4 ms·

Nobody seems to point out the obvious fallacy of the "right to protect yourself". If having that right actually results in being more likely to be harmed, or ha

Nobody seems to point out the obvious fallacy of the "right to protect yourself". If having that right actually results in being more likely to be harmed, or harm someone else, having that right is an unacceptable public safety risk. A common argument against gun control ("should we ban hammers next?") is obviously fallacious when you compare it to an even more extreme comparison ("should we ban private ownership of nuclear weapons?"). It's obvious that some "weapons" are ok because they aren't a big public safety risk, whereas other "weapons" are a gigantic public safety risk. Guns are quite obviously a significant risk to public safety, as the murder statistics demonstrate.

mk89 8y ago
I don't know why you got downvoted, because what you said makes sense. Unfortunately, it seems that when you touch people's belief, facts become fake news. No weapons mean no idiots able to kill dozens of people for no reason at all. It's insane to even have to explain that weapons just have the potential to kill and don't serve any other purpose.
- updateYourMind 8y ago
  Lots of people owning guns are downvoting anything that is not pro-gun.
  - dang 8y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News, and follow the site guidelines? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      Are they wrong, though? I got slammed with a bunch of downvotes all at once, and later a bunch of upvotes, and other comments on the page seem to track similarly. You don't think that's maybe caused by a surge of bias?
      - dang 8y ago
        Even assuming that's true, (a) that doesn't make a comment valuable, and (b) the GP way overinterpreted it ("Lots of people owning guns") in the flamewar style.
meowface 8y ago
What you're basically saying is there's a spectrum, but people just disagree over how to demarcate the spectrum. I agree, and so does the US government. Right now, automatic rifles and anything more powerful than them are illegal to privately own. That's just where a large part of the US draws the line right now: semi-automatic and below are okay, anything above is not okay. Maybe that line will move in the future, but people are already thinking in this way, they just disagree with you over what things are on which part of the spectrum.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  But shouldn't the "spectrum" be decided by what actually happens to people, and not just public opinion? Wrt automatics vs non, handguns are (iirc?) the deadliest weapons in the US. So yeah, the spectrum may change, I'm just saying I think it should be based on real world risks and not just individual perception.
- technothrasher 8y ago
  FYI, fully automatic firearms are not actually illegal to privately own in the US. They are just heavily regulated. Guns that weren't registered by a 1986 cut off date are banned for private ownership, but even that is reasonably easy to work around with the appropriate Federal Firearms License. Although I don't own any fully auto guns myself, I know plenty of people who do legally own them.
  - jki275 8y ago
    I wouldn't argue it's very easy to get a SOT. It's not the most difficult thing in the world, but it's definitely non-trivial.
blancheneige 8y ago
>A common argument against gun control ("should we ban hammers next?") is obviously fallacious obviously fallacious... https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/09/london-mayor-knife-control/500328002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/09/london-m...
stevenicr 8y ago
> the obvious fallacy of the "right to protect yourself". If having that right actually results in being more likely to be harmed, or harm someone else, having that right is an unacceptable public safety risk. I disagree. I understand that the divorced female across the street has a higher chance to harm someone else because she has the right to own weapons - that does not make is unacceptable. I would like to see increased access to instruction / training on safely using any weapons one may choose to have available, so that there is less chance of collateral damage, not restrictions on her rights to use them. The same could be said of free speech. I do not want other people's ability to speak to be restricted, even though I am aware of the possible harms. Instead I want more education for people to know who to research facts and find other opinions. > Guns are quite obviously a significant risk to public safety, as the murder statistics demonstrate. I do not think this is true. I'd like to see some stats that show how many people are killed by guns that are not involved in illegal activities (and suicides), gun deaths in the circles of drug dealers, gangs and other illicit activities should not so much in the stats of risk to public safety imho. car crashes, cell phone use, and hospitals likely contribute to more deaths than guns yet we don't rush to ban them - and yet access to those things are not 'rights'
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Education does not always correlate to action. Behavioral psychology and economics show us that even when people know what they should be doing, they don't always do it. We have had training and instruction on the use and care of firearms for decades, but we still have an unacceptably high number of incidents, both accidental and intentional. States like NY have even passed laws that make not securing your weapon a misdemeanor; people aren't just uneducated, they need a clear incentive to act safer. > I'd like to see some stats that show how many people are killed by guns that are not involved in illegal activities (and suicides), gun deaths in the circles of drug dealers, gangs and other illicit activities should not so much in the stats of risk to public safety imho. Before I get into the stats, I'd like to point out that suicide risk is still a public safety risk that the united states takes very seriously. If someone is a danger to themselves, it's nearly the same as if they were a danger to others: either way, a life is at risk. Suicide is (most of the time) an impulse decision, and even small mitigations can prevent them. If not having a gun prevents a suicide, that saves a life, and thus has an impact on public safety. Suicide impacts not only families, but entire communities. This is a complex subject, but one that should never be discounted. Guns account for over half of all suicide deaths in the US. In fact, the use of guns in suicide has only increased, and is now even larger than gun homicides. [3] Gun deaths involved in illegal activities are definitely public safety issues. It's easy to dismiss gang violence as a lesser part of society that we shouldn't care about. But if you get to know the kinds of people in gangs, you realize it's 14 year old kids, and 50 year old lifers. It's people with families, who live in real communities. Their life affects many other lives. From the police they come into conflict with, to the social workers that try to help rehabilitate them, to the hospital workers that pick up the damage, and the prisons that generate hardened soldiers. Gun crime creates worse outcomes for all these parts of society and more. To say nothing of the collateral damage of their conflicts that reach out into any surrounding communities. Gang violence enacted through guns is a very significant public safety risk, perhaps one of the largest gun-related risks to public safety. Their impact on public safety is probably greatest through the impact of the drug trade, but second to that, the collateral of gun crimes. Snopes did an investigation on a meme about homicides. They found that only about 48% of homicides could be directly attributed to gangs, with the rest being due to interpersional relationships, and "unknown causes". [4] Gun crimes significantly affect minorities, which has a significant accumulative effect not just on public safety, but the health, safety and economic stability of significant portions of minority communities. Homicide is the fourth leading cause of death for non-Hispanic whites 15-24, but the second leading for Hispanics 15-34, and the leading cause for non-Hispanic blacks. [1] > car crashes, cell phone use, and hospitals likely contribute to more deaths than guns yet we don't rush to ban them - and yet access to those things are not 'rights' Wait, cell phone use causes deaths? You lost me there. Cars cause about as many deaths per year in the US as guns, so I would definitely say we need tougher regulations there. But like I mentioned before, people are not rational, and we should be legislating based on real-world harms, not based purely on the "perception" of risk. [1] https://www.apha.org/-/media/files/pdf/factsheets/160317_gunviolencefs.ashx?la=en&hash=AB71DE1BEDEBB2A797F8EC378E672791904FCF87 https://www.apha.org/-/media/files/pdf/factsheets/160317_gun... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160616013917/https://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/2016/2016-06-14-gun-violence-lobby-congress.page https://web.archive.org/web/20160616013917/https://www.ama-a... [3] http://www.bradycampaign.org/gun-violence-in-the-united-states http://www.bradycampaign.org/gun-violence-in-the-united-stat... [4] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gun-homicides-disputes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gun-homicides-disputes/

