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There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their abil

There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the effect of supplying a country with more guns than people -- some 300+ million -- you might guess that people would be dropping like flies. But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really. Murder is not a major concern outside of a handful of dangerous areas. And that's it, really. Guns are a problem in these few areas. But people everywhere else don't want to give up their guns because of a few areas where they are a problem. And they have a point: often in those dangerous places, existing laws against illegal gun sales or felon-in-possesseion aren't enforced very well. One thing is for sure: picking around the edges by outlawing certain kinds of rifles or making all kinds of other weird laws won't do anything. Rifles are used in something like 2% of murders. Either you outlaw and collect all handguns (including revolvers), or don't bother.

seneca 5y ago
I agree with most of your post. One small quibble though: > There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. I think that's an important philosophical point that a lot of people, especially the anti-gun type, lose sight of. Not suggesting you're in that camp, but I think the distinction is important.
- deleted 5y ago
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- AustinDev 5y ago
  >The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. The National Firearms Act would like to have a word it is unconstitutional on it's face despite what the Supreme Court says. 'Shall not be infringed' hasn't been the law of the land since the 1930's. Maybe we'll get lucky and this conservative supreme court will do one big thing right and declare all federal firearms regulations null and void thus ending this culture war and forcing the politicians to fix actual problems. However, that is highly unlikely.
  - packetlost 5y ago
    > thus ending this culture war and forcing the politicians to fix actual problems You think guns are the core of the culture war? Even if the SCOTUS did make such a ruling, the culture war almost certainly would not end.
    - AustinDev 5y ago
      It's been shown that many people would side with democrats on the majority of social issues and vote for them if not for their stance on firearms. If the democrats lost their ability to use that as part of their culture war platform they'd likely gain a ton of people who don't vote or vote R simply to retain their rights.
      - bananabreakfast 5y ago
        This is silly, because Gun laws are a central part of the platform and can't be abandoned. This is like saying if Republicans just dropped anti-immigration from their platform they'd gain a ton of people who don't vote for them because they're Mexican. Any move like this fundamentally alienates the base.
        oaktrout 5y ago
        What keeps a party's platform from changing? Would former republicans vote democrat if the republican party dropped its anti-immigration stance? Surely not, as there is still abortion, taxes, guns, etc.
        zepto 5y ago
        It seems highly unlikely to me that many people would switch from D to R if the democrats stopped pursuing gun control. On the other hand I know many people who will hold their nose and vote R only because they don’t want to lose their gun rights.
      - ctrlp 5y ago
        You can't reduce the culture war to gun ownership. The Dems are doing just about everything they can to alienate traditionalists in the U.S., including gun owners. It's not even the most important wedge issue anymore. Rather, gun owners are concerned about defending themselves in a country organized by Democratic party policy. They'll need the guns when the police are defunded, or when the social workers come for their children.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  The US Constitution can be changed, never forget that.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    The Bill of Rights cannot be. This is the fundamental difference between the US and other Western democracies. Consent to be governed rests upon said government respecting those inalienable rights that we have. Those rights are not granted us by the government, they are the rights that we created a government to preserve. Any government violating those rights no longer has the consent of the governed and should be abolished.
    - bananabreakfast 5y ago
      That's absurd. The Bill of Rights is literally a list of changes to the constitution. Any one of them can be changed at any time by a majority of states. You're essentially saying that if the majority of the country votes to change one of the rights, then what? You'll no longer recognize the government as real?
      - blacktriangle 5y ago
        Take that argument to an extreme. If the majority of the country votes to suspend democracy, would you stick around? If not, then doesn't that imply that there exists a set of underlying principles that you believe are fundamental to a government? That's exactly what the Bill of Rights is, an enumeration of what were viewed as the fundamental rights for which the point of government is to preserve. The mistake so many people make is thinking that government is the lowest level. It is not, government is downstream of culture and is a reflection of that cultures values. Without a unified culture that agrees on certain prerequisits of government, for example from this case elected representation, there can be no functional government.
        jmeister 5y ago
        Hayek’s “cosmos” and “taxis” dichotomy captures this well.
- tantalor 5y ago
  Semantics
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    Or the single most important point to understand when it comes to government.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- kelnos 5y ago
  > Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. That's a nice ideal, but in reality governments can do and take away whatever they want, and a guarantee that they won't take away your "inalienable" rights is only as good as the system built around that government, and the willingness of its people to fight (physically or legally) for their rights.
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    Too true. The real problem here, in my humble opinion, is that the mechanism by which the citizens of the United States can fundamentally alter the government (via constitutional amendment) require sizable majorities and broad consensus (I realize that this is primarily a feature), while the mechanism by which the the United States government can alter fundamentally alter itself (via the extra-constitutional mechanism we call Judicial Review) requires a simple majority of 5/9 unelected "justices". We've seen this mechanism, over the course of ~230 years, bootstrap a pathetically weak federal government into a unitary behemoth which dominates our state and local governments. And the only way to get off the train is violent revolution! It's like a bad joke. We need to acknowledge that human beings have a right to self-governance, that this includes the right to form new governments via democratic referenda, and that governments that prevent this are engaged in something which, upon inspection, cannot be distinguished from imperialism.
  - ApolloFortyNine 5y ago
