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Am sure this will be downvoted but just commenting that I find discussion in these threads fascinating, terrifying, fundamentally foreign. Having lived in larg

Am sure this will be downvoted but just commenting that I find discussion in these threads fascinating, terrifying, fundamentally foreign. Having lived in large cities all my life I cannot conceive of owning a gun, or of other nearby city dwellers owning guns, or even being allowed to in a non law enforcement capacity. There are apartments in NYC with working fireplaces- seems almost equally insane to me, though gun more so because of the active harm it can induce. Please- no disrepect intended, and not interested in starting argument/debate. Know all the arguments and the history and not advocating any position. Just sharing experience, my own lack of slots for this very large component of american life. Cheers folks.

saas_sam 6y ago
For those of us who grew up around guns, your abject horror at an object is as puzzling as someone being terrified of knives or slingshots. Would be nice if cops were all good and could teleport to your location in time of need. Drive an hour outside your city of choice and that ain't gonna happen. Just sharing my own experience, cheers.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Yup, totally get it. Big mental shift. Thank you.
- srmatto 6y ago
  Is your direct experience that you have actually held/brandished/used a firearm during an event when you were physically threatened? Or is this strictly theoretical?
  - saas_sam 6y ago
    My parents did while my house was being broken into one night by multiple men. Semi-rural area. Thankfully they left before anything happened. I have close friends with darker stories.
  - jm4 6y ago
    I have. A couple guys came into the house late at night while I was in bed. I was upstairs and they were downstairs. I didn't have a means to escape. Cops can't help in that situation. I confronted them at the stairs and the whole thing de-escalated very quickly. Nobody got hurt. As far as someone sneaking into your house while you sleep, it was pretty much a best case scenario.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      Stories like this sound so weird to me. Breaking into an occupied house sounds like suicidal behavior. What kind of thought process goes into doing something like that?
      - umvi 6y ago
        It's very rare. Google "Elizabeth Smart" if you want a truly bizarre example of this. Most common burglars only break into empty houses.
      - yeetawayhn 6y ago
        Not sure, but according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, it happens in 27% of burglaries. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
      - jm4 6y ago
        It's borderline suicidal where I live because quite a few houses have guns in them. Every house on my street does. It still happens. I wouldn't say it's often because car break-ins and empty house burglaries are much more common, but it does happen. Attackers pushing their way in as you open the door, attackers posing as some kind of official or salesperson. When the pandemic started, we had guys going around in lab coats saying they were with the CDC. Police response times are generally very good where I live, but guns are still very common and so is concealed carry. The thought behind it for many people is sort of the same as keeping a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. You're not the fire department, but you want to be able to control an emergency until they get there or avoid having an emergency become a catastrophe.
      - 6y ago
- Izkata 6y ago
  Even within cities, people have been having that realization over the past two months with how the cops have been unable to keep up with the rioting. Permit applications are up 500% in Illinois, and sales are skyrocketing all over. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-illinois-foid-gun-ammo-sales-uncertainty-20200625-pkve27352jagnp4y5dbaubkyoy-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-illi...
  - demygale 6y ago
    The police riots are a problem but I don’t think violence is the answer. Better to just abolish the police.
    - artificialLimbs 6y ago
      Who, exactly, is going to enforce laws?
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Even before all this, unless a cop just happens to be right outside, you are going to wait a long time. The number of stories where someone calls the police while a crime is in progress and the police arrive before the criminal is long gone are near non-existent except in cases of domestic abuse.
- dleslie 6y ago
  Indeed! Though even in non-rural environments their response times are too low to generally be of assistance in life-threatening violent altercations; and that response time is typically lower in predominantly african american neighbourhoods. It's kind of a mark of white privilege to believe that the police will arrive in time to protect you, and that when they arrive they won't harm you. Even for de-escalating domestic disputes and dealing with petty vandalism and neighbourly feuds they are likely a worse tool than social workers and such.
  - defnotashton2 6y ago
    > It's kind of a mark of white privilege to believe that the police will arrive in time to protect you, and that when they arrive they won't harm you. This is a gross overstated political narrative. A) Most police response times are well after most conflicts. B) Poor and targeted neighborhoods often have better response times because of the larger constant police presence. C) Socioeconomic signals predict treatment better than the color of your skin.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      D) Race is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. E) The police responses in poor and targeted neighbourhoods often involve harming residents and criminalizing the impoverished and racialized. F) 911 is a Joke
