4 ms·

This is utterly wrong in more than one way: First, "most countries have banned guns": Here, from worldpopulationreview.com is a list of countries that has kin

This is utterly wrong in more than one way: First, "most countries have banned guns": Here, from worldpopulationreview.com is a list of countries that has kind of banned guns (at least made them hard to get): """ Today, we’ll focus on the nations around the world where restrictive policies are in place that make it illegal or extremely difficult for ordinary citizens to own a gun. Those nations are: China - Restricted Eritrea – Banned India – Restricted Indonesia – Restricted Iran – Restricted Japan – Restricted Lebanon – Restricted Malaysia – Restricted North Korea – Banned Singapore – Restricted Taiwan – Restricted Venezuela – Restricted Vietnam – Restricted """ ...and yes by the way, while some of these are OK like Japan and Taiwan you are in some interesting company if your country joins that list. Secondly: "there are way less problems with guns than those countries that haven't banned guns." I give you Norway, Switzerland and Austria as a start. Probably Finland and a number of others as well: All these have and have had loads of actual assault rifles (G3-s, HK416 etc, not semiautomatic AR-15s) complete with non trivial amounts of ammo around in private homes. Yet I'd rather live in any of those instead of any of the ones on the list above. So clearly something else is at play.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
OK, well, I have lived in the UK, Isle of Man, Australia and Germany, all of which restrict private ownership of guns, and don't appear on that list. So I suspect that list is wrong. Can you post the actual link to the source you're quoting?
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Germany has widespread gun ownership (estimate of 20 guns per 100 people). They are regulated but certainly not banned. In the UK, guns are pretty rare (about 5 guns per 100 people). The poster was talking about these low gun ownership rate countries, and was not trying to make a comprehensive list. But it is true that the low gun ownership rate nations (<5 guns per 100) (ignoring ones in desperate povery where people can't afford guns) tend to, on balance, be much more authoritarian than the high gun ownership rate nations (>20 guns per 100 people). See the wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
- eitland 5y ago
  So you went from: > Most countries have banned guns and there are way less problems with guns than those countries that haven't banned guns. to: > OK, well, I have lived in the UK, Isle of Man, Australia and Germany, all of which restrict private ownership of guns, and don't appear on that list. and you ask me for sources. And sure, here it is: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-where-guns-are-illegal https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... it was literally just the first site that popped up when I looked for countries were guns are banned or something to that effect on duckduckgo.com Now, can you provide some kind of source at all for your claims except that you lived in four of them?
- eitland 5y ago
  BTW: I thought I'd seen your name before. You are also the one who claimed the other day that: > Female programmers have had to fight against a constant discouragement from pretty much everyone in their lives, while male programmers have had nothing but encouragement. Based on that and this one it seems fair to say that you have a tendency to make up facts as you need them. Please stop doing that. It might be a nice party trick when one is young but it soon get really annoying for anyone who argues in good faith.