    The right to freedom of speech in the US is almost truly uninhibited. Even the "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" argument was actually revisited by the Supreme Court and thrown out. If there's an amendment to the constitution to ban owning a firearm, so be it. But if that right is severely limited without an amendment, it would be natural to fear for the rest. The verbiage on the first 10 amendments is incredibly simple. "shall not be infringed".
    - MagnumOpus 5y ago
      There is often a disconnect between what is the constitution/the law, and what the people in power actually order their cops/soldiers to do. The constitution of the USSR guaranteed the privacy of citizens' communications, freedom of religion, and doesn't just allow citizens to criticize public organizations but prohibits persecution of critics. You know what happened in reality. The US is by no means immune to that - we've seen last year that the President can easily send some of the millions of armed people he has under his direct control to crack down on protests and disappear some people -- while the constitutional legitimacy gets debated months later once the damage is done...
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Well, if the new Texas anti-abortion law is declared legal and constitutional in the courts, there's going to be a lot more laws that deny people their constitutional rights via similar "bounty hunter" systems. And the fact that it wasn't declared unconstitutional right off the bat makes the "can not" part not apply that well since Texas can currently very much take away constitutional rights from its citizens. Also, the "inalienable rights" in 1776 were not really inalienable since life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were afforded to a pretty select group of people.
sofixa 5y ago
> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really The US is at 4.96/100,000 for 2012. For reference, Angola is better at 4.85. Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest countries in the EU, are at 1.3. France is at 1.2. If by not remarkable you mean 3 as bad as other developed countries, sure. The numbers are only for intentional homicide, not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone. Not all that remarkable is a weird way of putting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. Protests and revolutions in France have done more to guide government power than anything ever that happened in the US. Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights, blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for/against? Mask mandates?
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul. not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone The suicide statistics from some countries with effective total bans on civilian gun ownership do not support your claim for those, and for accidents we're at 500/year out of a population of 330 million people. There were years when more very young kids were accidentally drowning themselves by getting stuck upside down in 5 gallon (19 L) plastic buckets that are are ubiquitous here. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for? Mask mandates? Are any of these, the middle ones not directly affecting us, worth starting a civil war that would take hundreds of thousands to millions of lives? (I might argue yes for the wars, but it's not the sort of thing I suspect has ever happened in human history.)
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul I sincerely doubt the average first world person has what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation. And there's no need for them to do that, realistically.
secondaryacct 5y ago
If you want to fuck with an american, tie him down financially with a credit card, prevent him to run with a coke and big mac a day, and destroy his cognitive ability with a good old Bible. Then, tell him his guns make him free, because any sort of social conflict would be solved by violent murder. Shake well, exploit.
yongjik 5y ago
I have trouble understanding how guns would defend an American's freedom. See, it's as if the US military trains soldiers how to hide in the Appalachian, raid local villages, and steal food and ammunition from trucks, because if a non-specified enemy conquers the US and its troops are marching down the streets from Sacramento to Boston you need these skills to hide and keep fighting. Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. If the government has turned your enemy and its troops are marching down the street ready to murder your family, you have already failed to defend your freedom. What were you doing in the meantime?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. Eh, not so much. I believe the term is "defense in depth." There's also the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." If recent history has taught us anything, it's that a territory with a hostile armed population is extremely difficult for even the most advanced army in the world to hold. The US (or the Soviets) would have won in Afghanistan if all the Taliban was able to do was stage protest marches and write angry letters. Also, you have to understand that there are many different scenarios to consider. For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself.
  - yongjik 5y ago
    > For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself. That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen then you have already failed to defend your freedom." The US military is not a band of invaders, it's made of your fellow Americans. What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?
    - 5y ago
otikik 5y ago
Who wrote this? A gun?
jfengel 5y ago
Murders aren't the only issue, though. Just the possibility of a gun being present changes a lot of interactions in the US. Every police encounter has to assume you have a gun. A lot of innocent deaths at the hands of police are treated as "I thought he had a gun", which makes everybody scared of the police -- especially minorities. School children go through metal detectors every single day, never turning up any guns. Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in case one has a gun. And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced that they're about to be killed by one of those many, many guns, as seen right here in this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161 All of those guns have a significant, negative effect on daily life in America. The actual murders are comparatively few, but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  Wow, you really managed to paint a completely distorted and scary picture of daily life in America. Well done. Hopefully I don't get gunned down by a cop thinking I have a gun when I leave my house tonight, although I probably will.
- zepto 5y ago
  > but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time. This is a fantasy. I’ve never been in a situation I’m the US where I thought a gun could appear at any time, and I don’t even live in a particularly great neighborhood.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Congratulations on never having encountered a police officer. If you do, you'll be very aware of the fact that they're treating you as if you were armed. I am aware of it, and I'm not even black -- and I've seen how much worse it is for black people. Congrats, also, on graduating school before school shootings became a big thing. Me, too. It was great not having to go through metal detectors on my way to class. I am sorry you don't ever fly, though. It's not a lot of fun, but there are a lot of great places to go, and it's usually worth the hassle of being checked for guns.
