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Living in the Netherlands, I know that people with bad intentions most likely have guns. Even in my small hometown, a citizen that owned a spy equipment store g

Living in the Netherlands, I know that people with bad intentions most likely have guns. Even in my small hometown, a citizen that owned a spy equipment store got shot up in daylight in front of his home. Other example would be people getting robbed in their house with guns (not daily, but it happens). There are plenty of other examples... I cannot say I feel 100% save most of the time.

mattmanser 10y ago
It might not make you feel better, but Holland's gun death per 100,000 is in the 0.5's compared to the U.S.'s 10's and Mexico's 10's. You're 20 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US or Mexico. Note that in the whole of Holland there are 50 gun homicides per year, so you were actually pretty unlucky to experience that. Your experience is exceptional and not a common occurrence, especially as I assume most Holland murders are not widely reported spouse killings, etc. Mexico had 18,398 gun homicides in 2011, for comparison, Holland, 60, US, 11,068.
- briandear 10y ago
  The gun homicide rate in the US is 4.5. The US has roughly 110 guns per 100,000 people and 4.5 gun homicides per 100,000 people. Mexico has over 20 gun homicides per 100,000 people and about 18 guns per 100,000 people. Canada has 2 gun murders per 100,000 people and 31 guns per 100,000 people. Mexico: each gun is responsible for 1.11 murders US: each gun is responsible for .04 murders Canada: each gun is responsible for .07 murders. Interestingly, the Bahamas has 30 gun murders per 100,000 and about 4 guns per 100,000. That's 7.5 murders per gun. France has 2.8 gun murders per 100k and 31 guns per 100,000. Which makes each gun responsible for .09 murders -- slightly higher than both the US and Canada, despite far stricter laws. The U.K. Has .23 gun murders and 6.6 guns -- so .35 murders per gun. Sweden has 1.47 murders per 100k with 31.6 guns for a rate of .047 murders per gun. Nicaragua has 4.68 murders with 7.7 guns -- each gun is part of 1.65 murders. Jamaica: 31 murders/8 guns. Denmark: 1.28/12 guns Israel: 2.09/7.3 guns Brazil: 21.2/8 guns Australia: .93/21.7 guns My point: gun ownership does not correlate to gun murder rates -- in fact one could make a case that increased gun ownership could actually reduce gun murder rates. Despite having more guns per capita than most countries, the overall US murder rate ranks 108 out of 218, with Honduras topping the list (incidentally Honduras has 67 murders and 6.2 guns per 100,000)
  - lliiffee 10y ago
    I think you're making the argument that with more guns, countries tend to have fewer gun deaths per gun. This makes sense, casually. However, I doubt that anyone cares about the number of gun murders per gun, but rather the total number of gun murders, which is (please correct me if wrong) still correlated with more guns. Also, I see that you've focused the discussion on gun murders, which is fine, but we should note that decreased gun ownership does lead to far fewer gun deaths, mostly by reducing suicides.
    - sathackr 10y ago
      Does it matter what weapon the murder/suicide was committed with? Yes, fewer guns mean fewer gun deaths -- but does it mean fewer deaths in general? If fewer people own Honda Civics, then fewer people will die in Honda Civic accidents. But that dip in Honda Civic deaths would likely be absorbed into deaths by all other car models, such that the overall death rate remains the same.
      - mattmanser 10y ago
        Overall suicides significantly reduce as suicide is easier to do on impulse with a gun.
        talmand 10y ago
        Depends on the culture; Japan has high suicide rates but low gun ownership.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        Not if it's easier (psychologically, practically, whatever) to kill someone with a Honda Civic than other cars, of course.
      - InitialLastName 10y ago
