownership in the US. However, I've never understood the logic behind it. Do people really think their handgun is going to help them resist a predator drone strike? The US military is vastly more powerful than any gun owner. Do people really think they can compete? What's more, advocates of legal gun ownership often also push for more military spending (though that might be less true here on HN). Am I missing something here? Edit: To be clear, I certainly don't mean to be dismissive of legal gun ownership - I tend to argue in favor of it. What I don't understand is the argument that gun ownership curbs government power in any meaningful way. Guns and/or shooting and/or hunting seem like great hobbies.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  > Do people really think their handgun is going to help them resist a predator drone strike? For a single person, or a small group? I know of no one who believes that. > The US military is vastly more powerful than any gun owner. Do people really think they can compete? The US military is composed predominately of gun owners :). > What's more, advocates of legal gun ownership often also push for more military spending (though that might be less true here on HN). Am I missing something here? From my perspective, this is almost pure cognitive dissonance. They also tend to support things like NSA spying and restrictions on effective encryption.
  - skewart 11y ago
    > For a single person, or a small group? I know of no one who believes that. Fair enough. Neither do I. I meant it as a rhetorical question because it's such an absurd thing to think, but I realize that wasn't necessarily clear. > The US military is composed predominately of gun owners :). So is the thinking that people in the military would disobey commands and join the uprising? (Or are you being entirely facetious, like the smile might suggest?) > From my perspective, this is almost pure cognitive dissonance. Exactly. But there are presumably smart people who make this argument. There's got to some kind of reasoning behind it. Right?
    - unethical_ban 11y ago
      >So is the thinking that people in the military would disobey commands and join the uprising? Yes. tl;have work to do: The knowledge of the potential for large portions of the population to resist oppression by use of small arms is sufficient to deter governments from radical, direct assaults on human rights.
      - pjc50 11y ago
        The knowledge of the potential for large portions of the population to resist oppression by use of small arms is sufficient to deter governments from radical, direct assaults on human rights No it isn't; the US has massive gun ownership and direct assaults on human rights. Especially of nonwhite people. The US never really "signed up to" human rights in the modern (postwar) sense.
pjc50 11y ago
the purpose of personal gun ownership is to curb governmental power No, that's what the legal system is for. The idea of trying to have some sort of legal right to political violence (terrorism) is bonkers. Maybe it comes from the Lost Cause or something. The AR-15 has been mentioned in a couple of places in this thread. It has rather different connotations in the UK, being one of the favoured weapons of the IRA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army_arms_importation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_A... (The Troubles seems like the exact nightmare scenario pro-gun people talk about when they talk of armed resistance to the government firing on demonstrators, coming round to the houses of dissidents in the middle of the night, etc., and yet I've never seen it discussed)
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  You don't have a "legal right" to political violence, by definition. You have a moral right under some circumstances and the legal right to own guns helps gives the ability to act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide#Rwandan_Patriotic_Front_military_campaign_and_victory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide#Rwandan_Patri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising
  - pjc50 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29 ?
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
I thought the purpose of the militias and the 2nd amendment was to suppress slave rebellions.

amelius 11y ago

I guess this amounts to a chicken-and-egg problem. In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances).

HelloNurse 11y ago
Unlike USA police, for a typical European police officer shooting at someone is a career-limiting move. Even self-defense guarantees an unpleasant trial.
zeveb 11y ago
> In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances). And yet when I've been in Europe I've seen plenty of police and/or paramilitary units carrying submachine guns, something I never saw here in the U.S. even after 11 September.
- TallGuyShort 11y ago
  Curious, as I haven't been to Europe - were these at border posts? Public transit hubs? Anything else?
  - zeveb 11y ago
    I've seen them walking around in train stations, airports, public squares and on the sidewalk. Remarkable from an American perspective.
    - anu_gupta 11y ago
      I guess it's almost as remarkable as the number of people in the USA who actually get killed by police.
      - oldmanjay 11y ago
        Do you feel like this was a useful comment? If so, to what end?

jcromartie 11y ago

And part of the reason why cops are armed to the teeth is because the citizens are. It would require real total mutual disarmament of citizens and police to change anything in the USA. So I don't see it changing any time soon.