comrh 5y ago
Murder rate isn't the whole story. Check out the suicide rate, how gun ownership affects a successful attempt and who is killing themselves in the US.
- spyder 5y ago
  Yep, that's so crazy and sad: "Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t." https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner... :-( Also: "Sixty percent of deaths from firearms in the U.S. are suicides." So if somebody dies from a firearm in the US it's more likely to be suicide than other firearm related death. https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Yet US Suicide rates are comparable to those of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada. A big higher but very very close. So I don't see how guns matter in that case. If they did matter to the actual decision of killing yourself or not, you'd see an actual correlation worldwide. Also, I'm not sure if the stats account for people buying guns just to kill themselves. Like is it only including long time owners? Otherwise I again don't see the difference between buying a gun to commit suicide vs doing it via hanging. The message it sends is that having a gun in your house makes it more likely for you to commit suicide. But causation can just as easily be reversed, i.e. if you are suicidal you're probably more a lot more likely to acquire a gun. Would it be surprising that someone who wants to die is more likely to have something that can help him do just that?
    - DanBC 5y ago
      > Yet US Suicide rates are comparable to those of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada. US has a narrow definition for death by suicide that requires knowledge of intent. Compare the US definition with the UK definition. US: "Suicide is a death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result" https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicideTechnicalPackage.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicideTechnicalP... UK: "this includes all deaths from intentional self-harm for persons aged 10 years and over and deaths caused by injury or poisoning where the intent was undetermined for those aged 15 years and over." https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/latest https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > The message it sends is that having a gun in your house makes it more likely for you to commit suicide. Yes. It's well established in suicide research that preventing access to means and methods is an important suicide prevention measure. Which suicide prevention research have you recently read?
tootie 5y ago
I think the simplest counterpoint is Britain. The US Second Amendment is a direct descendant of the British Common Law right to bear arm. And Britain is arguably our national parent with a similar culture and history and a modern pluralistic culture. They effectively ended their right to private gun ownership in the 20th century to the point that it's now extremely difficult to procure one and there are very few guns owned per capita. And their homicide rate is less than half of ours. Same goes for Australia and several other first world democracies. You can at the very least say that rate of gun ownership has no correlation with gun crime. And quite possibly that it correlates directly in that more guns leads to more gun deaths. So, personally (subjectively), I don't find it admirable at all. Freedom is a good default option, but I see America's gun culture as pretty sickening.
- zepto 5y ago
  One reason their homicide rate is less than half ours is that their clearance rate for murders is >90% vs around 60% in better parts of the US. This was a result of the British police adopting a standard and very effective methodology for investigating murders in the 70’s and 80’s. There is a lot of criminological evidence that the deterrent effect of policing is proportional to the predictability of the crime being solved, rather than the harshness of the punishment. If we want less murders, we need to put more effort into catching murderers. That is where the cause and effect relationship lies. It is also something that the British know how to do, and which we could learn from.
- philwelch 5y ago
  Britain also spent a long time transporting violent criminals and resettling much of the relatively violent “Scotch-Irish”/“Borderer” population to the American colonies. We also got a lot of their religious fanatics. This explains a lot about America.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    This is an excellent point that I don't hear often.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
majormajor 5y ago
> The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. If you're pro-democracy/pro-republic/pro-anything-other-than-might-makes-right why is this admirable or desirable? Weapons are a force multiplier, and they can make a minority with extreme desire to fight very strong. A Taliban, a Castro, a Confederate States of America... It's naive to think that guns will only ever be used by defenders of freedom. Take a look around the world.
- meragrin_ 5y ago
  > It's naive to think that guns will only ever be used by defenders of freedom. I think you summed it up pretty well there as to why it is desirable.
redstripe 5y ago
What's admirable about it? This is just a fiction that you Americans tell yourselves about the next revolution. Name one, just one way, that ease of gun ownership has protected Americans from their government in a way that citizens of other western democracies have suffered? There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any country defeats their government. Your gun will keep you safe about as well as your password protected Word document keeps you safe from the NSA snooping.
- mmmpop 5y ago
  If you were an officer of the law pressed to go door-to-door to say, purely hypothetically, take the oldest child by force to inscribe them in some dystopian military program, you'd probably be a lot more hesitant if you knew that there was a chance you'd get shot in the process right? I believe that's the security that us Americans (I imagine your sneer with that) feel by being armed. Isn't it that the Swiss are all armed as well? They seem to have fared rather well in a 20th century Europe fraught with conflict. Tell me that's a coincidence with absolutely no correlation to their pro-gun culture.
  - ahtihn 5y ago
    Swiss gun culture has nothing to do with American gun culture. Guns are for hunting and sport that's it. Essentially no one even thinks of getting a gun for self defence. There also has never been an idea that guns are for defending yourself against your own government here.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Yet every swiss male citizen does military training and is issued a weapon to keep, to use in staying proficient. There's no need for a military culture, when the government has already mandated it for you. Not that it isn't popular: >On September 22, 2013, a referendum that aimed to abolish conscription was held in Switzerland. However, the referendum failed with over 73% of the electorate voting against it, showing strong support for conscription of men in Switzerland.
foofoo4u 5y ago
There are graphics like [this](https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-newsom-recall-election-results/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-newsom-...) that make it easy to tell how statistics weigh in various constituencies. Does anyone here know of a similar graph, but for homicides by firearms? If the majority of firearm violence is indeed caused by specific hotspots across the country, then I would love to see a graphic that shows where they are and how they weigh in proportion to the rest.