        Suicide is one of those clubs where we, as a society, probably have an ethical compulsion to increase the barrier to entry.
- mter 10y ago
  > You're 20 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US This is very misleading because this audience is primarily middle class/rich white/asians employed in the tech industry. There are 2 primary factors in homicide rates. Be poor or be a certain race. If you are not either of those things, your chances of being murdered in the US is very low. *edit 3 factors -- men. Women don't get murdered often.
  - ggiaco 10y ago
    Same thing applies Mexico -- if you're not involved in the drug trade or law enforcement, your odds of getting killed are almost nil. Mexico welcomes over 20M tourists a year from all over and almost all make it back home safely.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Also, if I remember the stats correctly, you are more likely to kill yourself with a gun than to be murdered by one in the US.
  - mattmanser 10y ago
    How is it misleading? Are all Holland's gun killings well-heeled white techies? Why wouldn't those same factors apply in Holland? I haven't looked at stats but I'd take an educated guess that the economic/ethnic divides also apply in Holland. You've also made the same mistake as another commentator (I admit I wasn't clear), my first figures are total gun deaths, including self-harm. A significant percentage of those deaths are white men killing themselves with guns. As I understand it, a figure that only partially translates into other forms of suicides in countries or states with better gun control (basically, less guns = less suicides, other methods need more preparation and so are caught in time or fail). A brief google seems to support that: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ Proportionally speaking, the factors probably hold, the cold, hard, truth is that as a white techie you're still much more likely to die by a gun in America or Mexico than in Holland. Your own state department warns about Mexico: U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery in various Mexican states You can search for US citizen deaths in foreign countries: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/statistics/deaths.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/statistics/deaths... I see 75 homicides of US citizens in Mexico last year. It doesn't list guns or not guns. I tried Holland, the UK, Germany, Spain no homicides of US citizens. 2 people killed in Italy, 3 in France (Nice terrorist attack).
vertex-four 10y ago
People with bad intentions most likely don't have guns in the UK. Some people with bad intentions will, but they're the people who're risking everything in the first place, not the people who'll get a couple of years if they're caught.
sametmax 10y ago
If you have a gun you are not safer. It leads to escalation and more people die. We are not at war, guns are not the solution.
- briandear 10y ago
  You are less likely to attack someone if there is the risk that person has a gun. Just like you are less likely to speed in your car if there's a cop driving next to you.
  - ambentzen 10y ago
    > You are less likely to attack someone if there is the risk that person has a gun. I don't believe that. I think that the calculus of whether to attack someone skips the "is the victim armed?" question. You just make sure to bring overwhelming force, e.g. bring a gun to a (probable) gun fight or a knife to a fist fight. But what do I know. I'm just an European wuss, who has fire a handgun exactly once.
    - sabarn01 10y ago