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Why do most developed nations don't let citizens own guns then?
  - e12e 6y ago
    Citation needed? I think hunting is allowed most places?
    - kakwa_ 6y ago
      Well, hunting riffles, even if there are extremely common in most countries, specially in rural areas, are hardly in the same class of weapon as a bolt action/(semi-)automatic riffle or an handgun. The latter also has a different goal in mind, being generally used for self protection/deterrence. Also, carrying a gun all the time is extremely uncommon if not forbidden in most European countries if you don't have the proper permits. For example in France, IIRC, you can only get such permit if your professional activity justifies it (Police, Security Guards, etc). Even for recreational/hunting uses you need to be registered, and maybe have a permit, depending on the type of gun. And that's just for ownership, it doesn't grant you the right to carry the weapon loaded and ready to fire.
      - pluto9 6y ago
        > hunting riffles, even if there are extremely common in most countries, specially in rural areas, are hardly in the same class of weapon as a bolt action Hunting rifles are almost always bolt actions.
        kakwa_ 6y ago
        I'm far from an expert there, but most hunting riffles I've seen, at least here in France, shot shotgun ammunition (birdshots and the like).
  - detaro 6y ago
    Most developed nations allow gun ownership to some degree, with large variations in the regulations and limits around it. The US though are quite unique in seeing gun ownership as a basic right, not a privilege granted/earned.
- pluto9 6y ago
  They often won't show up in a timely manner in the city, either. I once called them because I had broken up a fight and one of the people involved ran back to his apartment to get a pistol and was out in the parking lot with his friends searching for me, pistol in hand. There was a police station less than a mile away and it took them 45 minutes to arrive. No doubt they intended to let events play out however they may and then roll in and take statements, which is their only actual legal obligation. That incident really drove home for me exactly what I'm not getting for my tax dollars.
tharne 6y ago
It's definitely framed by where you live. I had a buddy in rural West Texas who had a loaded AR-15 mounted on the wall of his living room. I thought it was some insane gun nut thing, until I asked him about it. He explained that the nearest sheriff was 45 minutes away and he'd also had problems with coyotes attacking his chickens. For him, it would be crazy not have a high-powered weapon at the ready since there was no one nearby to help and there was significant wildlife in the area. On the other hand, having an AR-15 in NYC would be a nightmare for obvious reasons. I think folks on both sides of gun debate forget this - that there are dramatically different living situations across America. In this respect, it really doesn't make sense to talk about gun laws at the federal level (I know, 2nd Amendment), because what makes good sense in New York is ridiculous to someone living in rural Texas and vice-versa. It's not purely political, there's a very real practical element that doesn't often get discussed.
- badrequest 6y ago
  Yeah, I can't possibly think of a single method of dealing with coyotes that isn't an AR-15. Until that specific model of firearm was invented, people just sort of let coyotes eat their chickens, as there was nothing they could possibly do. They couldn't use humbler firearms with less capacity for committing mass shootings, they just let their chickens die.
  - tharne 6y ago
    You don't know much about firearms based on your response. An AR-15 is a high-powered rifle that has a lot of stopping power even at long range and is very accurate - that's why my buddy had one. It also doesn't have the spread of a shotgun, which is important if you need to shoot a coyote that's too close to your chickens -- you don't want to fire a round of buckshot and take out a bunch of your chickens in the process. The AR is not materially different from other semi-automatic hunting rifles you can buy. The AR has become a political symbol because it happened to be used in mass shootings, but there's nothing about it that makes it unique in terms of it's ability to do harm. Even if you live in a state that's banned the AR-15, you can get a gun that's virtually identical that's not an AR. This speaks to the fact that Democrats talking about guns are like Republicans talking about tech. They're trying to control an industry and have made zero effort to understand anything about it.
matt_s 6y ago
If we are talking about practicality, you could expand this to all suburbs (towns bordering cities) as well. The practical use case is marginal for them, same for wood fireplaces and horses.
umvi 6y ago
Foreigners have a lot of fear when the discussion turns to guns in America, but you have to realize that most Americans will never brandish a gun at someone nor have a gun brandished at them. No more than a foreigner will brandish a knife at someone or have a knife brandished at them. The media/Hollywood helps augment fears by misrepresenting the lethality of guns and also by cherry picking gun death statistics. Watch a movie and you'd think it was the easiest thing in the world to kill a dozen people with an AK-47 in seconds or take out a helicopter with a handgun. Actually go to a shooting range and you'll see what reality is like. The chances of getting killed in a school shooting by an AR-15 for example are infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  > infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun Which, in turn, is small compared with dying in a car accident (wherever you live and whether you drive a car or not).
indymike 6y ago