mlboss 5y ago
Every time I read the story of gun violence in American school it send chills down my spine. As a parent you don't want to worry about shootouts at your kid's school. And this is totally preventable if Government bans guns. I understand the idea that citizens need protection from government. But if fight really breaks out between government and citizens then there are weapons far powerful then guns that citizens don't have. The whole gun debate is only happening because there are strong gun lobbyist in Washington. Gun manufactures makes sure that they can sell guns and make profit.
- akomtu 5y ago
  If you're willing to trade freedom for an illusion of safety, that's your choice.
xenocyon 5y ago
> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really. The data appear to disagree with you: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2010_homicide_rates_-_high_income_countries.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2010_homicide_rates_...
simonh 5y ago
I do not at all accept that guns empower the weak. We can see all over the world they are a massive force multiplier for criminals, the violent and the murderous. Guns are only potent in the hands of those willing and able to use violence. For those unwilling to do so, they are massively disenfranchising. They essentially tilt the balance of power in society decisively in favour of those most willing to kill, and most enthusiastic about preparing to do so. There is nothing admirable about normalising and promoting lethal violence in society. I’m very much aware of the sentiment that guns can have beneficial social effects, epitomised by the Heinlein quote that an armed society is a polite society. This is absurd. That sentiment is a direct attack on the principle of free speech, open discourse and equal right of expression for citizens. We should aspire to toleration of free expression, even if it’s uncomfortable or offensive, not suppression of it. Is it really right to hand an implicit veto on opinion to the violent? Utterly shameful.
- bequanna 5y ago
  > It hands an implicit veto on opinion to the violent. Utterly shameful. Except that isn’t how it has worked in the US at all. Can weapons be used to intimidate and coerce? Of course. But we’re civilized. We have freedoms and we are protected from unlawful force by lawful force. Speech is virtual limitless. Non violent protest has and will continue to be a fruitful avenue of change. Self reliance and individual empowerment are the core values of the United States. I can’t think of many things more important than being able to protect my family and my property.
  - simonh 5y ago
    My comment is not limited to political discourse. The rates of firearm use in domestic and personal disputes in the US are a disgrace. Half of women killed in domestic disputes are shot. But even then, it only shows those cases where guns were actually used. We can only guess how often the threat of such violence, either explicit or implicit is enough to coerce or intimidate. The attitude that the correct way to fix this is for women to also become killers is frankly vile. Promoting willingness to kill as a path to a voice or Liberty in personal relationships or society is utterly immoral. That is not the kind of society we should be aspiring to build.
garmaine 5y ago
> The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. Fight...whom? How? A gun is a very blunt instrument. If you want to learn how to defend yourself, take a self-defense class and buy something non-lethal like mace. Why is a gun necessary for self-defense?
- qball 5y ago
  Because "in case of emergency, press button" works when issued from the hands of a 5' 110-pound woman against a 7' 250-pound man in a way that the other options simply do not.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Guns aren’t as simple as “in case of emergency, push button” and stopping power for handguns is nonexistent. If you want a defensive weapon that is easy to use and hard to screw up, buy mace. If you want stopping power, buy a taser.
throw0101a 5y ago
> And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. > Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. Does it? > 11. Self-defense gun use is rare and not more effective at preventing injury than other protective actions > Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no less likely to be injured after taking protective action than victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss. > This article helps provide accurate information concerning self-defense gun use. It shows that many of the claims about the benefits of gun ownership are largely myths. > Hemenway D, Solnick SJ. The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007-2011. Preventive Medicine. 2015; 79: 22-27. * https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-thr...
- beerandt 5y ago
  This is like claiming people get in car accidents during every single driving trip, because accident reports fail to ever mention drivers reaching their destination safely and without incident.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    Is having a gun in your purse really going to protect you from getting mugged? The person mugging you surely realises there is a possibility you have a gun and will shoot the moment he/she thinks you are pulling a gun out. Attackers always have first mover advantage and be better able to utilise their weapons.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      > The person mugging you surely realises there is a possibility you have a gun and will shoot the moment he/she thinks you are pulling a gun out. There's a study bearing this out: > Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05). * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ * https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2008.143099 https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2008.143099
wittycardio 5y ago
There is nothing admirable about it . If the military actually turns against its civilians then the civilians stand no chance despite whatever guns they own. All it does is increase the total violence in American society and all the neighbouring countries
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  As has been replied to this exactly fallacious point multiple places in this thread, 75,000 men in Afghanistan just defeated the US military.
  - King-Aaron 5y ago
    This is such a shitty reductionist argument.
  - wittycardio 5y ago
    They didn't defeat the us military lol , there was just no political will to continue a war on the other side of the world with no real value to the American establishment. But in your scenario where the American establishment goes rogue and decides to launch a punitive campaign against its own population that won't be a problem
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      What exactly do you mean by political will? The US fought a war of attrition for 20 years and finally withdrew, their enemy being in a better position than before the invasion. You wouldn't call that a defeat? Why exactly do you think that a better armed and much larger force, one that is the economic backing of the military they'd be facing, would stand less of a chance?
      - wittycardio 5y ago
