8 ms·

Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states. My wife is from Australia and it seems as if

Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states. My wife is from Australia and it seems as if it were a night and day difference when it comes to gun control. I wish our founding fathers had written something more explicit and more prohibitive so that perhaps more lives could have been saved to gun violence. I may sound paranoid but I may end up taking a serious look at some of these options in the near future.

save_ferris 9y ago
The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in weapon tech long after their deaths. I agree with you on looking outside of the US, though.
- prepend 9y ago
  But so does the ability to communicate. Grown a billion fold and the first amendment still stands.
- GiorgioG 9y ago
  This argument is so old. I’d guess you’ve never been trained to or handled a firearm. I suggest you learn about it and understand that it’s a tool like any other. “But it’s primary purpose is to kill!!!” Sure, and the primary purpose of alcohol is not to kill people, yet it causes as many deaths per year as gun-homicide. I understand, you don’t like guns, and that’s ok, nobody’s forcing you to acquire or use one, but taking away that option for law-abiding Folks doesn’t make any of us safer.
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  I don’t know why so many people believe the founding fathers would think differently if they saw the world of weapons today. They had just fought and won a war largely due to the ability of commoners to fight off the threat of the most powerful colonial power in the world. The second amendment was written to allow people to defend themselves collectively (hence the mention of militia) from the threat of nation states and corrupted powers, not carjackers and armed robbers. If they saw the world of weaponry today, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would interpret the second amendment to include grenade launchers and machine guns...because that is what the potential external threats (and possibly internal threats) have become. You may believe the world has changed, but I still find it short sighted to go around disarming people. The count of people killed in genocides even in the last half of the 20th century is enough to dissuade me from putting my security solely in the hands of a government. And I say that as someone who generally hates America’s obsessive gun culture.
- refurb 9y ago
  The efficiency and power of modern speech far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in speech technology long after their deaths. See why it's not a good idea to go down that road?
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of Nonsense. The Constitution includes provisions for hiring privateers to acts as an adjunct to the nation's navy. There were businessmen who owned ships bristling with cannon floating in Boston harbor - they didn't try to limit that, they made sure they could hire them to go blow stuff up if they felt the need. Also, the Austian army was using a repeating rifle with a 20-round magazine in 1780 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle
xtreme 9y ago
Just to share an opposing (and unpopular) viewpoint, I am from a country where legal ownership of firearms is basically impossible. One of the reasons I chose to move to the US was my strong belief in the 2nd amendment. And I am absolutely enjoying the newfound sense of freedom that US has offered.
gw 9y ago
I really doubt you will leave, at least for this particular reason. Maybe you'll find a job elsewhere, or find another good reason, but I think you understand intuitively that the chance of being shot, even in the US, is lower than the chance that you will die in a car accident. Our founders were way more concerned about state tyranny (the Crown in their case) than private crime, and I would guess that they still would be, even after being shown what an AR-15 can do. I wouldn't dismiss their conclusions too quickly.
- GuiA 9y ago
  When I was living in Oakland, I had a European friend stay over while he was interviewing with tech companies. Around 3am, 2 guys coming out of a club and arguing about drugs or something shot at each other, resulting in one of them dying literally on my front step, and the other being apprehended by the police a few blocks away. This was in downtown Oakland btw, not in one of the risky neighborhoods. We had come back from a smoke break shortly before. My friend, pretty traumatized, did not accept any job offers. This is obviously a personal anecdote, and a pretty extreme one, but just to show you that these things do have an impact.
  - GiorgioG 9y ago
    It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?) In most states it’s illegal to carry a gun and drink, etc. Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here? Maybe your European friend forgot what happened in Paris a couple of years ago in a country with strict gun control laws. Gun control laws provide a false sense of security. Since you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no gun control laws will achieve “gun safety” that people seek.
    - yongjik 9y ago
      > Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here? You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire. There's a reason why muggers in Paris or Tokyo don't shoot people, and the reason is not because they are nice muggers. And "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" is kind of the opposite of "gun control laws are slippery slope toward total dictatorship" (which a lot of people seem to believe). You cannot claim both at the same time.
grecy 9y ago
Living in the USA you're almost 5 times more likely to be murdered than if you lived in Australia. [1] It seems very logical to me to reduce your chances of murder by 5x just by moving country. USA: 4.88/100,00 population Australia: 0.98/100,000 population [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
- GiorgioG 9y ago
  Your chances of being murdered in the US are not evenly distributed. I grew up in a ghetto (for example a young man was murdered across the street from my childhood home, with a blunt object when I was about 8.) I live in a suburb now and heart disease is more likely to kill me than a gun.
  - grecy 9y ago
    Of course it isn't. And it's not in Australia either. So if you want to compare the best parts of the USA with the best parts of Australia, you'll still be ~5x more likely to be murdered. Why do Americans fail to grasp that we're talking about an average across entire countries, and as much as it's not accurate across the whole USA, it's also not accurate across the whole of other countries?
GiorgioG 9y ago
> Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states This is beyond paranoid. Go look up the leading causes of death in the USA, then realize that unless you live in the ghetto (unlikely) that your chances of dying by a bullet should be the least of your worries. Go live in a pro gun-control state like NY or CA if this is really keeping you up at night. If you already live in one of those states, seek professional help.
- gcb0 9y ago
  just because you have more chance of a heart attack or driving death at the USA, it would be very foolish to ignore the larger than zero chance of being shot in a elementary school.
  - GiorgioG 9y ago
    The chances of that happening anywhere on earth are greater than zero. If you believe different you're delusional. Are they higher in the US? Yes, but it isn't the law abiding citizen that's doing the shooting. In most states schools are gun free zones. I can't even pick up my kids from school while carrying concealed - even if I don't get out of the car.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  It's not so much paranoia as a very human inability to recognise how much risk a threat truly poses. Americans seem very very concerned with terrorism. Terrorism hasn't actually killed many Americans. The chance that you'll die from a terrorist attack are incredibly low, far lower than say heart disease or a traffic accident. Yet still you have these crazy privacy invasions, stupid security theatre at airports, wars in the middle east etcetera, etcetera. As an Australian, after moving to America I had a similar feeling about guns, especially at first. I'd moved from a world where the risk of being shot was lower than being struck by lighting, into a world where shootings actually happened. It was a brand new threat that I didn't understand and basically all of my knowledge came from movies. Do the homeless people on the streets of SF have guns? Were those loud pops on the 4th of July fireworks or people celebrating by firing bullets in the air? Is the news I see about police shooting people online hype or a real risk? Similarly, it feels wonderful to go to a place where I have less worries. When I'm in Australia, I don't have to worry about getting shot, being bankrupted by medical bills, ending up homeless ever, tipping or a variety of other problems. There's just nothing like feeling a bunch of burdens evaporate, even if, when I think about them, they're very minor.
ntw1103 9y ago
Actually, the founding fathers had a lot to say on this topic: https://pastebin.com/SfhHWVPb https://pastebin.com/SfhHWVPb