      My wife was attacked and she was caring a gun. People who attack people are fundamentally not good at risk reward cost benefit analysis. The deal is if you carry, which I did for years, you have to maintain above normal situational awareness. You have to be able to get space. Cops can do this because they arrive after the fact and get to enter the situation with the appropriate threat posture. If I have a gun and I get into an altercation the moment i'm in physical contact with the other person the gun doesn't matter. The long and the short of it is if you can be prepared and have "the drop" on someone a gun is a great way to protect yourself. That is why I feel the shotgun at home is a good idea concealed carry an overall liability. Source. I lived in the 14th most dangerous neighborhood in the us for 15 years and carried a gun most of the time.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    This presumes criminals think this through. Largely criminals exist because they didn't or couldn't think it through. If they must have money to feed their child or their addiction they will attempt to mug someone, they might pick the lowest risk target or the first target. Let's not presume these people have lots of options, if that were true most wouldn't be criminals.
teddythetwig 10y ago
I have to say, you are really over exaggerating. Gun violence is just not a reality you have to be worried about here. Amsterdam is nothing like any US city where I've lived(in terms of violence on a daily basis), and The Netherlands as a whole is extremely safe.
- avar 10y ago
  As another resident of Amsterdam. I don't think your impression of the situation really matches up with statistics. Look at these two articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths Here you can see the gun death rate in The Netherlands per 100k inhabitants is 0.58, but there's some areas in the US where the rate is quite comparable. What really sets things apart is the suicide rate, most deaths by guns in the US are by suicide, but there's counties in the US where there's easy access to guns and the overall death rate is lower than the Dutch gun violence + non-gun suicides. So in a lot of cases it's not that just having guns makes everything hyper-violent. It's just that if people feel like killing themselves they'll use the best available instrument available to them. Conflating that with general gun safety as it pertains to you feeling safe walking around Amsterdam, but not in a comparable town in the US, is silly.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    I'm sorry, but the lowest group for that US graphic you linked is higher than the number of the Netherlands (0.58 gun deaths, 0.29 of which are homicides, both per 100k). The lowest groups are 2-7 and 0.5-1.4, respectively, both of which are significantly higher than the value for the Netherlands. In fact, your link shows the exact opposite of what you claim: there isn't a single county in the US that has lower gun death or gun homicide ratio than the entirety of the Netherlands. That's an exaggeration, too (there isn't data for all counties), but it doesn't diminish the point that you're by far less likely to get shot in the Netherlands than in a comparable US city.
    - 10y ago
driverdan 10y ago
> I cannot say I feel 100% save most of the time. You can never be 100% safe. That's impossible.
- code_duck 10y ago
  You can never be 100% safe, but you can feel 100% safe since feelings are subjective.
samstave 10y ago
that sounds like an interesting story - more info on the spy equipment store owner who was gunned down please. mayhaps it was a husband who was caught doing bad things by his wife, due to the spy equipment the guy sold to his wife?
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  Can't be that many spy shop related assassinations in NL, so probably this guy, Ronald Bakker. http://nltimes.nl/2015/09/10/police-huizen-murder-gangland-assassination http://nltimes.nl/2015/09/10/police-huizen-murder-gangland-a... A search on his name brings up Dutch results that badly Google translate into English, but it seems (from what I can decipher from a translation) police suspect he may have been shot after being suspected of passing on info related to another criminal investigation.
  - samstave 10y ago
    I think I am going to start investing in "Spy Shop Related Assassinations" - just because I like the way that phrase sounds...