        Politicians ran on the promise of getting the troops out of Afghanistan. They chose to leave , the Taliban didn't force them to. You're imagining a situation where the government is choosing to bully the population into submission. There are tools far more powerful than guns that they have at their disposal. Cutting off food / water / electricity / internet is a far easier way to threaten a population than attack them with guns. Likewise the real complex work of standing up to authoritarianism requires organization , thought and planning more so than just guns. Your idea of a militia standing up to a government is essentially historical cosplay.
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makeitdouble 5y ago
> There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. This is the glass half full view. The other view is that gov. doesn’t need to care about people with guns because that long hasn’t mattered in any way. A civil war hasn’t been at stake for a century, and the gov got away with anything it really wanted without ever having to fear for physical unrest. It feels a lot like letting your kid have his plastic knife so he can wield it to you to protest your authority when times come. ‘Not having to rely on police” also means they give themselves the option to just let civilians fight it out when shit hits the fan, which doesn’t look like a great thing to me.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
I’m not a gun owner, and not interested in being a gun owner. I have shot guns, and it was fun, but I already have more hobbies than I have time. I’m a city kid, so I don’t really have a need for guns as tools the way country people do. Guns as a political issue are great for getting the base riled up. But they really aren’t that important in the big picture, either for the liberals that want to get rid of them or for the conservatives that want to keep them. We all have a lot bigger fish to fry.
King-Aaron 5y ago
Americans really don't get it. Guns aren't the issue. Americans are.
zarzavat 5y ago
> you might guess that people would be dropping like flies. But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really. Murder is not a major concern outside of a handful of dangerous areas. In the US. But look at the effect it has on your neighbours. The most violent and dangerous countries in the world are in Central America, and that is a direct result of the US being awash with guns.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  So, if guns are in both places, what accounts for the different outcomes? Could it be something other than guns?
elil17 5y ago
I too sleep better knowing that while the gun industry is built on a graveyard of dead elementary schoolers, it’s only a few dead elementary schoolers.
optymizer 5y ago
> ability to fight but not to win. You realize how ridiculous it sounds to go against the US government with rifles? It's worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight. Sometimes I can't help but feel like most of you gun loving folks are dreaming that you're in a Hollywood movie, where you're the hero and you die in glorious battle protecting your freedoms and family. But it's ok, because at least you put up a fight and credits will roll. The reality is that you will do nothing at best, and die at worst.
- grogenaut 5y ago
  Did I miss something, did America NOT just pull out of Afghanistan?
  - optymizer 5y ago
    That's such a bad example. Let's just look at a few differences from Taliban: * the government controls your money and can freeze all your accounts. * the government controls all the imports and exports. You're not going to get massive shipments of reinforcements. * the government has all your information, where you live, where your parents live, how many kids you have, and who your friends are * the government controls all the roads, toll booths and CC cameras. Where you're going to hide? At Yosemite? Are you going to burrow yourself in the ground and dig networks of tunnels? You've been spoon fed this story of a militia since you were little. It's not the 1800s anymore. You can't take a gun and multiply it by 10000, and then walk into DC from Nebraska to take your freedoms back. That's a dream. Meanwhile, back on Earth, there's school shootings, mass murders at a scale that's not found in any other country... but it's a small price to pay, because one day you'll get to play out that militia fantasy of yours, right?
IgorPartola 5y ago
Look, for better or worse I think we might be better off with just no private gun ownership, but I will tell you why I think the anti-gun part of the country is so riled up: It’s not the murder rate itself. That doesn’t matter as much to people emotionally. They know it happens, but for the most part it is so concentrated in areas people mostly want to not think about that they ignore it. I have never heard of anyone say that they want to outlaw guns because of handgun murders in the inner cities (which is obviously a problem, obviously wrong, and obviously fucked up in its own way). I think the main reasons people want guns gone is because of school shootings. And the percentages and chances here don’t play as much of a role as the fact that most people like kids and don’t want them to get shot and that it’s not the kind of tragedy you can easily write off. When some random person is murdered by some other random person I think people assume either bad luck or bad judgement. But most people aren’t willing to accept that children could have their lives cut short and that preventing this should a top priority compared to private gun ownership. I am sympathetic to the idea that a targeted minority or an oppressed group greatly benefits from gun ownership. If the day Zimmerman followed Martin and Martin was the one with the gun then both might well be alive or at least the person being attacked would be. Or every time a woman can fight off her domestic abuser with the help of a gun. But how do you do the cost benefit analysis on that calculation? I think it’s difficult but the majority rarely thinks of the needs of a minority. On the other hand everyone thinks about children whether they want to or not. Lastly and slightly off topic: I am baffled by the fact that mosr police officers are pro-gun. If I was afraid for my life on my job I would want the threat at least reduced if not eliminated. Outlawing private gun ownership will reduce private gun ownership and more importantly their availability to criminals who the police might apprehend. So why would they not want to have that happen?
rowanG077 5y ago
If I would live in the US it's not being murdered by some random I would be worried about. It's the cops that are badly trained and because of the very high possibility of someone having a gun are incredibly trigger happy.
koonsolo 5y ago
US always needs to think black and white. Either you are free to have guns, or you cannot have any guns. This is not true at all. I'm a gun owner in Europe. First I needed to be member of a shooting range for 6 months. Then I have to pass a theoretical and practical exam. Then the people I live with have to sign that I can own guns. Plus, I need to have a clean criminal record. To keep my guns, I need to go shooting 12 times a year, and every 4 years my doctor has to approve that I'm mentally stable to keep them. There are also very strict rules on where I keep my guns an ammo, and where I can transport them. Do I like all the effort I have to put into this? No. Do I prefer that over giving crazy and/or incompetent people guns? Yes.