talmand 11y ago
American citizens have always been armed to the teeth, so to speak. American police departments were not, this is a more recent phenomenon. It's partly due to the Federal level programs that are equipping the police with surplus military hardware. I find it doubtful that a regular street cop is going to encounter a situation in their day-to-day to justify the level of armament as if they were on the SWAT team.
hnal943 11y ago
...because the criminals are. And therein lies to fatal flaw of gun control - only people who are law abiding would comply with the new laws.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  I don't believe that US criminals are more heavily-armed than those in other countries. In fact, the opposite is likely true. In the US most criminals who are armed have inexpensive, unreliable handguns. An armed criminal in the UK (while less common) would seem more likely to have something like a submachinegun or a machine pistol. If the penalty is severe and the gun is rare and expensive... why go through all that trouble and risk for a .32 revolver, when you could just as easily obtain a Skorpion?
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    What about the criminals in the UK that do not obtain any firearm? Someone carrying a cheap pistol is still more heavily armed than someone carrying brass knuckles. I'm not going to go find the facts and figures, still, I'm pretty sure that the incidence of gun crime is higher in the US, pointing out that gun buying criminals in the UK probably buy nicer guns doesn't change that.

meaot 11y ago

Everday patrol officers having an AR-15 in the trunk is a fairly direct consequence of the North Hollywood Shootout [1]. The Miami FBI shootout also contributed to the adoption of conventional semi-automatic handguns over revolvers [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

LyndsySimon 11y ago
I'd also like to point out that in the case of the North Hollywood Shootout, the responding police were able to effectively arm themselves within minutes by requesting the assistance of a nearby gun store.

optimuspaul 11y ago

Huh, what's wrong with me then. I absolutely do not need a gun, ever. Nobody needs a gun. If you think you need a gun then you have serious problems. Let's talk about basic human needs. Food, water, Air, and to a lesser extent clothing and shelter. You don't need a gun for any of those things. Sure a gun can help with food, but guess what, you don't even need to eat meat, there are so many other sources of food. So no, you don't need a gun, and you sure as hell don't need a "semi-automatic pistol".

swah 11y ago
You also never need to defend yourself in this hypotetical situation.
michaelbuddy 11y ago
What about a musket, one chosen purposefully for inefficient reloading speed. Is that more appealing for home protection because we'd be prevented from committing a mass shooting? "nobody needs a gun" This is a statement that for anyone to take seriously requires you to say your age and approx geographic location as it clearly is informing your belief.
jksmith 11y ago
Imagine the absurdity of US citizens being told this by their government, who then drafts their 18 year old children and sends them to a foreign land to kill people with the most lethal technology the US military industrial complex can come up with. Paid for by US citizens tax dollars.
LyndsySimon 11y ago
Respectfully, what right do you have to determine my needs? From a more practical perspective, what are you going to do about it? Are you proposing to take arms from the American people by force? How many deaths are acceptable to make that happen? To be clear, I don't mean the above as a threat or anything of the sort. I'm merely pointing out the certain result of a policy of disarmament, and the hypocrisy of using force to render a population defenseless.
- 11y ago

chishaku 11y ago

> Demilitarize the police at the same time. Unfortunately, we're going in the opposite direction. -- http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-america... SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising cockfights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. Federal cash -- first to wage war on drugs, then on terror -- has paid for much of the heavy weaponry used by SWAT teams. Between 2002 and 2011 the Department of Homeland Security disbursed $35 billion in grants to state and local police. ...it is hard to see why Fargo, North Dakota—a city that averages fewer than two murders a year—needs an armoured personnel-carrier with a rotating turret. Keene, a small town in New Hampshire which had three homicides between 1999 and 2012, spent nearly $286,000 on an armoured personnel-carrier known as a BearCat. The local police chief said it would be used to patrol Keene’s “Pumpkin Festival and other dangerous situations”.

piyush_soni 11y ago

As an outsider, I've always wondered about this: Since a lot of people in America are so much hell bent on keeping a gun for a hypothetical future situation of government turning hostile (completely ignoring the 'real, actual' killings that are happening very frequently because some psycho got access to what they obtained for their own safety) - will all these people be personally willing to take responsibility and go to jail for (mass) murder if some psychopath gets access to their gun and shoots people because of their negligence? I mean someone sane should be responsible for the continued acts of psychopaths after all.

