5 ms·

So if I go crazy armed with military grade encryption, how many school kids can I kill before the cops get me? Sorry, your argument is bullshit.

bitJericho 9y ago
If you don't want guns, maybe you should repeal the second amendment instead of ignoring it. Same goes for the first.
- diego_moita 9y ago
  This made me laugh: as a non-American I am so happy that my country is civilized enough to not to have a "second amendment".
  - kakarot 9y ago
    You and your fellow citizens are incapable of organizing against your government in the event that it becomes dangerous to its constituents. Congratulations! I am glad to live in a country whose founders had the foresight that allowing a government to leverage weaponry / violence against its citizens without giving its citizens the same leverage was just a bad, bad idea. That is the real reason for the 2nd amendment, not so I can defend myself against home intruders. That is a secondary argument.
    - partycoder 9y ago
      Except that this time the difference between a regular army and a militia would be far beyond just the color of their coat. Having weapons at home can barely counter law enforcement, let alone a professional military force. This time there's more technology supporting each area of warfare: logistics, reconnaissance, equipment, vehicles... A militia, however organized, has everything to lose against an regular army in the 21st century. In fact, chances are you would die before you are in range to fire your weapon. Your only chance to win would be insurgency or guerrilla warfare.
      - kakarot 9y ago
        You are absolutely correct and it's a horrible state of affairs. There's still no need to starve the beast and remove one of the few weapons we have against the slaughtering of our rights and freedoms. Just being able to purchase guns of reasonable firepower without scrutiny is extremely important to the freedom of our posterity and their ability to organize. I know this almost makes me sound like some sort of radical terrorist, but these ideals are at the core of our Constitution and to not value these ideals is to be devoid of true patriotism.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - bitJericho 9y ago
        Guerilla warfare... without guns? You're exactly right, "Your only chance to win would be insurgency or guerrilla warfare." but I'll add "with guns."
        partycoder 9y ago
        Good luck shooting at an Apache helicopter with a mounted minigun with your semi-automatic gun.
        bitJericho 9y ago
        That argument would be much more effective if we didn't have groups like ISIS taking the piss out of the US.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"This made me laugh: as a non-American I am so happy that my country is civilized enough to not to have a "second amendment." And your comment might make others laugh for its ignorance. Perhaps you should read up a bit on US history, the circumstances of its' founding and the "actual" origins of the second amendment? It's not some provision that was proposed by a bunch of "uncivilized" gun nuts: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/2nd-amendment.html http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/2nd-amendment.ht... Out of curiosity can you share what is your country?
  - dang 9y ago
    Insulting other nations as uncivilized is one of the worst things you can do in an internet flamewar, where by 'worse' I mean 'producing more of the same, only more so'. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again. More generally, please don't post unsubstantive comments. The combination of uncivil+informationless is particularly toxic. Upvoters: if you upvote this kind of thing, eventually your upvotes will not count.
    - Thiez 9y ago
      > Upvoters: if you upvote this kind of thing, eventually your upvotes will not count. Wait, how does that work? Does HN track upvotes for posts disliked by the mods, and somehow penalize the associated accounts?
roughcoat 9y ago
Wait, you're calling his argument bullshit? You didn't even make an argument, you just said something completely nonsensical.
- diego_moita 9y ago
  > You didn't even make an argument He did. He said the children in Newtown's kindergarden and Columbine School were not killed with encryption. It is a pretty big difference. For a non-American this is a pretty good argument, IMO.
  - roughcoat 9y ago
    What nonsense. It's obvious what the parent comment meant. Law abiding gun owners by definition do not kill innocent children, just like law abiding people do not use encryption nefariously. Encryption and guns are both tools, with nothing intrinsically good or evil about them. Yet law abiding gun owners were punished and had their rights stripped throughout most of the world on the pretense that it would somehow help stop crime, despite the quite glaringly obvious fact that criminals by definition do not care about following laws. Thus, only law abiding people are hindered. Criminals will still use encryption and guns, while law abiding citizens will be rendered unable to defend themselves, either electronically or physically. I find it amazing that I need to spell this out for you.
    - roughcoat 9y ago
      Further to this, the reality is politicians who want to undermine information security don't give a damn about protecting their citizens/subjects. That's just the excuse to make the poison pill more palatable. What this is about, and what gun control is about, is right there in the name: control. It's about having a monopoly on security and force, so the populace will be less independent and easier to manage. At the very least, if you make enough things illegal you can jail whomever you like, because at some point it will become impossible to avoid breaking the law. The US is already there. We've already seen government agencies in the US targeting specific political groups. I don't follow politics in other countries much but it would hardly surprise me if that happens elsewhere. It certainly has throughout history. How far will that go this time? No matter what side of the aisle you're on, it should frighten you, because the tool you use on your enemies when you're in power--and any tool you create to beat them up more effectively--is then available for your enemy to use on you when you inevitably lose power. I find it shocking how many people who clamor for electronic freedom and an uninterfered-with internet are perfectly happy to cede their rights and independence in other areas to the government without so much as a grumble. Learn from history, FFS.
cynicalbastard 9y ago
> So if I go crazy armed with military grade encryption, how many school kids can I kill before the cops get me? don't worry, i suspect your government will be ramming this answer down your throat by year's end.
- dang 9y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do this with. If you want to comment here, you need to be a good community member. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all—and certainly avoiding ideologically inflammatory, nationalistically nasty comments.
nine_k 9y ago
If you encrypt something, isn't it because you're trying to hide child molestation and sexual exploitation footage? "Think of the children" is one of the most powerful cards there is, and it will be played in full force by governments, only less elegantly than you just did.
- sullyj3 9y ago
  I think the best way to counter this argument to people who don't know what they're talking about is to tell them that encryption is what keeps hackers from stealing their bank details, etc.
dang 9y ago
This violates the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Besides frequently being uncivil, it leads to massively poorer comment threads, as demonstrated below.