seneca 5y ago

I agree with most of your post. One small quibble though: > There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. I think that's an important philosophical point that a lot of people, especially the anti-gun type, lose sight of. Not suggesting you're in that camp, but I think the distinction is important.

deleted 5y ago
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AustinDev 5y ago
>The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. The National Firearms Act would like to have a word it is unconstitutional on it's face despite what the Supreme Court says. 'Shall not be infringed' hasn't been the law of the land since the 1930's. Maybe we'll get lucky and this conservative supreme court will do one big thing right and declare all federal firearms regulations null and void thus ending this culture war and forcing the politicians to fix actual problems. However, that is highly unlikely.
- packetlost 5y ago
  > thus ending this culture war and forcing the politicians to fix actual problems You think guns are the core of the culture war? Even if the SCOTUS did make such a ruling, the culture war almost certainly would not end.
  - AustinDev 5y ago
    It's been shown that many people would side with democrats on the majority of social issues and vote for them if not for their stance on firearms. If the democrats lost their ability to use that as part of their culture war platform they'd likely gain a ton of people who don't vote or vote R simply to retain their rights.
    - bananabreakfast 5y ago
      This is silly, because Gun laws are a central part of the platform and can't be abandoned. This is like saying if Republicans just dropped anti-immigration from their platform they'd gain a ton of people who don't vote for them because they're Mexican. Any move like this fundamentally alienates the base.
      - oaktrout 5y ago
        What keeps a party's platform from changing? Would former republicans vote democrat if the republican party dropped its anti-immigration stance? Surely not, as there is still abortion, taxes, guns, etc.
      - zepto 5y ago
        It seems highly unlikely to me that many people would switch from D to R if the democrats stopped pursuing gun control. On the other hand I know many people who will hold their nose and vote R only because they don’t want to lose their gun rights.
    - ctrlp 5y ago
      You can't reduce the culture war to gun ownership. The Dems are doing just about everything they can to alienate traditionalists in the U.S., including gun owners. It's not even the most important wedge issue anymore. Rather, gun owners are concerned about defending themselves in a country organized by Democratic party policy. They'll need the guns when the police are defunded, or when the social workers come for their children.
phendrenad2 5y ago
The US Constitution can be changed, never forget that.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  The Bill of Rights cannot be. This is the fundamental difference between the US and other Western democracies. Consent to be governed rests upon said government respecting those inalienable rights that we have. Those rights are not granted us by the government, they are the rights that we created a government to preserve. Any government violating those rights no longer has the consent of the governed and should be abolished.
  - bananabreakfast 5y ago
    That's absurd. The Bill of Rights is literally a list of changes to the constitution. Any one of them can be changed at any time by a majority of states. You're essentially saying that if the majority of the country votes to change one of the rights, then what? You'll no longer recognize the government as real?
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      Take that argument to an extreme. If the majority of the country votes to suspend democracy, would you stick around? If not, then doesn't that imply that there exists a set of underlying principles that you believe are fundamental to a government? That's exactly what the Bill of Rights is, an enumeration of what were viewed as the fundamental rights for which the point of government is to preserve. The mistake so many people make is thinking that government is the lowest level. It is not, government is downstream of culture and is a reflection of that cultures values. Without a unified culture that agrees on certain prerequisits of government, for example from this case elected representation, there can be no functional government.
      - jmeister 5y ago
        Hayek’s “cosmos” and “taxis” dichotomy captures this well.
tantalor 5y ago
Semantics
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Or the single most important point to understand when it comes to government.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kelnos 5y ago
> Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. That's a nice ideal, but in reality governments can do and take away whatever they want, and a guarantee that they won't take away your "inalienable" rights is only as good as the system built around that government, and the willingness of its people to fight (physically or legally) for their rights.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  Too true. The real problem here, in my humble opinion, is that the mechanism by which the citizens of the United States can fundamentally alter the government (via constitutional amendment) require sizable majorities and broad consensus (I realize that this is primarily a feature), while the mechanism by which the the United States government can alter fundamentally alter itself (via the extra-constitutional mechanism we call Judicial Review) requires a simple majority of 5/9 unelected "justices". We've seen this mechanism, over the course of ~230 years, bootstrap a pathetically weak federal government into a unitary behemoth which dominates our state and local governments. And the only way to get off the train is violent revolution! It's like a bad joke. We need to acknowledge that human beings have a right to self-governance, that this includes the right to form new governments via democratic referenda, and that governments that prevent this are engaged in something which, upon inspection, cannot be distinguished from imperialism.
- ApolloFortyNine 5y ago
  The right to freedom of speech in the US is almost truly uninhibited. Even the "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" argument was actually revisited by the Supreme Court and thrown out. If there's an amendment to the constitution to ban owning a firearm, so be it. But if that right is severely limited without an amendment, it would be natural to fear for the rest. The verbiage on the first 10 amendments is incredibly simple. "shall not be infringed".
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    There is often a disconnect between what is the constitution/the law, and what the people in power actually order their cops/soldiers to do. The constitution of the USSR guaranteed the privacy of citizens' communications, freedom of religion, and doesn't just allow citizens to criticize public organizations but prohibits persecution of critics. You know what happened in reality. The US is by no means immune to that - we've seen last year that the President can easily send some of the millions of armed people he has under his direct control to crack down on protests and disappear some people -- while the constitutional legitimacy gets debated months later once the damage is done...
Hamuko 5y ago
Well, if the new Texas anti-abortion law is declared legal and constitutional in the courts, there's going to be a lot more laws that deny people their constitutional rights via similar "bounty hunter" systems. And the fact that it wasn't declared unconstitutional right off the bat makes the "can not" part not apply that well since Texas can currently very much take away constitutional rights from its citizens. Also, the "inalienable rights" in 1776 were not really inalienable since life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were afforded to a pretty select group of people.

sofixa 5y ago

> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really The US is at 4.96/100,000 for 2012. For reference, Angola is better at 4.85. Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest countries in the EU, are at 1.3. France is at 1.2. If by not remarkable you mean 3 as bad as other developed countries, sure. The numbers are only for intentional homicide, not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone. Not all that remarkable is a weird way of putting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. Protests and revolutions in France have done more to guide government power than anything ever that happened in the US. Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights, blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for/against? Mask mandates?

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul. not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone The suicide statistics from some countries with effective total bans on civilian gun ownership do not support your claim for those, and for accidents we're at 500/year out of a population of 330 million people. There were years when more very young kids were accidentally drowning themselves by getting stuck upside down in 5 gallon (19 L) plastic buckets that are are ubiquitous here. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for? Mask mandates? Are any of these, the middle ones not directly affecting us, worth starting a civil war that would take hundreds of thousands to millions of lives? (I might argue yes for the wars, but it's not the sort of thing I suspect has ever happened in human history.)
- sofixa 5y ago
  > So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul I sincerely doubt the average first world person has what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation. And there's no need for them to do that, realistically.

secondaryacct 5y ago

If you want to fuck with an american, tie him down financially with a credit card, prevent him to run with a coke and big mac a day, and destroy his cognitive ability with a good old Bible. Then, tell him his guns make him free, because any sort of social conflict would be solved by violent murder. Shake well, exploit.

