6 ms·

I’m sure this will be a popular comment, not, but when you arm citizens you arm morons too.

by qz2 6y ago

redleggedfrog 6y ago
Nope, love it.
sushshshsh 6y ago
What about criminals who choose to use guns whether smart or dumb?
- yongjik 6y ago
  When citizens aren't armed, dumb criminals can't find guns. (Where would they get one?) Smart criminals understands that using a gun in a society without guns will make themselves feature prominently in national news, and the police will make it top priority to arrest them. I mean, just visit any country where ordinary citizens don't carry guns.
  - sushshshsh 6y ago
    Several people per month are still shot in the UK. The guns are smuggled in through ports, much like drugs
    - qz2 6y ago
      Our entire country’s yearly stats are a bad weekend in Chicago. I wake up knowing I’m probably not going to be shot by some prick in Asda car park.
      - sushshshsh 6y ago
        In our country, less than 10% of murders are between people who do not know each other. And if you do not live in the specific bad neighborhoods that account for nearly all of our murders, then our crime statistics are literally the same. My town of 100,000 had 0 murders last year. If you are able to solve the problems plaguing both East London and West Baltimore, I'm all ears, however it seems the war on murder will rage on
    - yongjik 6y ago
      According to Wikipedia, 0.20 out of 100,000 people died of guns in 2015, of which only 0.02 are homicides. As for the US - 12.21 out of 100,000 total, 4.46 homicides. Seems like British criminals do have a really hard time finding guns.
  - sigzero 6y ago
    And you Will find criminals that HAVE weapons. That's just an incorrect statement all around.
- whatever1 6y ago
  Criminals well into the crime world decided to commit a crime will find a gun regardless of the country they are in. US is arming the average Joe with no gun training, or psychological evaluation, the guy that is selling weed at the corner of SF, Karen that is angry at the customer service and the full of hormones schoolchildren. Now given that all of these people have access to highly lethal guns, law enforcement has to be more pro-active than other countries, thus all of the expenses to buy war machines for neighborhood police depts. What could possibly go wrong?
  - qz2 6y ago
    Exactly my point. You can see when it stops working right here http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/ http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/
maallooc 6y ago
Yes, you arm your citizens to protect them against morons. We should arm them more.
- qz2 6y ago
  That’s really working out well isn’t it.
  - dmix 6y ago
    There's a subreddit that lists news stories of self-defence situations with a firearm. They don't make the news because they are all local stories but it happens all the time. https://www.reddit.com/r/dgu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dgu/ The idea that the US can somehow turn back the clock with hundreds of millions of legal guns already purchased is laughable. Almost every attempt at the state or city level has completely backfired. That train passed long ago. And the denial of this has only ever worsened the problem. I'd go as far as saying it's an anti-science position in 2020.
    - qz2 6y ago
      That is purely selection bias. You have to look at other countries.
      - LoSboccacc 6y ago
        Unless you correct for education, wealth distribution and Asher things like gang affiliations that's be selection bias too; there's just much more than "firearms deaths/firearms ownership" going on.
    - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      An aggregator of stories on a given topic can make anything seem to happen frequently. This would, by design, ignore any stories that don't fit the narrative. It may be a good source for stories on that exact topic, but is by no means an accurate indicator of frequency, especially as a sole source.
- 6y ago
umvi 6y ago
True and when you let your citizens say and propagate anything they want on social media you let morons say and propagate stuff on social media too.
- exclusiv 6y ago
  I love this feature. It's great knowledge. Some people want to censor the morons but that would remove the amount of morons you could readily identify.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- flowerlad 6y ago
  In the pre-internet days your ability to propagate stuff depended on your credentials. With appropriate credentials you could speak on radio, TV or publish a story in a newspaper. With the internet and social media your ability to propagate stuff (and go "viral") depends on your story (even if not truthful) not on your credentials. This is the reason why almost half the population now believes in and acts on conspiracy theories. We need to bring back the world where how far your story propagates (or how powerful the weapon you can own) depends on your credentials.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    The first amendment is obsolete because the founding fathers never could have anticipated the invention of fully automatic assault printing presses!
recursive 6y ago
Citizens arm themselves. Law-abiding ones only do it if it's legal to do so.
- jakeva 6y ago