geodel 11y ago
Strange line of argument. But I will be okay if such policy is broad based. All good doctors to be responsible for some one in their professional indulged in massive malpractice, all s/w developers be responsible for someone writing virus or other kind of malware and so on.
- piyush_soni 11y ago
  The primary purpose of s/w / computers / medical profession is not killing.
TallGuyShort 11y ago
I think it's irresponsible to not take reasonable precautions with guns. I keep mine in a GunVault. But mandating that by law and assigning liability to the owner is a slippery slope. I agree it makes sense with guns, but if someone breaks into my house looking for prescription medicines and I failed to adequately label poison, am I liable? If they ban guns and an armed robber breaks into my house, are the politicians who wrote the law liable?
- piyush_soni 11y ago
  To this and all such similar analogies, sure, anything can be used to kill, but let's talk about only the things whose primary purpose is to kill. Like Guns. Bombs. Canons. etc. Now one might argue that the "primary purpose" for them is their safety and not killing, but no, it's not. That is assuming safety by creating a 'threat of getting killed' to the opponent. I know this punishment is little harsh (and should be decided on per case basis based on the level of negligence) - but we should also agree that if there's no punishment whatsoever - this will continue happening. Mass killings is a real problem that needs to be solved, and most of them get access to guns in their mom's drawers or something like that.

ksk 11y ago

You don't need a gun because nobody is going to shoot you. And secondly because even if you had a gun, I don't trust YOU to not flip out and go postal when someone looks at you the wrong way, or carry your loaded gun in an unsafe manner. From my point of view, and for anyone who doesn't know you, you are no different than a criminal with a gun. By simply owning a gun YOU increase the threat level for other people.

salgernon 11y ago
For a slightly different take: I won't let my seven year old have play dates at the houses of her friends when there is a gun in the house. And yes, I do ask.
- knz 11y ago
  I think it's great that you ask (as a parent unsecured firearms also concern me) but wouldn't it make more sense to ask what type of firearms are in the house and how they are stored? There is a huge difference between an unloaded rifle locked in a safe and a loaded pistol in a drawer. Even then, how can you be sure that people respond truthfully? I intend to teach my kids about the hazards of firearms in the same way I would with chemicals and tools.
  - salgernon 11y ago
    I don't differentiate because I don't believe that those are sufficient safeguards. I believe this because when I was 12, friends routinely accessed firearms that their parents believed were secured, and many a starwars figurine was thus destroyed. Your comment about chemical safety and tools bring up a very good point - a gun is just a tool, like a woodchipper, and while I wouldn't let my kid play with a woodchipper, I've never asked if there's one available at her friends house. I'll freely admit that I'm inconsistent on this, and my attitude is based in part on my general anti-gun stance, and the easy moral superiority I feel when asking the question. But seriously, my 12 year old self and friends never treated guns with the respect that we would a woodchipper. Possibly too many TV shows where guns were just bang bang bang, or that _Fargo_ hadn't come out yet.

themartorana 11y ago

Upvote upvote upvote. The whole point of the 2nd Amendment was that the country was founded by taking up arms against tyranny, and the framers knew that the new government they were forming could just as easily lean towards tyranny. Well, we're here. The police are no longer community organizations, rather they're full military units charged with waging war against the citizens they purport to protect. Personally, I lean towards the side of always needing guns available, as a check. Quote nukes and F-16s all you like, civil uprisings are much more likely in a country where people are armed, no matter how poorly in comparison to the military. That said, as I see tyranny increasing and police militarization increasing there is no part of me willing to now part with the rights I have left. All that said, guns are not safe, they are for killing. The woman quoted in the article got lax in a place that requires constant vigilance (gun safety). One of the biggest problems with our gun culture is that the divide runs along the "don't take our guns!" line, and rational discussion, where we can admit the truth about the dangers ownership presents aren't heard.

pjc50 11y ago
> civil uprisings are much more likely in a country where people are armed* Yes - but this is not a good thing! It's a bug not a feature! I started this thread mentioning Dunblane, but perhaps I should have mentioned the Easter Risings and the Good Friday Agreement instead. The UK had an armed uprising for decades in Northern Ireland and it was terrible. I can't seem to get any of the guns-are-important-for-fighting-the-government advocates to engage with this and look at what actually happened when people responded to civil and human rights violations with AR-15s and Semtex.
- krapp 11y ago
  >Yes - but this is not a good thing! It's a bug not a feature! From the point of view of many Americans, not only is it a feature, but the defining feature of a free state. Then again, many Americans take to heart Jefferson's line about the 'Tree of Liberty needing to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants' without realizing what he actually meant by referring to both patriots and tyrants as 'its natural manure.'