bitJericho 9y ago

If you don't want guns, maybe you should repeal the second amendment instead of ignoring it. Same goes for the first.

diego_moita 9y ago
This made me laugh: as a non-American I am so happy that my country is civilized enough to not to have a "second amendment".
- kakarot 9y ago
  You and your fellow citizens are incapable of organizing against your government in the event that it becomes dangerous to its constituents. Congratulations! I am glad to live in a country whose founders had the foresight that allowing a government to leverage weaponry / violence against its citizens without giving its citizens the same leverage was just a bad, bad idea. That is the real reason for the 2nd amendment, not so I can defend myself against home intruders. That is a secondary argument.
  - partycoder 9y ago
    Except that this time the difference between a regular army and a militia would be far beyond just the color of their coat. Having weapons at home can barely counter law enforcement, let alone a professional military force. This time there's more technology supporting each area of warfare: logistics, reconnaissance, equipment, vehicles... A militia, however organized, has everything to lose against an regular army in the 21st century. In fact, chances are you would die before you are in range to fire your weapon. Your only chance to win would be insurgency or guerrilla warfare.
    - kakarot 9y ago
      You are absolutely correct and it's a horrible state of affairs. There's still no need to starve the beast and remove one of the few weapons we have against the slaughtering of our rights and freedoms. Just being able to purchase guns of reasonable firepower without scrutiny is extremely important to the freedom of our posterity and their ability to organize. I know this almost makes me sound like some sort of radical terrorist, but these ideals are at the core of our Constitution and to not value these ideals is to be devoid of true patriotism.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - bitJericho 9y ago
      Guerilla warfare... without guns? You're exactly right, "Your only chance to win would be insurgency or guerrilla warfare." but I'll add "with guns."
      - partycoder 9y ago
        Good luck shooting at an Apache helicopter with a mounted minigun with your semi-automatic gun.
        bitJericho 9y ago
        That argument would be much more effective if we didn't have groups like ISIS taking the piss out of the US.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"This made me laugh: as a non-American I am so happy that my country is civilized enough to not to have a "second amendment." And your comment might make others laugh for its ignorance. Perhaps you should read up a bit on US history, the circumstances of its' founding and the "actual" origins of the second amendment? It's not some provision that was proposed by a bunch of "uncivilized" gun nuts: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/2nd-amendment.html http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/2nd-amendment.ht... Out of curiosity can you share what is your country?
- dang 9y ago
  Insulting other nations as uncivilized is one of the worst things you can do in an internet flamewar, where by 'worse' I mean 'producing more of the same, only more so'. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again. More generally, please don't post unsubstantive comments. The combination of uncivil+informationless is particularly toxic. Upvoters: if you upvote this kind of thing, eventually your upvotes will not count.
  - Thiez 9y ago
    > Upvoters: if you upvote this kind of thing, eventually your upvotes will not count. Wait, how does that work? Does HN track upvotes for posts disliked by the mods, and somehow penalize the associated accounts?