yongjik 5y ago

I have trouble understanding how guns would defend an American's freedom. See, it's as if the US military trains soldiers how to hide in the Appalachian, raid local villages, and steal food and ammunition from trucks, because if a non-specified enemy conquers the US and its troops are marching down the streets from Sacramento to Boston you need these skills to hide and keep fighting. Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. If the government has turned your enemy and its troops are marching down the street ready to murder your family, you have already failed to defend your freedom. What were you doing in the meantime?

tablespoon 5y ago
> Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. Eh, not so much. I believe the term is "defense in depth." There's also the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." If recent history has taught us anything, it's that a territory with a hostile armed population is extremely difficult for even the most advanced army in the world to hold. The US (or the Soviets) would have won in Afghanistan if all the Taliban was able to do was stage protest marches and write angry letters. Also, you have to understand that there are many different scenarios to consider. For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself.
- yongjik 5y ago
  > For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself. That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen then you have already failed to defend your freedom." The US military is not a band of invaders, it's made of your fellow Americans. What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?
  - 5y ago

otikik 5y ago

Who wrote this? A gun?

jfengel 5y ago

Murders aren't the only issue, though. Just the possibility of a gun being present changes a lot of interactions in the US. Every police encounter has to assume you have a gun. A lot of innocent deaths at the hands of police are treated as "I thought he had a gun", which makes everybody scared of the police -- especially minorities. School children go through metal detectors every single day, never turning up any guns. Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in case one has a gun. And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced that they're about to be killed by one of those many, many guns, as seen right here in this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161 All of those guns have a significant, negative effect on daily life in America. The actual murders are comparatively few, but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time.

jaywalk 5y ago
Wow, you really managed to paint a completely distorted and scary picture of daily life in America. Well done. Hopefully I don't get gunned down by a cop thinking I have a gun when I leave my house tonight, although I probably will.
zepto 5y ago
> but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time. This is a fantasy. I’ve never been in a situation I’m the US where I thought a gun could appear at any time, and I don’t even live in a particularly great neighborhood.
- jfengel 5y ago
  Congratulations on never having encountered a police officer. If you do, you'll be very aware of the fact that they're treating you as if you were armed. I am aware of it, and I'm not even black -- and I've seen how much worse it is for black people. Congrats, also, on graduating school before school shootings became a big thing. Me, too. It was great not having to go through metal detectors on my way to class. I am sorry you don't ever fly, though. It's not a lot of fun, but there are a lot of great places to go, and it's usually worth the hassle of being checked for guns.

comrh 5y ago

Murder rate isn't the whole story. Check out the suicide rate, how gun ownership affects a successful attempt and who is killing themselves in the US.

spyder 5y ago
Yep, that's so crazy and sad: "Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t." https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner... :-( Also: "Sixty percent of deaths from firearms in the U.S. are suicides." So if somebody dies from a firearm in the US it's more likely to be suicide than other firearm related death. https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Yet US Suicide rates are comparable to those of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada. A big higher but very very close. So I don't see how guns matter in that case. If they did matter to the actual decision of killing yourself or not, you'd see an actual correlation worldwide. Also, I'm not sure if the stats account for people buying guns just to kill themselves. Like is it only including long time owners? Otherwise I again don't see the difference between buying a gun to commit suicide vs doing it via hanging. The message it sends is that having a gun in your house makes it more likely for you to commit suicide. But causation can just as easily be reversed, i.e. if you are suicidal you're probably more a lot more likely to acquire a gun. Would it be surprising that someone who wants to die is more likely to have something that can help him do just that?
  - DanBC 5y ago
    > Yet US Suicide rates are comparable to those of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada. US has a narrow definition for death by suicide that requires knowledge of intent. Compare the US definition with the UK definition. US: "Suicide is a death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result" https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicideTechnicalPackage.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicideTechnicalP... UK: "this includes all deaths from intentional self-harm for persons aged 10 years and over and deaths caused by injury or poisoning where the intent was undetermined for those aged 15 years and over." https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/latest https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > The message it sends is that having a gun in your house makes it more likely for you to commit suicide. Yes. It's well established in suicide research that preventing access to means and methods is an important suicide prevention measure. Which suicide prevention research have you recently read?

tootie 5y ago

I think the simplest counterpoint is Britain. The US Second Amendment is a direct descendant of the British Common Law right to bear arm. And Britain is arguably our national parent with a similar culture and history and a modern pluralistic culture. They effectively ended their right to private gun ownership in the 20th century to the point that it's now extremely difficult to procure one and there are very few guns owned per capita. And their homicide rate is less than half of ours. Same goes for Australia and several other first world democracies. You can at the very least say that rate of gun ownership has no correlation with gun crime. And quite possibly that it correlates directly in that more guns leads to more gun deaths. So, personally (subjectively), I don't find it admirable at all. Freedom is a good default option, but I see America's gun culture as pretty sickening.

zepto 5y ago
One reason their homicide rate is less than half ours is that their clearance rate for murders is >90% vs around 60% in better parts of the US. This was a result of the British police adopting a standard and very effective methodology for investigating murders in the 70’s and 80’s. There is a lot of criminological evidence that the deterrent effect of policing is proportional to the predictability of the crime being solved, rather than the harshness of the punishment. If we want less murders, we need to put more effort into catching murderers. That is where the cause and effect relationship lies. It is also something that the British know how to do, and which we could learn from.
philwelch 5y ago
Britain also spent a long time transporting violent criminals and resettling much of the relatively violent “Scotch-Irish”/“Borderer” population to the American colonies. We also got a lot of their religious fanatics. This explains a lot about America.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  This is an excellent point that I don't hear often.
- wutbrodo 5y ago

majormajor 5y ago

> The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. If you're pro-democracy/pro-republic/pro-anything-other-than-might-makes-right why is this admirable or desirable? Weapons are a force multiplier, and they can make a minority with extreme desire to fight very strong. A Taliban, a Castro, a Confederate States of America... It's naive to think that guns will only ever be used by defenders of freedom. Take a look around the world.