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I am arguing in good faith, based on facts that I know: I ran a one-day workshop to teach women to code (now https://shecodes.com.au/ https://shecodes.com.au/) based on discussions with female coders about their experiences getting into the industry. These workshops are always oversubscribed, and always there are women there saying "if only I'd received this kind of encouragement when I was younger". I've seen multiple female colleagues harassed by male management until they leave the industry. Again and again, I've heard female colleagues talk about the discouragement and difficulties they've experienced in the IT industry. I've never heard a male colleague express this. From everyone I've talked to it seems to be a universal experience from men that they have been encouraged to learn to code and join the industry. These are facts. They may be anecdotal, but that doesn't stop them from being facts. I am not making them up. The US has a problem with gun violence. This is a fact [0]. I think it stems from the high rate of gun ownership in the US. That is an opinion, though it is supported by correlation [1]. I think it's fairly clear that I'm expressing an opinion in my original comment, but I'll take your comment as a caution that I need to be more clear whether I'm expressing an opinion or a fact. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/
  - Tepix 5y ago
    He's right on both accounts though.
    - eitland 5y ago
- Aengeuad 5y ago
  Slightly off-topic and two days late to the conversation but: every single country in the world(1) restricts private ownership of guns, it's not a useful metric when talking about gun ownership. In England and Wales guns are heavily restricted but aren't outright banned or extremely difficult to obtain. Effectively every adult that isn't disqualified from owning a gun (medical reasons, >3 years in prison, etc) should be able to obtain a smoothbore shotgun licence provided the security/storage requirements can be met, this may be very difficult for younger people living in shared accommodation or in very developed city centres but still. Once a shotgun licence is obtained you can effectively own as many shotguns as you can securely store. The firearms licence in comparison is much harder to obtain, you need to demonstrate a legitimate reason to own each specific firearm (i.e., land you have permission to hunt on, sports shooting at a club), the local police issuing the licence have a lot more say on whether they issue licences or allow amendments to the licences (i.e., owning more firearms), etc, but it's in principle not much different to a shotgun licence and if you already hold a shotgun licence you very likely can obtain a firearms licence for a very limited number of firearms. In American terminology a shotgun licence is shall-issue where a firearms licence (and amendments) are may-issue. When it comes to stats on whether a licence is granted(2), in 2019 98% of shotgun licences that were applied for were issued and 97% of firearms licences that were applied for were issued. This is a very different story to guns being outright banned or extremely difficult to obtain, gun ownership in the UK is low partially because of these restrictions but also because there's no gun culture to speak of. In comparison to countries like Iran, China, Japan, much of Asia and Africa, etc, we're extremely liberal with gun ownership, private gun ownership in Japan is almost unheard of and it's effectively prohibited for the general population for example. These things have to be taken into account when talking about whether a country restricts/bans guns, because otherwise there's only a handful of countries that have no restrictions on guns. Gun ownership may not be trivial in the countries you've lived in but it's at least legal for the general population. (1) We can get into the semantics of how restricted guns are in the USA and how this changes between cities/counties/states but as private sale/transfer of guns are effectively unrestricted and the right to gun ownership is constitutionally protected we can say that the USA (and Yemen, arguably South Sudan and Greenland as well) may as well not restrict private gun ownership (2) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/812296/statistics-firearm-shotgun-certificates-england-wales-2018-2019-hosb0919.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
int_19h 5y ago
Czechia is probably the most interesting case among European countries; not only they allow military-style semi-autos and handguns, but they also have concealed carry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic
- eitland 5y ago
  The Incidents and Gun Crimes section of that page is also extremely interesting by the way.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

