4 ms·

I can draw and fire from my hip (and pocket) and hit center mass at 8 feet in two seconds. I also train to look like I'm cowering and reaching for my wallet in

I can draw and fire from my hip (and pocket) and hit center mass at 8 feet in two seconds. I also train to look like I'm cowering and reaching for my wallet in my back hip pocket. As to the topic of crime, cities with high gun ownership tend to have lower crime. The US, for example, has far fewer hot home robberies, where hot means robbing while people are in the home. The UK has a higher percentage. The difference comes down to the risk of the homeowner fighting back.

noir_lord 8y ago
UK gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 0.06 US gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 4.62 Intentional Homicide Rate per 100,000 per year. UK - 1.2 US - 5.35 Fatal Shootings involving police officers (not adjusted for population so lets be kind and multiply 3 by 8..). UK (2015/2016 latest year I could find) - 3 US 2015 - 1052. I'll take heavy gun control (guns are legal here, they are just controlled - If I wanted a license I could apply for one - requirement is legitimate reason (member of a shooting club qualifies) and no criminal background, 700,000 people have the license to own a gun with more than 1.5 million guns in private hands) thanks. Sure we have a high burglary rate but that isn't to do with guns, it's do with more than a decade of destroying police budgets. Figures from wikipedia/UN. Oh and the one that amuses me in a black way, guns kill their owners (suicide) at a higher rate than they do anyone else in the US. Also in the interests of clarity, UK suicide rate 7.6 per 100,000 US suicide rate 21.8 per 100,000 with academic research showing that easy availability of firearms increases suicide rate. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304403 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.3044...
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > UK gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 0.06 > US gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 4.62 The majority of which, as you point out, are suicides. Also, measuring "gun deaths" is like measuring "blue car accidents" an an argument for restricting blue cars. A better metric might be something like "homicide rate" except that then you have to reckon with the fact that the US homicide rate is higher than the UK homicide rate even if you remove the US firearm homicides entirely, proving that the difference has causes other than access to firearms. The same is true of the suicide rate. Even excluding US firearms suicides, the US still has a higher suicide rate than the UK. Moreover, preventing suicides by restricting access to firearms is certainly not a real solution -- it implies leaving people in such a despondent state that the only thing preventing suicide is lack of means. Addressing the underlying problem is still necessary, but is then also sufficient and obviates the supposed need to restrict access to firearms.
  - batiudrami 8y ago
    >it implies leaving people in such a despondent state that the only thing preventing suicide is lack of means. this is certainly one of the reasons I'm still here today. Not such a bad thing, no?
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > this is certainly one of the reasons I'm still here today. The point is that it's not. Getting to the point where access to means is the only remaining form of prevention implies that five other things have already failed in ways that never should have happened. Those things sometimes do fail in practice, but that's what needs to be fixed. Because what about everyone who uses a different means?
- philwelch 8y ago
  And now the UK is starting to pass laws and regulations on kitchen knives because it turns out banning guns doesn’t actually fix underlying human nature.

noir_lord 8y ago

UK gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 0.06 US gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 4.62 Intentional Homicide Rate per 100,000 per year. UK - 1.2 US - 5.35 Fatal Shootings involving police officers (not adjusted for population so lets be kind and multiply 3 by 8..). UK (2015/2016 latest year I could find) - 3 US 2015 - 1052. I'll take heavy gun control (guns are legal here, they are just controlled - If I wanted a license I could apply for one - requirement is legitimate reason (member of a shooting club qualifies) and no criminal background, 700,000 people have the license to own a gun with more than 1.5 million guns in private hands) thanks. Sure we have a high burglary rate but that isn't to do with guns, it's do with more than a decade of destroying police budgets. Figures from wikipedia/UN. Oh and the one that amuses me in a black way, guns kill their owners (suicide) at a higher rate than they do anyone else in the US. Also in the interests of clarity, UK suicide rate 7.6 per 100,000 US suicide rate 21.8 per 100,000 with academic research showing that easy availability of firearms increases suicide rate. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304403 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.3044...

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> UK gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 0.06 > US gun deaths per 100,000 per year - 4.62 The majority of which, as you point out, are suicides. Also, measuring "gun deaths" is like measuring "blue car accidents" an an argument for restricting blue cars. A better metric might be something like "homicide rate" except that then you have to reckon with the fact that the US homicide rate is higher than the UK homicide rate even if you remove the US firearm homicides entirely, proving that the difference has causes other than access to firearms. The same is true of the suicide rate. Even excluding US firearms suicides, the US still has a higher suicide rate than the UK. Moreover, preventing suicides by restricting access to firearms is certainly not a real solution -- it implies leaving people in such a despondent state that the only thing preventing suicide is lack of means. Addressing the underlying problem is still necessary, but is then also sufficient and obviates the supposed need to restrict access to firearms.
- batiudrami 8y ago
  >it implies leaving people in such a despondent state that the only thing preventing suicide is lack of means. this is certainly one of the reasons I'm still here today. Not such a bad thing, no?
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > this is certainly one of the reasons I'm still here today. The point is that it's not. Getting to the point where access to means is the only remaining form of prevention implies that five other things have already failed in ways that never should have happened. Those things sometimes do fail in practice, but that's what needs to be fixed. Because what about everyone who uses a different means?
philwelch 8y ago
And now the UK is starting to pass laws and regulations on kitchen knives because it turns out banning guns doesn’t actually fix underlying human nature.