First, I really like your comment because it is honest and highlights how different Urban and Rural issues are. Lots of guns in the hands of non-law enforcement people is scary in a big city and most of the reasons are really good (i.e. accidents, crime, etc). In the country, not owning a gun is scary because of the inability of law enforcement to respond quickly when called... even suburbs often have slow police compared to dense urban areas.
- dragonsky67 6y ago
  I'm from Australia so am missing your context. Is violent crime such a high risk for you that the proximity of law enforcement is a factor, or are you talking about using law enforcemnet to deal with dangerous animials? My experience here and having travelled much of this country is that I've never felt at risk of violent crime whilst in remote areas and rairly in urban areas when in an area near a pub or "drug" area.
agensaequivocum 6y ago
If you ever visit America, I highly encourage you to stop by a gun range and try a few out.
akiselev 6y ago
I live in Los Angeles and I used to feel that way until this pandemic hit - I'm not saying you'll change your mind living in NYC, just sharing my change in perspective. I bugged out mid-March to a family farm to wait out the pandemic and since then its been a nonstop string of events reinforcing why - at least outside of cities - guns are absolutely necessary. Now, mind you, one member of the household works at a research institute in San Diego with a 40 minute commute so this isn't even really rural, just exurban, but we've got septic, well, propane tank, and depend on 4G internet. The nearest police station is 15 minutes away if I drive 100mph but writing this post is the first time I've thought about that fact. The bigger problem is animals: we've never once been able to reach our area's animal control or get a call back from them, no matter when we call. Most situations we can handle ourselves like dealing with rattlesnakes but last year a mountain lion ate our neighbor's goat and the only way to get rid of it was to shoot at it (or over it, as I found most people here won't kill rare animals unless absolutely forced to). We've got several pets and feral cat decided to make herself home in our shed, giving birth to a full litter right before a large group of giant raccoons migrated to our area. If the raccoons in NYC are anything like the ones here, they're huge with the mammalian equivalent of alligator hide. Scaring them doesn't really work without a gun and nothing but a proper firearm will do more than piss it off and wound it, which will just make it more dangerous. The options are a) put your pets at risk every time you let them out at night, b) weapons that will only cause inhumane damage to the animal, or c) a real gun. If you're the kind of individual that values life as an inherent good but prioritizes the safety of family and pets, guns become the only realistic humane option. Now, the ironic part is that most people I know here should absolutely not be allowed to own a gun if they lived in the city. Some of them have really warped views of human civilization that led them to live further out (rapists and murderers around every corner) and seem to relish the idea of "defending themselves" with a gun. However, the very idea of them getting enough warning to get to their gun fast enough to actually manage to load it and shoot an assailant is just laughable. Most people here use their guns so infrequently outside of LARPing at a shooting range that when it comes time to use the workhorse gun instead of their assault rifle props, they spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to use it while the animal just stands there, confused. As far as I know, most countries with strict gun control still leave a loophole for rural residents big enough to drive a train through. However, most of those countries have sane gun cultures where they treat them as dangerous tools and not as religious idols. Now having experienced the damage guns do in inner cities and their necessity further out from civilization, I'm torn on the issue and I don't see a way out.
volkl48 6y ago
For a similarly opposite perspective as someone who's currently in a rural area: I can go out back, set up target(s) and plink away basically anytime I want. Might even do it this evening if the ammo I ordered finally gets delivered today. There's a safe direction to aim in and the distant neighbors don't mind, they do the same! For longer range, there's various outdoor ranges around, both formal and informal (you may shoot on nearly all large tracts of public land and private land that isn't posted against it, provided you're an appropriate distance from structures and all that). The occasional sound of gunfire here doesn't alarm anyone. One or two is someone killing a pest or hunting, lots is some target shooting. If I put my trash outside without it being in something fully bear-proof, it will have a bear into it within a few days. Cook something nice, leave a door/window open to just the screen, and you might have a bear, moose, or something else in your kitchen one day. Police response time is 30 minutes on a good day.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  What part of the country do you live in? Even on a few acres, I'm not confident that a stray bullet couldn't cause quite a bit of harm.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - umvi 6y ago
    There won't be "stray bullets" unless you shoot straight up or at high angles, which is a no-no. Otherwise gravity does a great job grounding the lead on your property.
  - stevehawk 6y ago
    I'm gonna go off of him saying 'plink' that he's probably shooting .22LR .. Most .22LR is gonna drop over 40" at 250 yards.
  - volkl48 6y ago
    (far) Northern New England. And you would be right, that's an important consideration if there isn't an appropriate backstop. The topography up here has granted plenty of appropriate natural backstops, however. (And some not so natural, the various old gravel pits and quarries are popular for that purpose as well).
stevehawk 6y ago
