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As a US citizen hearing about another mass shooting, I'm honestly not shocked. There will be more next month as well until eventually they will become the "pric

• monochromatic 9y ago
  Typical hoplophobe response.
  • moate 9y ago
    I mean...if you're not afraid of weapons, the purpose of which is killing, you're probably doing it wrong.
    • monochromatic 9y ago
      If the purpose of guns is killing, I think mine are defective. They’ve never killed anybody!
      • jrobn 9y ago
        I find your assumption that my comment was anti-gun in anyway quite telling. I own guns myself. I do have a problem with people using them to kill people. America has a gun violence problem[1]. [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/u...
      • InitialLastName 9y ago
        You've evidently just not been using them as intended.
        • drak0n1c 9y ago
          Guns are more often used as deterrents than to kill. Unfortunately, the cases of deterrence aren't newsworthy.
          • InitialLastName 9y ago
            A guy goes to the doctor with a pencil in his ear. The doctor says, "Why do you have a pencil in your ear?". The guy responds, "To keep away the alligators. See? No alligators anywhere in sight."
            • DoreenMichele 9y ago
              My dad was a two time veteran with a purple heart and guns displayed on the wall above his bed, not locked up. Our shitty sliding glass door at the back of the house, a standard feature in the houses of the neighborhood, was never broken into. Anyone that I knew well enough to know if they had had a break in could not say the same. I'm reasonably sure that word got round the neighborhood that if you valued your hide, Mr. (MyMaidenName)'s house was not a good house to break into. But, of course, I can't prove that. Maybe it was wild coincidence and we would have been magically safe without guns on the wall, never mind that no one else seemed to be.
              • InitialLastName 9y ago
                You might be right. My point is that the deterrence excuse is difficult to prove to the point of absurdity.
                • DoreenMichele 9y ago
                  Your absurd example doesn't really engage the point in a meaningful, substantive manner. It merely mocks the idea that deterrence is real. It frames it as something crazy people imagine. It isn't remotely a good faith argument.
      • yongjik 9y ago
        What an insight. I think we should also cut the ridiculous budget enjoyed by NTSB, because 99.99% of all airplanes currently in service has never crashed.
        • monochromatic 9y ago
          Your comment makes sense iff the purpose of airplanes IS to crash.
        • jsgo 9y ago
          alright, to the response, how about "I think we should also cut the ridiculous budget enjoyed by NTSB, because 0.01% of all airplanes currently in service have crashed"? I'd actually argue that aircraft that have crashed are no longer in service and flights that were successful or grounded vs flights involving mechanical failure leading to crashes is probably at a safer percentage than 0.01% (though not certain of said percentage), but I think the general point stands.
  • sctb 9y ago
    This isn't a civil or substantive comment by the standards of this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• DanBC 9y ago
  One mass shooting a month would be a drastic reduction. The US had 30 mass shootings by the end of February. https://www.abc15.com/news/data/mass-shootings-in-the-us-when-where-they-have-occurred-in-2018 https://www.abc15.com/news/data/mass-shootings-in-the-us-whe... (terrible music choice for that autoplaying video). In 2017 there were over 340 mass shootings. The US has nearly one mass shooting per day.
  • jazoom 9y ago
    Just to put this into perspective, I don't remember the last big mass shooting in Australia. It was just that long ago. I guess this allows us to focus on reducing other forms of violence, like the "one punch can kill" campaign. We will eventually have another big mass shooting, but if we have only one every 30 years then I'd say we've done the right thing with guns. I'm not trying to tell your country what to do. Just adding my perspective.
    • somecontext 9y ago
      For some context in case anyone is interested: the most recent prominent mass murder in Australia was indeed using a vehicle rather than a gun (6 people in January 2017), but there have been mass shootings in the last 30 years as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia lists more than ten, and there is no particular reason to believe the list is complete. The most recent prominent mass shooting appears to be the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis.
      • jazoom 9y ago
        You're right, and thank you for taking the time to add this extra context. This is why I said "big" mass shooting, even though that extra word seems redundant. It looks like only two people were killed in that Sydney hostage crisis and apparently that's enough to call it a "mass shooting".
        • somecontext 9y ago
• mindslight 9y ago
  I would love a law banning mass institutionalized assemblies, especially offices and public schools, but I don't think there will ever be the political will.
  • jrobn 9y ago
    I think you're right. I think we should start with something more sensible, like gun laws that make it harder to acquire firearms that make it easy to kill several people in several seconds.
  • celticninja 9y ago
    This is a poor straw man argument, banning guns is not the same as banning people assembling together for any reason.
    • mindslight 9y ago
      I didn't intend it as a straw man, but to be facetious. Rather than this ever-present implication to myopically focus on what happens to be the easiest tool for killing people, perhaps we should be looking at the structures that cause individuals the intense stress and alienation that pushes them to rampage. In addition to the media that provides the validation and glory for doing so, of course.
      • mistersquid 9y ago
        Your roundabout hint (?) at an attack on the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, also guarantees freedom of religion. It is very unlikely Congress would ever repeal freedom of religion as expressed in the First Amendment. I do not mean to condescend, but given your willingness to protect people from violence by preventing them from assembling in the first place, it might be useful for you to think about why the Founding Fathers thought to compose the First Amendment using specifically these words: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.