mattmanser 10y ago

It might not make you feel better, but Holland's gun death per 100,000 is in the 0.5's compared to the U.S.'s 10's and Mexico's 10's. You're 20 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US or Mexico. Note that in the whole of Holland there are 50 gun homicides per year, so you were actually pretty unlucky to experience that. Your experience is exceptional and not a common occurrence, especially as I assume most Holland murders are not widely reported spouse killings, etc. Mexico had 18,398 gun homicides in 2011, for comparison, Holland, 60, US, 11,068.

briandear 10y ago
The gun homicide rate in the US is 4.5. The US has roughly 110 guns per 100,000 people and 4.5 gun homicides per 100,000 people. Mexico has over 20 gun homicides per 100,000 people and about 18 guns per 100,000 people. Canada has 2 gun murders per 100,000 people and 31 guns per 100,000 people. Mexico: each gun is responsible for 1.11 murders US: each gun is responsible for .04 murders Canada: each gun is responsible for .07 murders. Interestingly, the Bahamas has 30 gun murders per 100,000 and about 4 guns per 100,000. That's 7.5 murders per gun. France has 2.8 gun murders per 100k and 31 guns per 100,000. Which makes each gun responsible for .09 murders -- slightly higher than both the US and Canada, despite far stricter laws. The U.K. Has .23 gun murders and 6.6 guns -- so .35 murders per gun. Sweden has 1.47 murders per 100k with 31.6 guns for a rate of .047 murders per gun. Nicaragua has 4.68 murders with 7.7 guns -- each gun is part of 1.65 murders. Jamaica: 31 murders/8 guns. Denmark: 1.28/12 guns Israel: 2.09/7.3 guns Brazil: 21.2/8 guns Australia: .93/21.7 guns My point: gun ownership does not correlate to gun murder rates -- in fact one could make a case that increased gun ownership could actually reduce gun murder rates. Despite having more guns per capita than most countries, the overall US murder rate ranks 108 out of 218, with Honduras topping the list (incidentally Honduras has 67 murders and 6.2 guns per 100,000)
- lliiffee 10y ago
  I think you're making the argument that with more guns, countries tend to have fewer gun deaths per gun. This makes sense, casually. However, I doubt that anyone cares about the number of gun murders per gun, but rather the total number of gun murders, which is (please correct me if wrong) still correlated with more guns. Also, I see that you've focused the discussion on gun murders, which is fine, but we should note that decreased gun ownership does lead to far fewer gun deaths, mostly by reducing suicides.
  - sathackr 10y ago
    Does it matter what weapon the murder/suicide was committed with? Yes, fewer guns mean fewer gun deaths -- but does it mean fewer deaths in general? If fewer people own Honda Civics, then fewer people will die in Honda Civic accidents. But that dip in Honda Civic deaths would likely be absorbed into deaths by all other car models, such that the overall death rate remains the same.
    - mattmanser 10y ago
      Overall suicides significantly reduce as suicide is easier to do on impulse with a gun.
      - talmand 10y ago
        Depends on the culture; Japan has high suicide rates but low gun ownership.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      Not if it's easier (psychologically, practically, whatever) to kill someone with a Honda Civic than other cars, of course.
    - InitialLastName 10y ago
      Suicide is one of those clubs where we, as a society, probably have an ethical compulsion to increase the barrier to entry.
mter 10y ago
> You're 20 times more likely to get killed by a gun in the US This is very misleading because this audience is primarily middle class/rich white/asians employed in the tech industry. There are 2 primary factors in homicide rates. Be poor or be a certain race. If you are not either of those things, your chances of being murdered in the US is very low. *edit 3 factors -- men. Women don't get murdered often.
- ggiaco 10y ago
  Same thing applies Mexico -- if you're not involved in the drug trade or law enforcement, your odds of getting killed are almost nil. Mexico welcomes over 20M tourists a year from all over and almost all make it back home safely.
- talmand 10y ago
  Also, if I remember the stats correctly, you are more likely to kill yourself with a gun than to be murdered by one in the US.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  How is it misleading? Are all Holland's gun killings well-heeled white techies? Why wouldn't those same factors apply in Holland? I haven't looked at stats but I'd take an educated guess that the economic/ethnic divides also apply in Holland. You've also made the same mistake as another commentator (I admit I wasn't clear), my first figures are total gun deaths, including self-harm. A significant percentage of those deaths are white men killing themselves with guns. As I understand it, a figure that only partially translates into other forms of suicides in countries or states with better gun control (basically, less guns = less suicides, other methods need more preparation and so are caught in time or fail). A brief google seems to support that: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ Proportionally speaking, the factors probably hold, the cold, hard, truth is that as a white techie you're still much more likely to die by a gun in America or Mexico than in Holland. Your own state department warns about Mexico: U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery in various Mexican states You can search for US citizen deaths in foreign countries: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/statistics/deaths.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/statistics/deaths... I see 75 homicides of US citizens in Mexico last year. It doesn't list guns or not guns. I tried Holland, the UK, Germany, Spain no homicides of US citizens. 2 people killed in Italy, 3 in France (Nice terrorist attack).

vertex-four 10y ago

People with bad intentions most likely don't have guns in the UK. Some people with bad intentions will, but they're the people who're risking everything in the first place, not the people who'll get a couple of years if they're caught.

sametmax 10y ago

If you have a gun you are not safer. It leads to escalation and more people die. We are not at war, guns are not the solution.