I mean, as a gun owner, if you told me you lived in a NYC apartment and owned a gun for in-home, self defense I'd ask "why?". You're putting the lives of a lot of people around you in jeopardy if you miss (which you almost certainly will at least once). I think if I lived in NYC, in an a place where I was concerned about that, I'd reinforce entryways so I could shelter in place somewhere.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Sure, sure - only criminals should be able to have guns in a city.
  - dragonsky67 6y ago
    In the fact that somebody who is not experienced handling and firing a weapon in a stressfull situation is more likely to hurt themselves or an innocent bystander, I think you are correct. I would think that, beyond waking up to find you have an intruder, that having a gun in your house is not going to to you much good if you have a voilent intruder. If somebody decides to bash down your door in a violent range, you are not likely to have the instant access to a weapon that would be required to deal with the situation.
snapetom 6y ago
As a very pro-2A gun owner, I'm upvoting you and hope at least people stop downvoting you. Downvoting this comment, which in no way attacks other people or their points of view, goes against the spirit of HN. Save that crap for reddit. Back to your comment, though, I grew up in the San Francisco suburbs. I have pretty much lived in either metropolitan suburbs or urban center of medium sized cities. I never even shot a gun until my 30's. I guess my feeling on guns was that I was neutral until I moved to the Southern US and some coworkers took me shooting. After actually using them, and being taught safety protocols, I saw guns as what they were - hunks of metal. I didn't feel attaching emotion to inanimate objects was particularly constructive. Also around that time, I had a few friends that were victims of violent crimes. Two of them were in supposed "safe" areas in the NYC suburbs. Pretty much changed my views on police and personal safety completely.
- celticninja 6y ago
  Tools, rather than hunks of metal.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Isn't calling a gun "a hunk of metal" the same as, say, calling a book "a stack of paper"? Why would a hunk of metal be such a popular prop in so many movies? Obviously, philosophy of owning and using a gun goes far, far beyond seeing it merely as a piece of metal, and calling it that on purpose, as I am sure you do, is plain disingenuous.
  - snapetom 6y ago
    It is absolutely not disingenuous because I'm not talking about the philosophy of owning or using a gun. OP uses the word "terrifying" in describing these comments. That's the same word many people use to describe how they feel about a gun. It's not unreasonable to see those trains of thoughts connected, and again, I personally don't think it's productive to attach emotion to an inanimate object.
  - rajangdavis 6y ago
    If you look at how hacking is portrayed in various media, there is a massive amount of dramatization compared to the "real" thing; it's the same with guns.
AdrianB1 6y ago
I think you are right, but it is a sign of a problem: the disconnect from reality for some people. I had a colleague (and friend) that saw the first real life cow at the age of 16 and it was a shock for him because it did not look like what he imagined as size (he thought it is as big as a pork). The problem is that these people are missing a lot of information about the world outside and they have opinions and vote missing relevant and sometimes essential information. They are most of the time nice and well intentioned people supporting or voting for what can be very bad things. For example my country has the largest bear population in EU, but we are not allowed to hunt them even if they come in villages and attack people. Why? Because urban "nature-lovers" are against shooting bears: bears don't come in their large cities, they don't ever meet a bear bare-handed (this is the quotes for), so for them bears are not a problem. For the people with damages ffrom bears, they are not enough to make their voice heard and over-vote the urban people.
smegger001 6y ago
I can see why you would have that point of view living in your situation. If I may Let me share with you a different perspective. I have grown up around firearms but with reason. I have spent the majority of my life living in rural areas, as a kid/teen I lived far out of town with acres of woodlands, swamps, forest, interspersed with occasional pastures for miles in every discretion. I have had multiple encounters with apex predictors in my backyard. I have had mountain lion in my woodshed, a bear wander into my yard, and other smaller predators such as coyotes bobcat, and feral dogs try to eat my pets/animals. I also enjoy many outdoor activities such as fishing camping and hiking in the backwoods, and have encountered more predators there (the above but also various venomous snakes and wolves). I started carrying .22 loaded with snake shot as defense against rattle snakes when fishing around age 12. But before I was allowed near my fathers guns he took me out to the range for safety training. The lesson I learned that day have stuck with me. He placed a watermelon out on the range. He then shot the melon. Next he walked out with me to its pieces and told me to put it back together. I stared at him like he was insane, He then got down at eye level with me and told me that it would do that same to a person and to never point it at anyone, that it would kill them, that guns were deadly weapons not toys. We spent the rest of the day going over gun use and safety. While today I don't live out in the country I still own firearms mostly used for sport shooting and defense when in the wilderness. But I take gun safety very seriously. My firearms are kept in a locked gunsafe bolted to the floor, inside the case they are all kept unloaded and all have a trigger lock of are kept in a locked case inside the safe.
claydavisss 6y ago
With a few exceptions, you are around guns all the time in the US. 99.995% of guns exist benignly.