  In general, I don't disagree but isn't the second point ultimately a tautology? Certainly an otherwise law abiding citizen might arm themself with no intention of committing a further crime.
  - recursive 6y ago
    True. In general, the more laws there are, the fewer law-abiding people there are, since there are more laws to violate. For example, I don't think the recent decriminalization of weed in various US states probably hasn't caused very many people to start using it. But in the same way, the laws against it didn't do much to limit its use.
- foxrob92 6y ago
  If that were true, wouldn't the proportion of crimes involving a firearm be consistent the world over?
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Surely there are many factors that would drive that. Widespread availability of inexpensive guns being only one. Punishments for unlawful possession being another that vary wildly across the globe.
pixl97 6y ago
Eh, when someone goes out of their way to target a judge I believe they'll find the weapons necessary no matter their legality.
bigbubba 6y ago
Or the moron goes to the hardware store and buys a bottle of acid instead. Or, in cases more typical than either of these, the moron is an ex-husband and uses his fists. There is no substitute for privacy.
PradeetPatel 6y ago
Although taking away arms would resolve the issue in the short term. But an alternative approach would be to provide better education and raise awareness around firearms, which would benefit the society in the long run. Empathy and awareness can go a long way.
- centimeter 6y ago
  "Providing better education" has been the progressive backstop for the last 100 years. Turns out that marginal returns on additional education are pretty close to zero. This is depressing, but pretty incontrovertible when you compare between A) returns on education in high-expenditure countries like the US vs low-expenditure EU countries (very similar) B) return on education in the same place across time, with the trend usually being that education expenditure goes up over time and educational returns don't change. Above a certain minimal level of education, demographic outcomes like crime rate seem to be 70-80% predicted by entirely heritable characteristics, with very little environmental interaction.
  - jahaja 6y ago
    > Above a certain minimal level of education, demographic outcomes like crime rate seem to be 70-80% predicted by entirely heritable characteristics, with very little environmental interaction. This is just racism in a language that's palatable to HN.
caeril 6y ago
Your comment, predictably, is indeed popular. What won't be popular: the second amendment was crafted specifically so that functionaries of State power can't abuse their position without the risk of extrajudicial reprisal. Not at all saying that this specific case is a matter of positional abuse ( definitely appears to be a tragic lone mental health case, which is a whole other problem in our society entirely ) - merely stating that the right to bear arms is intended to be a check against it.
- qz2 6y ago
  It made sense when they came up with it but it was a large can of worms which didn’t age or scale well. Now you have a society based on mutual assured destruction at a civilian level devoid of trust and community.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > devoid of trust and community I assure you, this has nothing to do with being armed. This should be pretty clear from a number of observations: A) The most heavily armed communities in the US are highly community-oriented and trustworthy towards their respective in-groups B) Lack of social cohesion seems to be just as prevalent in western nations with full disarmament The actual proximate causes of social decoherence are things that HN is probably mostly in support of, on net; urbanization, multiculturalism, etc.
    - qz2 6y ago
      The difference when there are ubiquitous firearms and not is the level of fear and nervousness among strained relations. Any division is amplified then. All it takes is someone to lose it and it’s a cheap solution. And everyone knows it. The communities you speak of are a division. I worked for a large defence contractor in the US for a number of years and got to see the contrast in professional and personal relations between their European and American employees. It’s scary when you see.
      - 6y ago
novok 6y ago
In this specific case, I think her son could of been stabbed to death too with a sharp object. There are many way to violently kill someone, gun bans or not.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  Guns and grenades to everyone, because they can just use a sharp object anyway
disambiguation 6y ago
implying gun-control would have prevented this crime? maybe. the article describes the crime in a way that suggests stabbing would have worked as well, and the criminal was angry/motivated enough to kill by any means.
chokeartist 6y ago
It isn't popular because it has no relevancy. Watch this: I'm sure this will be a popular comment, not, but when you connect citizens to the internet you connect morons too.
vfclists 6y ago
I'm a bit confused here, but aren't morons citizens too? Don't they vote, pay taxes, run their own affairs just like everyone else? Are morons a separate well defined class of citizens?