mk89 8y ago

I don't know why you got downvoted, because what you said makes sense. Unfortunately, it seems that when you touch people's belief, facts become fake news. No weapons mean no idiots able to kill dozens of people for no reason at all. It's insane to even have to explain that weapons just have the potential to kill and don't serve any other purpose.

updateYourMind 8y ago
Lots of people owning guns are downvoting anything that is not pro-gun.
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News, and follow the site guidelines? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Are they wrong, though? I got slammed with a bunch of downvotes all at once, and later a bunch of upvotes, and other comments on the page seem to track similarly. You don't think that's maybe caused by a surge of bias?
    - dang 8y ago
      Even assuming that's true, (a) that doesn't make a comment valuable, and (b) the GP way overinterpreted it ("Lots of people owning guns") in the flamewar style.

meowface 8y ago

What you're basically saying is there's a spectrum, but people just disagree over how to demarcate the spectrum. I agree, and so does the US government. Right now, automatic rifles and anything more powerful than them are illegal to privately own. That's just where a large part of the US draws the line right now: semi-automatic and below are okay, anything above is not okay. Maybe that line will move in the future, but people are already thinking in this way, they just disagree with you over what things are on which part of the spectrum.

peterwwillis 8y ago
But shouldn't the "spectrum" be decided by what actually happens to people, and not just public opinion? Wrt automatics vs non, handguns are (iirc?) the deadliest weapons in the US. So yeah, the spectrum may change, I'm just saying I think it should be based on real world risks and not just individual perception.
technothrasher 8y ago
FYI, fully automatic firearms are not actually illegal to privately own in the US. They are just heavily regulated. Guns that weren't registered by a 1986 cut off date are banned for private ownership, but even that is reasonably easy to work around with the appropriate Federal Firearms License. Although I don't own any fully auto guns myself, I know plenty of people who do legally own them.
- jki275 8y ago
  I wouldn't argue it's very easy to get a SOT. It's not the most difficult thing in the world, but it's definitely non-trivial.