saas_sam 6y ago

For those of us who grew up around guns, your abject horror at an object is as puzzling as someone being terrified of knives or slingshots. Would be nice if cops were all good and could teleport to your location in time of need. Drive an hour outside your city of choice and that ain't gonna happen. Just sharing my own experience, cheers.

jonahbenton 6y ago
Yup, totally get it. Big mental shift. Thank you.
srmatto 6y ago
Is your direct experience that you have actually held/brandished/used a firearm during an event when you were physically threatened? Or is this strictly theoretical?
- saas_sam 6y ago
  My parents did while my house was being broken into one night by multiple men. Semi-rural area. Thankfully they left before anything happened. I have close friends with darker stories.
- jm4 6y ago
  I have. A couple guys came into the house late at night while I was in bed. I was upstairs and they were downstairs. I didn't have a means to escape. Cops can't help in that situation. I confronted them at the stairs and the whole thing de-escalated very quickly. Nobody got hurt. As far as someone sneaking into your house while you sleep, it was pretty much a best case scenario.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Stories like this sound so weird to me. Breaking into an occupied house sounds like suicidal behavior. What kind of thought process goes into doing something like that?
    - umvi 6y ago
      It's very rare. Google "Elizabeth Smart" if you want a truly bizarre example of this. Most common burglars only break into empty houses.
    - yeetawayhn 6y ago
      Not sure, but according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, it happens in 27% of burglaries. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
    - jm4 6y ago
      It's borderline suicidal where I live because quite a few houses have guns in them. Every house on my street does. It still happens. I wouldn't say it's often because car break-ins and empty house burglaries are much more common, but it does happen. Attackers pushing their way in as you open the door, attackers posing as some kind of official or salesperson. When the pandemic started, we had guys going around in lab coats saying they were with the CDC. Police response times are generally very good where I live, but guns are still very common and so is concealed carry. The thought behind it for many people is sort of the same as keeping a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. You're not the fire department, but you want to be able to control an emergency until they get there or avoid having an emergency become a catastrophe.
    - 6y ago
Izkata 6y ago
Even within cities, people have been having that realization over the past two months with how the cops have been unable to keep up with the rioting. Permit applications are up 500% in Illinois, and sales are skyrocketing all over. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-illinois-foid-gun-ammo-sales-uncertainty-20200625-pkve27352jagnp4y5dbaubkyoy-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-illi...
- demygale 6y ago
  The police riots are a problem but I don’t think violence is the answer. Better to just abolish the police.
  - artificialLimbs 6y ago
    Who, exactly, is going to enforce laws?
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Even before all this, unless a cop just happens to be right outside, you are going to wait a long time. The number of stories where someone calls the police while a crime is in progress and the police arrive before the criminal is long gone are near non-existent except in cases of domestic abuse.
dleslie 6y ago
Indeed! Though even in non-rural environments their response times are too low to generally be of assistance in life-threatening violent altercations; and that response time is typically lower in predominantly african american neighbourhoods. It's kind of a mark of white privilege to believe that the police will arrive in time to protect you, and that when they arrive they won't harm you. Even for de-escalating domestic disputes and dealing with petty vandalism and neighbourly feuds they are likely a worse tool than social workers and such.
- defnotashton2 6y ago
  > It's kind of a mark of white privilege to believe that the police will arrive in time to protect you, and that when they arrive they won't harm you. This is a gross overstated political narrative. A) Most police response times are well after most conflicts. B) Poor and targeted neighborhoods often have better response times because of the larger constant police presence. C) Socioeconomic signals predict treatment better than the color of your skin.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    D) Race is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. E) The police responses in poor and targeted neighbourhoods often involve harming residents and criminalizing the impoverished and racialized. F) 911 is a Joke
christiansakai 6y ago
Why do most developed nations don't let citizens own guns then?
- e12e 6y ago
  Citation needed? I think hunting is allowed most places?
  - kakwa_ 6y ago
    Well, hunting riffles, even if there are extremely common in most countries, specially in rural areas, are hardly in the same class of weapon as a bolt action/(semi-)automatic riffle or an handgun. The latter also has a different goal in mind, being generally used for self protection/deterrence. Also, carrying a gun all the time is extremely uncommon if not forbidden in most European countries if you don't have the proper permits. For example in France, IIRC, you can only get such permit if your professional activity justifies it (Police, Security Guards, etc). Even for recreational/hunting uses you need to be registered, and maybe have a permit, depending on the type of gun. And that's just for ownership, it doesn't grant you the right to carry the weapon loaded and ready to fire.
    - pluto9 6y ago
      > hunting riffles, even if there are extremely common in most countries, specially in rural areas, are hardly in the same class of weapon as a bolt action Hunting rifles are almost always bolt actions.
      - kakwa_ 6y ago
        I'm far from an expert there, but most hunting riffles I've seen, at least here in France, shot shotgun ammunition (birdshots and the like).
- detaro 6y ago
  Most developed nations allow gun ownership to some degree, with large variations in the regulations and limits around it. The US though are quite unique in seeing gun ownership as a basic right, not a privilege granted/earned.
pluto9 6y ago
They often won't show up in a timely manner in the city, either. I once called them because I had broken up a fight and one of the people involved ran back to his apartment to get a pistol and was out in the parking lot with his friends searching for me, pistol in hand. There was a police station less than a mile away and it took them 45 minutes to arrive. No doubt they intended to let events play out however they may and then roll in and take statements, which is their only actual legal obligation. That incident really drove home for me exactly what I'm not getting for my tax dollars.