roughcoat 9y ago

Wait, you're calling his argument bullshit? You didn't even make an argument, you just said something completely nonsensical.

diego_moita 9y ago
> You didn't even make an argument He did. He said the children in Newtown's kindergarden and Columbine School were not killed with encryption. It is a pretty big difference. For a non-American this is a pretty good argument, IMO.
- roughcoat 9y ago
  What nonsense. It's obvious what the parent comment meant. Law abiding gun owners by definition do not kill innocent children, just like law abiding people do not use encryption nefariously. Encryption and guns are both tools, with nothing intrinsically good or evil about them. Yet law abiding gun owners were punished and had their rights stripped throughout most of the world on the pretense that it would somehow help stop crime, despite the quite glaringly obvious fact that criminals by definition do not care about following laws. Thus, only law abiding people are hindered. Criminals will still use encryption and guns, while law abiding citizens will be rendered unable to defend themselves, either electronically or physically. I find it amazing that I need to spell this out for you.
  - roughcoat 9y ago
    Further to this, the reality is politicians who want to undermine information security don't give a damn about protecting their citizens/subjects. That's just the excuse to make the poison pill more palatable. What this is about, and what gun control is about, is right there in the name: control. It's about having a monopoly on security and force, so the populace will be less independent and easier to manage. At the very least, if you make enough things illegal you can jail whomever you like, because at some point it will become impossible to avoid breaking the law. The US is already there. We've already seen government agencies in the US targeting specific political groups. I don't follow politics in other countries much but it would hardly surprise me if that happens elsewhere. It certainly has throughout history. How far will that go this time? No matter what side of the aisle you're on, it should frighten you, because the tool you use on your enemies when you're in power--and any tool you create to beat them up more effectively--is then available for your enemy to use on you when you inevitably lose power. I find it shocking how many people who clamor for electronic freedom and an uninterfered-with internet are perfectly happy to cede their rights and independence in other areas to the government without so much as a grumble. Learn from history, FFS.

cynicalbastard 9y ago

> So if I go crazy armed with military grade encryption, how many school kids can I kill before the cops get me? don't worry, i suspect your government will be ramming this answer down your throat by year's end.

dang 9y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do this with. If you want to comment here, you need to be a good community member. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all—and certainly avoiding ideologically inflammatory, nationalistically nasty comments.

nine_k 9y ago

If you encrypt something, isn't it because you're trying to hide child molestation and sexual exploitation footage? "Think of the children" is one of the most powerful cards there is, and it will be played in full force by governments, only less elegantly than you just did.

sullyj3 9y ago
I think the best way to counter this argument to people who don't know what they're talking about is to tell them that encryption is what keeps hackers from stealing their bank details, etc.

dang 9y ago

This violates the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Besides frequently being uncivil, it leads to massively poorer comment threads, as demonstrated below.