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But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun, never mind figuring out how to print one, and

But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun, never mind figuring out how to print one, and even the average hardened criminal has to consider the possibility that since it isn't necessary for them to preemptively shoot anybody who challenges them, possessing guns might not be worth the risk of additional penalties. Those are much bigger factors in low gun deaths somewhere like the UK than the difficulty of obtaining one on the black market

emteycz 6y ago
Every tenth adult in Czechia carries a gun. Last time I checked, Czechia was safer than UK.
- pauke 6y ago
  Nope on the first part. 8M adults, 300k gun permits. And that's including almost 100k active police/military. As for the latter part, maybe, but there is way more guns in US than in CZ. And last time I checked.. Let's say I don't think there is any correlation between the two statements.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    You're right about the stats, the news article I was referring to was wrong. It's not including police/military service permits though, the 300k is purely private permits (which can have overlap with police/military - they can't use guns for private purposes without a private permit); and there are 900k private guns.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > 8M adults, 300k gun permits. This assumes that everyone carrying a gun has a permit to do so.
yellowapple 6y ago
> But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun You've just described yet another reason why gun control measures are meaningless. The desire to kill oneself and/or others (with or without a gun) doesn't exist in a vacuum; guns don't magically make people suicidal or homicidal. That desire happens due to a combination of socioeconomic pressures and inadequate mental healthcare - two angles that gun control proponents chronically ignore, instead pushing for band-aids like gun control because those band-aids are "easier" and don't involve confronting the painful realities of socioeconomic inequality. Hence, my point: as home manufacturing of firearms proliferates, that band-aid loses whatever tenuous effectiveness it has. People concerned about "gun violence" are then forced to consider why people are killing themselves and each other (hint: because the average person is broke and depressed).
- notahacker 6y ago
  Guns don't magically make people homicidal, they just make it magically easy and efficient to kill people in the heat of the moment, or by mistake, or because they fear if they don't pull the trigger first the other person might, or when too mentally ill to know what is going on. The actual difficulty for a sufficiently motivated person to obtain a gun (legal or otherwise) under gun control in the UK is not that high, but the incentives to do so are reduced, the disincentives increased, and the average person with the potential to carry out non-premeditated shootings never considers buying one. The ability to learn all about how to 3D print a gun instead of learning how to license and modify a shotgun or how to find black markets that will sell you illegal firearms does not change that calculus very much.

emteycz 6y ago

Every tenth adult in Czechia carries a gun. Last time I checked, Czechia was safer than UK.

pauke 6y ago
Nope on the first part. 8M adults, 300k gun permits. And that's including almost 100k active police/military. As for the latter part, maybe, but there is way more guns in US than in CZ. And last time I checked.. Let's say I don't think there is any correlation between the two statements.
- emteycz 6y ago
  You're right about the stats, the news article I was referring to was wrong. It's not including police/military service permits though, the 300k is purely private permits (which can have overlap with police/military - they can't use guns for private purposes without a private permit); and there are 900k private guns.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > 8M adults, 300k gun permits. This assumes that everyone carrying a gun has a permit to do so.

yellowapple 6y ago

> But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun You've just described yet another reason why gun control measures are meaningless. The desire to kill oneself and/or others (with or without a gun) doesn't exist in a vacuum; guns don't magically make people suicidal or homicidal. That desire happens due to a combination of socioeconomic pressures and inadequate mental healthcare - two angles that gun control proponents chronically ignore, instead pushing for band-aids like gun control because those band-aids are "easier" and don't involve confronting the painful realities of socioeconomic inequality. Hence, my point: as home manufacturing of firearms proliferates, that band-aid loses whatever tenuous effectiveness it has. People concerned about "gun violence" are then forced to consider why people are killing themselves and each other (hint: because the average person is broke and depressed).

notahacker 6y ago
Guns don't magically make people homicidal, they just make it magically easy and efficient to kill people in the heat of the moment, or by mistake, or because they fear if they don't pull the trigger first the other person might, or when too mentally ill to know what is going on. The actual difficulty for a sufficiently motivated person to obtain a gun (legal or otherwise) under gun control in the UK is not that high, but the incentives to do so are reduced, the disincentives increased, and the average person with the potential to carry out non-premeditated shootings never considers buying one. The ability to learn all about how to 3D print a gun instead of learning how to license and modify a shotgun or how to find black markets that will sell you illegal firearms does not change that calculus very much.