OK, well, I have lived in the UK, Isle of Man, Australia and Germany, all of which restrict private ownership of guns, and don't appear on that list. So I suspect that list is wrong. Can you post the actual link to the source you're quoting?

rsj_hn 5y ago
Germany has widespread gun ownership (estimate of 20 guns per 100 people). They are regulated but certainly not banned. In the UK, guns are pretty rare (about 5 guns per 100 people). The poster was talking about these low gun ownership rate countries, and was not trying to make a comprehensive list. But it is true that the low gun ownership rate nations (<5 guns per 100) (ignoring ones in desperate povery where people can't afford guns) tend to, on balance, be much more authoritarian than the high gun ownership rate nations (>20 guns per 100 people). See the wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
eitland 5y ago
So you went from: > Most countries have banned guns and there are way less problems with guns than those countries that haven't banned guns. to: > OK, well, I have lived in the UK, Isle of Man, Australia and Germany, all of which restrict private ownership of guns, and don't appear on that list. and you ask me for sources. And sure, here it is: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-where-guns-are-illegal https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... it was literally just the first site that popped up when I looked for countries were guns are banned or something to that effect on duckduckgo.com Now, can you provide some kind of source at all for your claims except that you lived in four of them?
eitland 5y ago
BTW: I thought I'd seen your name before. You are also the one who claimed the other day that: > Female programmers have had to fight against a constant discouragement from pretty much everyone in their lives, while male programmers have had nothing but encouragement. Based on that and this one it seems fair to say that you have a tendency to make up facts as you need them. Please stop doing that. It might be a nice party trick when one is young but it soon get really annoying for anyone who argues in good faith.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I am arguing in good faith, based on facts that I know: I ran a one-day workshop to teach women to code (now https://shecodes.com.au/ https://shecodes.com.au/) based on discussions with female coders about their experiences getting into the industry. These workshops are always oversubscribed, and always there are women there saying "if only I'd received this kind of encouragement when I was younger". I've seen multiple female colleagues harassed by male management until they leave the industry. Again and again, I've heard female colleagues talk about the discouragement and difficulties they've experienced in the IT industry. I've never heard a male colleague express this. From everyone I've talked to it seems to be a universal experience from men that they have been encouraged to learn to code and join the industry. These are facts. They may be anecdotal, but that doesn't stop them from being facts. I am not making them up. The US has a problem with gun violence. This is a fact [0]. I think it stems from the high rate of gun ownership in the US. That is an opinion, though it is supported by correlation [1]. I think it's fairly clear that I'm expressing an opinion in my original comment, but I'll take your comment as a caution that I need to be more clear whether I'm expressing an opinion or a fact. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/
- Tepix 5y ago
  He's right on both accounts though.
  - eitland 5y ago
Aengeuad 5y ago
Slightly off-topic and two days late to the conversation but: every single country in the world(1) restricts private ownership of guns, it's not a useful metric when talking about gun ownership. In England and Wales guns are heavily restricted but aren't outright banned or extremely difficult to obtain. Effectively every adult that isn't disqualified from owning a gun (medical reasons, >3 years in prison, etc) should be able to obtain a smoothbore shotgun licence provided the security/storage requirements can be met, this may be very difficult for younger people living in shared accommodation or in very developed city centres but still. Once a shotgun licence is obtained you can effectively own as many shotguns as you can securely store. The firearms licence in comparison is much harder to obtain, you need to demonstrate a legitimate reason to own each specific firearm (i.e., land you have permission to hunt on, sports shooting at a club), the local police issuing the licence have a lot more say on whether they issue licences or allow amendments to the licences (i.e., owning more firearms), etc, but it's in principle not much different to a shotgun licence and if you already hold a shotgun licence you very likely can obtain a firearms licence for a very limited number of firearms. In American terminology a shotgun licence is shall-issue where a firearms licence (and amendments) are may-issue. When it comes to stats on whether a licence is granted(2), in 2019 98% of shotgun licences that were applied for were issued and 97% of firearms licences that were applied for were issued. This is a very different story to guns being outright banned or extremely difficult to obtain, gun ownership in the UK is low partially because of these restrictions but also because there's no gun culture to speak of. In comparison to countries like Iran, China, Japan, much of Asia and Africa, etc, we're extremely liberal with gun ownership, private gun ownership in Japan is almost unheard of and it's effectively prohibited for the general population for example. These things have to be taken into account when talking about whether a country restricts/bans guns, because otherwise there's only a handful of countries that have no restrictions on guns. Gun ownership may not be trivial in the countries you've lived in but it's at least legal for the general population. (1) We can get into the semantics of how restricted guns are in the USA and how this changes between cities/counties/states but as private sale/transfer of guns are effectively unrestricted and the right to gun ownership is constitutionally protected we can say that the USA (and Yemen, arguably South Sudan and Greenland as well) may as well not restrict private gun ownership (2) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/812296/statistics-firearm-shotgun-certificates-england-wales-2018-2019-hosb0919.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

int_19h 5y ago

Czechia is probably the most interesting case among European countries; not only they allow military-style semi-autos and handguns, but they also have concealed carry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic

eitland 5y ago
The Incidents and Gun Crimes section of that page is also extremely interesting by the way.