save_ferris 9y ago

The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in weapon tech long after their deaths. I agree with you on looking outside of the US, though.

prepend 9y ago
But so does the ability to communicate. Grown a billion fold and the first amendment still stands.
GiorgioG 9y ago
This argument is so old. I’d guess you’ve never been trained to or handled a firearm. I suggest you learn about it and understand that it’s a tool like any other. “But it’s primary purpose is to kill!!!” Sure, and the primary purpose of alcohol is not to kill people, yet it causes as many deaths per year as gun-homicide. I understand, you don’t like guns, and that’s ok, nobody’s forcing you to acquire or use one, but taking away that option for law-abiding Folks doesn’t make any of us safer.
saosebastiao 9y ago
I don’t know why so many people believe the founding fathers would think differently if they saw the world of weapons today. They had just fought and won a war largely due to the ability of commoners to fight off the threat of the most powerful colonial power in the world. The second amendment was written to allow people to defend themselves collectively (hence the mention of militia) from the threat of nation states and corrupted powers, not carjackers and armed robbers. If they saw the world of weaponry today, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would interpret the second amendment to include grenade launchers and machine guns...because that is what the potential external threats (and possibly internal threats) have become. You may believe the world has changed, but I still find it short sighted to go around disarming people. The count of people killed in genocides even in the last half of the 20th century is enough to dissuade me from putting my security solely in the hands of a government. And I say that as someone who generally hates America’s obsessive gun culture.
refurb 9y ago
The efficiency and power of modern speech far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in speech technology long after their deaths. See why it's not a good idea to go down that road?
LyndsySimon 9y ago
> The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of Nonsense. The Constitution includes provisions for hiring privateers to acts as an adjunct to the nation's navy. There were businessmen who owned ships bristling with cannon floating in Boston harbor - they didn't try to limit that, they made sure they could hire them to go blow stuff up if they felt the need. Also, the Austian army was using a repeating rifle with a 20-round magazine in 1780 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle

xtreme 9y ago

Just to share an opposing (and unpopular) viewpoint, I am from a country where legal ownership of firearms is basically impossible. One of the reasons I chose to move to the US was my strong belief in the 2nd amendment. And I am absolutely enjoying the newfound sense of freedom that US has offered.

gw 9y ago

I really doubt you will leave, at least for this particular reason. Maybe you'll find a job elsewhere, or find another good reason, but I think you understand intuitively that the chance of being shot, even in the US, is lower than the chance that you will die in a car accident. Our founders were way more concerned about state tyranny (the Crown in their case) than private crime, and I would guess that they still would be, even after being shown what an AR-15 can do. I wouldn't dismiss their conclusions too quickly.