I’m sure this will be a popular comment, not, but when you arm citizens you arm morons too.

by qz2 6y ago

I’m sure this will be a popular comment, not, but when you arm citizens you arm morons too.

redleggedfrog 6y ago

Nope, love it.

sushshshsh 6y ago

What about criminals who choose to use guns whether smart or dumb?

yongjik 6y ago
When citizens aren't armed, dumb criminals can't find guns. (Where would they get one?) Smart criminals understands that using a gun in a society without guns will make themselves feature prominently in national news, and the police will make it top priority to arrest them. I mean, just visit any country where ordinary citizens don't carry guns.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Several people per month are still shot in the UK. The guns are smuggled in through ports, much like drugs
  - qz2 6y ago
    Our entire country’s yearly stats are a bad weekend in Chicago. I wake up knowing I’m probably not going to be shot by some prick in Asda car park.
    - sushshshsh 6y ago
      In our country, less than 10% of murders are between people who do not know each other. And if you do not live in the specific bad neighborhoods that account for nearly all of our murders, then our crime statistics are literally the same. My town of 100,000 had 0 murders last year. If you are able to solve the problems plaguing both East London and West Baltimore, I'm all ears, however it seems the war on murder will rage on
  - yongjik 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia, 0.20 out of 100,000 people died of guns in 2015, of which only 0.02 are homicides. As for the US - 12.21 out of 100,000 total, 4.46 homicides. Seems like British criminals do have a really hard time finding guns.
- sigzero 6y ago
  And you Will find criminals that HAVE weapons. That's just an incorrect statement all around.
whatever1 6y ago
Criminals well into the crime world decided to commit a crime will find a gun regardless of the country they are in. US is arming the average Joe with no gun training, or psychological evaluation, the guy that is selling weed at the corner of SF, Karen that is angry at the customer service and the full of hormones schoolchildren. Now given that all of these people have access to highly lethal guns, law enforcement has to be more pro-active than other countries, thus all of the expenses to buy war machines for neighborhood police depts. What could possibly go wrong?
- qz2 6y ago
  Exactly my point. You can see when it stops working right here http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/ http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/

maallooc 6y ago

Yes, you arm your citizens to protect them against morons. We should arm them more.

qz2 6y ago
That’s really working out well isn’t it.
- dmix 6y ago
  There's a subreddit that lists news stories of self-defence situations with a firearm. They don't make the news because they are all local stories but it happens all the time. https://www.reddit.com/r/dgu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dgu/ The idea that the US can somehow turn back the clock with hundreds of millions of legal guns already purchased is laughable. Almost every attempt at the state or city level has completely backfired. That train passed long ago. And the denial of this has only ever worsened the problem. I'd go as far as saying it's an anti-science position in 2020.
  - qz2 6y ago
    That is purely selection bias. You have to look at other countries.
    - LoSboccacc 6y ago
      Unless you correct for education, wealth distribution and Asher things like gang affiliations that's be selection bias too; there's just much more than "firearms deaths/firearms ownership" going on.
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    An aggregator of stories on a given topic can make anything seem to happen frequently. This would, by design, ignore any stories that don't fit the narrative. It may be a good source for stories on that exact topic, but is by no means an accurate indicator of frequency, especially as a sole source.
6y ago

umvi 6y ago

True and when you let your citizens say and propagate anything they want on social media you let morons say and propagate stuff on social media too.

exclusiv 6y ago
I love this feature. It's great knowledge. Some people want to censor the morons but that would remove the amount of morons you could readily identify.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flowerlad 6y ago
In the pre-internet days your ability to propagate stuff depended on your credentials. With appropriate credentials you could speak on radio, TV or publish a story in a newspaper. With the internet and social media your ability to propagate stuff (and go "viral") depends on your story (even if not truthful) not on your credentials. This is the reason why almost half the population now believes in and acts on conspiracy theories. We need to bring back the world where how far your story propagates (or how powerful the weapon you can own) depends on your credentials.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  The first amendment is obsolete because the founding fathers never could have anticipated the invention of fully automatic assault printing presses!

recursive 6y ago

Citizens arm themselves. Law-abiding ones only do it if it's legal to do so.