tharne 6y ago

It's definitely framed by where you live. I had a buddy in rural West Texas who had a loaded AR-15 mounted on the wall of his living room. I thought it was some insane gun nut thing, until I asked him about it. He explained that the nearest sheriff was 45 minutes away and he'd also had problems with coyotes attacking his chickens. For him, it would be crazy not have a high-powered weapon at the ready since there was no one nearby to help and there was significant wildlife in the area. On the other hand, having an AR-15 in NYC would be a nightmare for obvious reasons. I think folks on both sides of gun debate forget this - that there are dramatically different living situations across America. In this respect, it really doesn't make sense to talk about gun laws at the federal level (I know, 2nd Amendment), because what makes good sense in New York is ridiculous to someone living in rural Texas and vice-versa. It's not purely political, there's a very real practical element that doesn't often get discussed.

badrequest 6y ago
Yeah, I can't possibly think of a single method of dealing with coyotes that isn't an AR-15. Until that specific model of firearm was invented, people just sort of let coyotes eat their chickens, as there was nothing they could possibly do. They couldn't use humbler firearms with less capacity for committing mass shootings, they just let their chickens die.
- tharne 6y ago
  You don't know much about firearms based on your response. An AR-15 is a high-powered rifle that has a lot of stopping power even at long range and is very accurate - that's why my buddy had one. It also doesn't have the spread of a shotgun, which is important if you need to shoot a coyote that's too close to your chickens -- you don't want to fire a round of buckshot and take out a bunch of your chickens in the process. The AR is not materially different from other semi-automatic hunting rifles you can buy. The AR has become a political symbol because it happened to be used in mass shootings, but there's nothing about it that makes it unique in terms of it's ability to do harm. Even if you live in a state that's banned the AR-15, you can get a gun that's virtually identical that's not an AR. This speaks to the fact that Democrats talking about guns are like Republicans talking about tech. They're trying to control an industry and have made zero effort to understand anything about it.

matt_s 6y ago

If we are talking about practicality, you could expand this to all suburbs (towns bordering cities) as well. The practical use case is marginal for them, same for wood fireplaces and horses.

umvi 6y ago

Foreigners have a lot of fear when the discussion turns to guns in America, but you have to realize that most Americans will never brandish a gun at someone nor have a gun brandished at them. No more than a foreigner will brandish a knife at someone or have a knife brandished at them. The media/Hollywood helps augment fears by misrepresenting the lethality of guns and also by cherry picking gun death statistics. Watch a movie and you'd think it was the easiest thing in the world to kill a dozen people with an AK-47 in seconds or take out a helicopter with a handgun. Actually go to a shooting range and you'll see what reality is like. The chances of getting killed in a school shooting by an AR-15 for example are infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun.