briandear 10y ago
You are less likely to attack someone if there is the risk that person has a gun. Just like you are less likely to speed in your car if there's a cop driving next to you.
- ambentzen 10y ago
  > You are less likely to attack someone if there is the risk that person has a gun. I don't believe that. I think that the calculus of whether to attack someone skips the "is the victim armed?" question. You just make sure to bring overwhelming force, e.g. bring a gun to a (probable) gun fight or a knife to a fist fight. But what do I know. I'm just an European wuss, who has fire a handgun exactly once.
  - sabarn01 10y ago
    My wife was attacked and she was caring a gun. People who attack people are fundamentally not good at risk reward cost benefit analysis. The deal is if you carry, which I did for years, you have to maintain above normal situational awareness. You have to be able to get space. Cops can do this because they arrive after the fact and get to enter the situation with the appropriate threat posture. If I have a gun and I get into an altercation the moment i'm in physical contact with the other person the gun doesn't matter. The long and the short of it is if you can be prepared and have "the drop" on someone a gun is a great way to protect yourself. That is why I feel the shotgun at home is a good idea concealed carry an overall liability. Source. I lived in the 14th most dangerous neighborhood in the us for 15 years and carried a gun most of the time.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  This presumes criminals think this through. Largely criminals exist because they didn't or couldn't think it through. If they must have money to feed their child or their addiction they will attempt to mug someone, they might pick the lowest risk target or the first target. Let's not presume these people have lots of options, if that were true most wouldn't be criminals.

teddythetwig 10y ago

I have to say, you are really over exaggerating. Gun violence is just not a reality you have to be worried about here. Amsterdam is nothing like any US city where I've lived(in terms of violence on a daily basis), and The Netherlands as a whole is extremely safe.

avar 10y ago
As another resident of Amsterdam. I don't think your impression of the situation really matches up with statistics. Look at these two articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths Here you can see the gun death rate in The Netherlands per 100k inhabitants is 0.58, but there's some areas in the US where the rate is quite comparable. What really sets things apart is the suicide rate, most deaths by guns in the US are by suicide, but there's counties in the US where there's easy access to guns and the overall death rate is lower than the Dutch gun violence + non-gun suicides. So in a lot of cases it's not that just having guns makes everything hyper-violent. It's just that if people feel like killing themselves they'll use the best available instrument available to them. Conflating that with general gun safety as it pertains to you feeling safe walking around Amsterdam, but not in a comparable town in the US, is silly.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but the lowest group for that US graphic you linked is higher than the number of the Netherlands (0.58 gun deaths, 0.29 of which are homicides, both per 100k). The lowest groups are 2-7 and 0.5-1.4, respectively, both of which are significantly higher than the value for the Netherlands. In fact, your link shows the exact opposite of what you claim: there isn't a single county in the US that has lower gun death or gun homicide ratio than the entirety of the Netherlands. That's an exaggeration, too (there isn't data for all counties), but it doesn't diminish the point that you're by far less likely to get shot in the Netherlands than in a comparable US city.
  - 10y ago

driverdan 10y ago

> I cannot say I feel 100% save most of the time. You can never be 100% safe. That's impossible.

code_duck 10y ago
You can never be 100% safe, but you can feel 100% safe since feelings are subjective.

samstave 10y ago

that sounds like an interesting story - more info on the spy equipment store owner who was gunned down please. mayhaps it was a husband who was caught doing bad things by his wife, due to the spy equipment the guy sold to his wife?

quirkafleeg 10y ago
Can't be that many spy shop related assassinations in NL, so probably this guy, Ronald Bakker. http://nltimes.nl/2015/09/10/police-huizen-murder-gangland-assassination http://nltimes.nl/2015/09/10/police-huizen-murder-gangland-a... A search on his name brings up Dutch results that badly Google translate into English, but it seems (from what I can decipher from a translation) police suspect he may have been shot after being suspected of passing on info related to another criminal investigation.
- samstave 10y ago
  I think I am going to start investing in "Spy Shop Related Assassinations" - just because I like the way that phrase sounds...