blancheneige 8y ago

>A common argument against gun control ("should we ban hammers next?") is obviously fallacious obviously fallacious... https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/09/london-mayor-knife-control/500328002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/09/london-m...

stevenicr 8y ago

> the obvious fallacy of the "right to protect yourself". If having that right actually results in being more likely to be harmed, or harm someone else, having that right is an unacceptable public safety risk. I disagree. I understand that the divorced female across the street has a higher chance to harm someone else because she has the right to own weapons - that does not make is unacceptable. I would like to see increased access to instruction / training on safely using any weapons one may choose to have available, so that there is less chance of collateral damage, not restrictions on her rights to use them. The same could be said of free speech. I do not want other people's ability to speak to be restricted, even though I am aware of the possible harms. Instead I want more education for people to know who to research facts and find other opinions. > Guns are quite obviously a significant risk to public safety, as the murder statistics demonstrate. I do not think this is true. I'd like to see some stats that show how many people are killed by guns that are not involved in illegal activities (and suicides), gun deaths in the circles of drug dealers, gangs and other illicit activities should not so much in the stats of risk to public safety imho. car crashes, cell phone use, and hospitals likely contribute to more deaths than guns yet we don't rush to ban them - and yet access to those things are not 'rights'

peterwwillis 8y ago
Education does not always correlate to action. Behavioral psychology and economics show us that even when people know what they should be doing, they don't always do it. We have had training and instruction on the use and care of firearms for decades, but we still have an unacceptably high number of incidents, both accidental and intentional. States like NY have even passed laws that make not securing your weapon a misdemeanor; people aren't just uneducated, they need a clear incentive to act safer. > I'd like to see some stats that show how many people are killed by guns that are not involved in illegal activities (and suicides), gun deaths in the circles of drug dealers, gangs and other illicit activities should not so much in the stats of risk to public safety imho. Before I get into the stats, I'd like to point out that suicide risk is still a public safety risk that the united states takes very seriously. If someone is a danger to themselves, it's nearly the same as if they were a danger to others: either way, a life is at risk. Suicide is (most of the time) an impulse decision, and even small mitigations can prevent them. If not having a gun prevents a suicide, that saves a life, and thus has an impact on public safety. Suicide impacts not only families, but entire communities. This is a complex subject, but one that should never be discounted. Guns account for over half of all suicide deaths in the US. In fact, the use of guns in suicide has only increased, and is now even larger than gun homicides. [3] Gun deaths involved in illegal activities are definitely public safety issues. It's easy to dismiss gang violence as a lesser part of society that we shouldn't care about. But if you get to know the kinds of people in gangs, you realize it's 14 year old kids, and 50 year old lifers. It's people with families, who live in real communities. Their life affects many other lives. From the police they come into conflict with, to the social workers that try to help rehabilitate them, to the hospital workers that pick up the damage, and the prisons that generate hardened soldiers. Gun crime creates worse outcomes for all these parts of society and more. To say nothing of the collateral damage of their conflicts that reach out into any surrounding communities. Gang violence enacted through guns is a very significant public safety risk, perhaps one of the largest gun-related risks to public safety. Their impact on public safety is probably greatest through the impact of the drug trade, but second to that, the collateral of gun crimes. Snopes did an investigation on a meme about homicides. They found that only about 48% of homicides could be directly attributed to gangs, with the rest being due to interpersional relationships, and "unknown causes". [4] Gun crimes significantly affect minorities, which has a significant accumulative effect not just on public safety, but the health, safety and economic stability of significant portions of minority communities. Homicide is the fourth leading cause of death for non-Hispanic whites 15-24, but the second leading for Hispanics 15-34, and the leading cause for non-Hispanic blacks. [1] > car crashes, cell phone use, and hospitals likely contribute to more deaths than guns yet we don't rush to ban them - and yet access to those things are not 'rights' Wait, cell phone use causes deaths? You lost me there. Cars cause about as many deaths per year in the US as guns, so I would definitely say we need tougher regulations there. But like I mentioned before, people are not rational, and we should be legislating based on real-world harms, not based purely on the "perception" of risk. [1] https://www.apha.org/-/media/files/pdf/factsheets/160317_gunviolencefs.ashx?la=en&hash=AB71DE1BEDEBB2A797F8EC378E672791904FCF87 https://www.apha.org/-/media/files/pdf/factsheets/160317_gun... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160616013917/https://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/2016/2016-06-14-gun-violence-lobby-congress.page https://web.archive.org/web/20160616013917/https://www.ama-a... [3] http://www.bradycampaign.org/gun-violence-in-the-united-states http://www.bradycampaign.org/gun-violence-in-the-united-stat... [4] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gun-homicides-disputes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gun-homicides-disputes/