Koshkin 6y ago
> infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun Which, in turn, is small compared with dying in a car accident (wherever you live and whether you drive a car or not).

indymike 6y ago

First, I really like your comment because it is honest and highlights how different Urban and Rural issues are. Lots of guns in the hands of non-law enforcement people is scary in a big city and most of the reasons are really good (i.e. accidents, crime, etc). In the country, not owning a gun is scary because of the inability of law enforcement to respond quickly when called... even suburbs often have slow police compared to dense urban areas.

dragonsky67 6y ago
I'm from Australia so am missing your context. Is violent crime such a high risk for you that the proximity of law enforcement is a factor, or are you talking about using law enforcemnet to deal with dangerous animials? My experience here and having travelled much of this country is that I've never felt at risk of violent crime whilst in remote areas and rairly in urban areas when in an area near a pub or "drug" area.

agensaequivocum 6y ago

If you ever visit America, I highly encourage you to stop by a gun range and try a few out.

akiselev 6y ago

I live in Los Angeles and I used to feel that way until this pandemic hit - I'm not saying you'll change your mind living in NYC, just sharing my change in perspective. I bugged out mid-March to a family farm to wait out the pandemic and since then its been a nonstop string of events reinforcing why - at least outside of cities - guns are absolutely necessary. Now, mind you, one member of the household works at a research institute in San Diego with a 40 minute commute so this isn't even really rural, just exurban, but we've got septic, well, propane tank, and depend on 4G internet. The nearest police station is 15 minutes away if I drive 100mph but writing this post is the first time I've thought about that fact. The bigger problem is animals: we've never once been able to reach our area's animal control or get a call back from them, no matter when we call. Most situations we can handle ourselves like dealing with rattlesnakes but last year a mountain lion ate our neighbor's goat and the only way to get rid of it was to shoot at it (or over it, as I found most people here won't kill rare animals unless absolutely forced to). We've got several pets and feral cat decided to make herself home in our shed, giving birth to a full litter right before a large group of giant raccoons migrated to our area. If the raccoons in NYC are anything like the ones here, they're huge with the mammalian equivalent of alligator hide. Scaring them doesn't really work without a gun and nothing but a proper firearm will do more than piss it off and wound it, which will just make it more dangerous. The options are a) put your pets at risk every time you let them out at night, b) weapons that will only cause inhumane damage to the animal, or c) a real gun. If you're the kind of individual that values life as an inherent good but prioritizes the safety of family and pets, guns become the only realistic humane option. Now, the ironic part is that most people I know here should absolutely not be allowed to own a gun if they lived in the city. Some of them have really warped views of human civilization that led them to live further out (rapists and murderers around every corner) and seem to relish the idea of "defending themselves" with a gun. However, the very idea of them getting enough warning to get to their gun fast enough to actually manage to load it and shoot an assailant is just laughable. Most people here use their guns so infrequently outside of LARPing at a shooting range that when it comes time to use the workhorse gun instead of their assault rifle props, they spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to use it while the animal just stands there, confused. As far as I know, most countries with strict gun control still leave a loophole for rural residents big enough to drive a train through. However, most of those countries have sane gun cultures where they treat them as dangerous tools and not as religious idols. Now having experienced the damage guns do in inner cities and their necessity further out from civilization, I'm torn on the issue and I don't see a way out.

volkl48 6y ago

For a similarly opposite perspective as someone who's currently in a rural area: I can go out back, set up target(s) and plink away basically anytime I want. Might even do it this evening if the ammo I ordered finally gets delivered today. There's a safe direction to aim in and the distant neighbors don't mind, they do the same! For longer range, there's various outdoor ranges around, both formal and informal (you may shoot on nearly all large tracts of public land and private land that isn't posted against it, provided you're an appropriate distance from structures and all that). The occasional sound of gunfire here doesn't alarm anyone. One or two is someone killing a pest or hunting, lots is some target shooting. If I put my trash outside without it being in something fully bear-proof, it will have a bear into it within a few days. Cook something nice, leave a door/window open to just the screen, and you might have a bear, moose, or something else in your kitchen one day. Police response time is 30 minutes on a good day.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
What part of the country do you live in? Even on a few acres, I'm not confident that a stray bullet couldn't cause quite a bit of harm.
- deleted 6y ago
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- umvi 6y ago
  There won't be "stray bullets" unless you shoot straight up or at high angles, which is a no-no. Otherwise gravity does a great job grounding the lead on your property.
- stevehawk 6y ago
  I'm gonna go off of him saying 'plink' that he's probably shooting .22LR .. Most .22LR is gonna drop over 40" at 250 yards.
- volkl48 6y ago
  (far) Northern New England. And you would be right, that's an important consideration if there isn't an appropriate backstop. The topography up here has granted plenty of appropriate natural backstops, however. (And some not so natural, the various old gravel pits and quarries are popular for that purpose as well).

stevehawk 6y ago

I mean, as a gun owner, if you told me you lived in a NYC apartment and owned a gun for in-home, self defense I'd ask "why?". You're putting the lives of a lot of people around you in jeopardy if you miss (which you almost certainly will at least once). I think if I lived in NYC, in an a place where I was concerned about that, I'd reinforce entryways so I could shelter in place somewhere.