jakeva 6y ago
In general, I don't disagree but isn't the second point ultimately a tautology? Certainly an otherwise law abiding citizen might arm themself with no intention of committing a further crime.
- recursive 6y ago
  True. In general, the more laws there are, the fewer law-abiding people there are, since there are more laws to violate. For example, I don't think the recent decriminalization of weed in various US states probably hasn't caused very many people to start using it. But in the same way, the laws against it didn't do much to limit its use.
foxrob92 6y ago
If that were true, wouldn't the proportion of crimes involving a firearm be consistent the world over?
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Surely there are many factors that would drive that. Widespread availability of inexpensive guns being only one. Punishments for unlawful possession being another that vary wildly across the globe.

pixl97 6y ago

Eh, when someone goes out of their way to target a judge I believe they'll find the weapons necessary no matter their legality.

bigbubba 6y ago

Or the moron goes to the hardware store and buys a bottle of acid instead. Or, in cases more typical than either of these, the moron is an ex-husband and uses his fists. There is no substitute for privacy.

PradeetPatel 6y ago

Although taking away arms would resolve the issue in the short term. But an alternative approach would be to provide better education and raise awareness around firearms, which would benefit the society in the long run. Empathy and awareness can go a long way.

centimeter 6y ago
"Providing better education" has been the progressive backstop for the last 100 years. Turns out that marginal returns on additional education are pretty close to zero. This is depressing, but pretty incontrovertible when you compare between A) returns on education in high-expenditure countries like the US vs low-expenditure EU countries (very similar) B) return on education in the same place across time, with the trend usually being that education expenditure goes up over time and educational returns don't change. Above a certain minimal level of education, demographic outcomes like crime rate seem to be 70-80% predicted by entirely heritable characteristics, with very little environmental interaction.
- jahaja 6y ago
  > Above a certain minimal level of education, demographic outcomes like crime rate seem to be 70-80% predicted by entirely heritable characteristics, with very little environmental interaction. This is just racism in a language that's palatable to HN.

caeril 6y ago

Your comment, predictably, is indeed popular. What won't be popular: the second amendment was crafted specifically so that functionaries of State power can't abuse their position without the risk of extrajudicial reprisal. Not at all saying that this specific case is a matter of positional abuse ( definitely appears to be a tragic lone mental health case, which is a whole other problem in our society entirely ) - merely stating that the right to bear arms is intended to be a check against it.

qz2 6y ago
It made sense when they came up with it but it was a large can of worms which didn’t age or scale well. Now you have a society based on mutual assured destruction at a civilian level devoid of trust and community.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > devoid of trust and community I assure you, this has nothing to do with being armed. This should be pretty clear from a number of observations: A) The most heavily armed communities in the US are highly community-oriented and trustworthy towards their respective in-groups B) Lack of social cohesion seems to be just as prevalent in western nations with full disarmament The actual proximate causes of social decoherence are things that HN is probably mostly in support of, on net; urbanization, multiculturalism, etc.
  - qz2 6y ago
    The difference when there are ubiquitous firearms and not is the level of fear and nervousness among strained relations. Any division is amplified then. All it takes is someone to lose it and it’s a cheap solution. And everyone knows it. The communities you speak of are a division. I worked for a large defence contractor in the US for a number of years and got to see the contrast in professional and personal relations between their European and American employees. It’s scary when you see.
    - 6y ago

novok 6y ago

In this specific case, I think her son could of been stabbed to death too with a sharp object. There are many way to violently kill someone, gun bans or not.

cutemonster 6y ago
Guns and grenades to everyone, because they can just use a sharp object anyway

disambiguation 6y ago

implying gun-control would have prevented this crime? maybe. the article describes the crime in a way that suggests stabbing would have worked as well, and the criminal was angry/motivated enough to kill by any means.

chokeartist 6y ago

It isn't popular because it has no relevancy. Watch this: I'm sure this will be a popular comment, not, but when you connect citizens to the internet you connect morons too.

vfclists 6y ago

I'm a bit confused here, but aren't morons citizens too? Don't they vote, pay taxes, run their own affairs just like everyone else? Are morons a separate well defined class of citizens?