GuiA 9y ago
When I was living in Oakland, I had a European friend stay over while he was interviewing with tech companies. Around 3am, 2 guys coming out of a club and arguing about drugs or something shot at each other, resulting in one of them dying literally on my front step, and the other being apprehended by the police a few blocks away. This was in downtown Oakland btw, not in one of the risky neighborhoods. We had come back from a smoke break shortly before. My friend, pretty traumatized, did not accept any job offers. This is obviously a personal anecdote, and a pretty extreme one, but just to show you that these things do have an impact.
- GiorgioG 9y ago
  It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?) In most states it’s illegal to carry a gun and drink, etc. Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here? Maybe your European friend forgot what happened in Paris a couple of years ago in a country with strict gun control laws. Gun control laws provide a false sense of security. Since you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no gun control laws will achieve “gun safety” that people seek.
  - yongjik 9y ago
    > Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here? You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire. There's a reason why muggers in Paris or Tokyo don't shoot people, and the reason is not because they are nice muggers. And "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" is kind of the opposite of "gun control laws are slippery slope toward total dictatorship" (which a lot of people seem to believe). You cannot claim both at the same time.

grecy 9y ago

Living in the USA you're almost 5 times more likely to be murdered than if you lived in Australia. [1] It seems very logical to me to reduce your chances of murder by 5x just by moving country. USA: 4.88/100,00 population Australia: 0.98/100,000 population [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

GiorgioG 9y ago
Your chances of being murdered in the US are not evenly distributed. I grew up in a ghetto (for example a young man was murdered across the street from my childhood home, with a blunt object when I was about 8.) I live in a suburb now and heart disease is more likely to kill me than a gun.
- grecy 9y ago
  Of course it isn't. And it's not in Australia either. So if you want to compare the best parts of the USA with the best parts of Australia, you'll still be ~5x more likely to be murdered. Why do Americans fail to grasp that we're talking about an average across entire countries, and as much as it's not accurate across the whole USA, it's also not accurate across the whole of other countries?

GiorgioG 9y ago

> Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states This is beyond paranoid. Go look up the leading causes of death in the USA, then realize that unless you live in the ghetto (unlikely) that your chances of dying by a bullet should be the least of your worries. Go live in a pro gun-control state like NY or CA if this is really keeping you up at night. If you already live in one of those states, seek professional help.

gcb0 9y ago
just because you have more chance of a heart attack or driving death at the USA, it would be very foolish to ignore the larger than zero chance of being shot in a elementary school.
- GiorgioG 9y ago
  The chances of that happening anywhere on earth are greater than zero. If you believe different you're delusional. Are they higher in the US? Yes, but it isn't the law abiding citizen that's doing the shooting. In most states schools are gun free zones. I can't even pick up my kids from school while carrying concealed - even if I don't get out of the car.
Veratyr 9y ago
It's not so much paranoia as a very human inability to recognise how much risk a threat truly poses. Americans seem very very concerned with terrorism. Terrorism hasn't actually killed many Americans. The chance that you'll die from a terrorist attack are incredibly low, far lower than say heart disease or a traffic accident. Yet still you have these crazy privacy invasions, stupid security theatre at airports, wars in the middle east etcetera, etcetera. As an Australian, after moving to America I had a similar feeling about guns, especially at first. I'd moved from a world where the risk of being shot was lower than being struck by lighting, into a world where shootings actually happened. It was a brand new threat that I didn't understand and basically all of my knowledge came from movies. Do the homeless people on the streets of SF have guns? Were those loud pops on the 4th of July fireworks or people celebrating by firing bullets in the air? Is the news I see about police shooting people online hype or a real risk? Similarly, it feels wonderful to go to a place where I have less worries. When I'm in Australia, I don't have to worry about getting shot, being bankrupted by medical bills, ending up homeless ever, tipping or a variety of other problems. There's just nothing like feeling a bunch of burdens evaporate, even if, when I think about them, they're very minor.

ntw1103 9y ago

Actually, the founding fathers had a lot to say on this topic: https://pastebin.com/SfhHWVPb https://pastebin.com/SfhHWVPb