Koshkin 6y ago
Sure, sure - only criminals should be able to have guns in a city.
- dragonsky67 6y ago
  In the fact that somebody who is not experienced handling and firing a weapon in a stressfull situation is more likely to hurt themselves or an innocent bystander, I think you are correct. I would think that, beyond waking up to find you have an intruder, that having a gun in your house is not going to to you much good if you have a voilent intruder. If somebody decides to bash down your door in a violent range, you are not likely to have the instant access to a weapon that would be required to deal with the situation.

snapetom 6y ago

As a very pro-2A gun owner, I'm upvoting you and hope at least people stop downvoting you. Downvoting this comment, which in no way attacks other people or their points of view, goes against the spirit of HN. Save that crap for reddit. Back to your comment, though, I grew up in the San Francisco suburbs. I have pretty much lived in either metropolitan suburbs or urban center of medium sized cities. I never even shot a gun until my 30's. I guess my feeling on guns was that I was neutral until I moved to the Southern US and some coworkers took me shooting. After actually using them, and being taught safety protocols, I saw guns as what they were - hunks of metal. I didn't feel attaching emotion to inanimate objects was particularly constructive. Also around that time, I had a few friends that were victims of violent crimes. Two of them were in supposed "safe" areas in the NYC suburbs. Pretty much changed my views on police and personal safety completely.

celticninja 6y ago
Tools, rather than hunks of metal.
Koshkin 6y ago
Isn't calling a gun "a hunk of metal" the same as, say, calling a book "a stack of paper"? Why would a hunk of metal be such a popular prop in so many movies? Obviously, philosophy of owning and using a gun goes far, far beyond seeing it merely as a piece of metal, and calling it that on purpose, as I am sure you do, is plain disingenuous.
- snapetom 6y ago
  It is absolutely not disingenuous because I'm not talking about the philosophy of owning or using a gun. OP uses the word "terrifying" in describing these comments. That's the same word many people use to describe how they feel about a gun. It's not unreasonable to see those trains of thoughts connected, and again, I personally don't think it's productive to attach emotion to an inanimate object.
- rajangdavis 6y ago
  If you look at how hacking is portrayed in various media, there is a massive amount of dramatization compared to the "real" thing; it's the same with guns.

AdrianB1 6y ago

I think you are right, but it is a sign of a problem: the disconnect from reality for some people. I had a colleague (and friend) that saw the first real life cow at the age of 16 and it was a shock for him because it did not look like what he imagined as size (he thought it is as big as a pork). The problem is that these people are missing a lot of information about the world outside and they have opinions and vote missing relevant and sometimes essential information. They are most of the time nice and well intentioned people supporting or voting for what can be very bad things. For example my country has the largest bear population in EU, but we are not allowed to hunt them even if they come in villages and attack people. Why? Because urban "nature-lovers" are against shooting bears: bears don't come in their large cities, they don't ever meet a bear bare-handed (this is the quotes for), so for them bears are not a problem. For the people with damages ffrom bears, they are not enough to make their voice heard and over-vote the urban people.

smegger001 6y ago

I can see why you would have that point of view living in your situation. If I may Let me share with you a different perspective. I have grown up around firearms but with reason. I have spent the majority of my life living in rural areas, as a kid/teen I lived far out of town with acres of woodlands, swamps, forest, interspersed with occasional pastures for miles in every discretion. I have had multiple encounters with apex predictors in my backyard. I have had mountain lion in my woodshed, a bear wander into my yard, and other smaller predators such as coyotes bobcat, and feral dogs try to eat my pets/animals. I also enjoy many outdoor activities such as fishing camping and hiking in the backwoods, and have encountered more predators there (the above but also various venomous snakes and wolves). I started carrying .22 loaded with snake shot as defense against rattle snakes when fishing around age 12. But before I was allowed near my fathers guns he took me out to the range for safety training. The lesson I learned that day have stuck with me. He placed a watermelon out on the range. He then shot the melon. Next he walked out with me to its pieces and told me to put it back together. I stared at him like he was insane, He then got down at eye level with me and told me that it would do that same to a person and to never point it at anyone, that it would kill them, that guns were deadly weapons not toys. We spent the rest of the day going over gun use and safety. While today I don't live out in the country I still own firearms mostly used for sport shooting and defense when in the wilderness. But I take gun safety very seriously. My firearms are kept in a locked gunsafe bolted to the floor, inside the case they are all kept unloaded and all have a trigger lock of are kept in a locked case inside the safe.

claydavisss 6y ago

With a few exceptions, you are around guns all the time in the US. 99.995% of guns exist benignly.