meragrin_ 5y ago
> It's naive to think that guns will only ever be used by defenders of freedom. I think you summed it up pretty well there as to why it is desirable.

redstripe 5y ago

What's admirable about it? This is just a fiction that you Americans tell yourselves about the next revolution. Name one, just one way, that ease of gun ownership has protected Americans from their government in a way that citizens of other western democracies have suffered? There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any country defeats their government. Your gun will keep you safe about as well as your password protected Word document keeps you safe from the NSA snooping.

mmmpop 5y ago
If you were an officer of the law pressed to go door-to-door to say, purely hypothetically, take the oldest child by force to inscribe them in some dystopian military program, you'd probably be a lot more hesitant if you knew that there was a chance you'd get shot in the process right? I believe that's the security that us Americans (I imagine your sneer with that) feel by being armed. Isn't it that the Swiss are all armed as well? They seem to have fared rather well in a 20th century Europe fraught with conflict. Tell me that's a coincidence with absolutely no correlation to their pro-gun culture.
- ahtihn 5y ago
  Swiss gun culture has nothing to do with American gun culture. Guns are for hunting and sport that's it. Essentially no one even thinks of getting a gun for self defence. There also has never been an idea that guns are for defending yourself against your own government here.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Yet every swiss male citizen does military training and is issued a weapon to keep, to use in staying proficient. There's no need for a military culture, when the government has already mandated it for you. Not that it isn't popular: >On September 22, 2013, a referendum that aimed to abolish conscription was held in Switzerland. However, the referendum failed with over 73% of the electorate voting against it, showing strong support for conscription of men in Switzerland.

foofoo4u 5y ago

There are graphics like [this](https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-newsom-recall-election-results/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-newsom-...) that make it easy to tell how statistics weigh in various constituencies. Does anyone here know of a similar graph, but for homicides by firearms? If the majority of firearm violence is indeed caused by specific hotspots across the country, then I would love to see a graphic that shows where they are and how they weigh in proportion to the rest.

mlboss 5y ago

Every time I read the story of gun violence in American school it send chills down my spine. As a parent you don't want to worry about shootouts at your kid's school. And this is totally preventable if Government bans guns. I understand the idea that citizens need protection from government. But if fight really breaks out between government and citizens then there are weapons far powerful then guns that citizens don't have. The whole gun debate is only happening because there are strong gun lobbyist in Washington. Gun manufactures makes sure that they can sell guns and make profit.

akomtu 5y ago
If you're willing to trade freedom for an illusion of safety, that's your choice.

xenocyon 5y ago

> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really. The data appear to disagree with you: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2010_homicide_rates_-_high_income_countries.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2010_homicide_rates_...

simonh 5y ago

I do not at all accept that guns empower the weak. We can see all over the world they are a massive force multiplier for criminals, the violent and the murderous. Guns are only potent in the hands of those willing and able to use violence. For those unwilling to do so, they are massively disenfranchising. They essentially tilt the balance of power in society decisively in favour of those most willing to kill, and most enthusiastic about preparing to do so. There is nothing admirable about normalising and promoting lethal violence in society. I’m very much aware of the sentiment that guns can have beneficial social effects, epitomised by the Heinlein quote that an armed society is a polite society. This is absurd. That sentiment is a direct attack on the principle of free speech, open discourse and equal right of expression for citizens. We should aspire to toleration of free expression, even if it’s uncomfortable or offensive, not suppression of it. Is it really right to hand an implicit veto on opinion to the violent? Utterly shameful.

bequanna 5y ago
> It hands an implicit veto on opinion to the violent. Utterly shameful. Except that isn’t how it has worked in the US at all. Can weapons be used to intimidate and coerce? Of course. But we’re civilized. We have freedoms and we are protected from unlawful force by lawful force. Speech is virtual limitless. Non violent protest has and will continue to be a fruitful avenue of change. Self reliance and individual empowerment are the core values of the United States. I can’t think of many things more important than being able to protect my family and my property.
- simonh 5y ago
  My comment is not limited to political discourse. The rates of firearm use in domestic and personal disputes in the US are a disgrace. Half of women killed in domestic disputes are shot. But even then, it only shows those cases where guns were actually used. We can only guess how often the threat of such violence, either explicit or implicit is enough to coerce or intimidate. The attitude that the correct way to fix this is for women to also become killers is frankly vile. Promoting willingness to kill as a path to a voice or Liberty in personal relationships or society is utterly immoral. That is not the kind of society we should be aspiring to build.

garmaine 5y ago

> The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. Fight...whom? How? A gun is a very blunt instrument. If you want to learn how to defend yourself, take a self-defense class and buy something non-lethal like mace. Why is a gun necessary for self-defense?

qball 5y ago
Because "in case of emergency, press button" works when issued from the hands of a 5' 110-pound woman against a 7' 250-pound man in a way that the other options simply do not.
- garmaine 5y ago
  Guns aren’t as simple as “in case of emergency, push button” and stopping power for handguns is nonexistent. If you want a defensive weapon that is easy to use and hard to screw up, buy mace. If you want stopping power, buy a taser.

throw0101a 5y ago

> And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. > Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. Does it? > 11. Self-defense gun use is rare and not more effective at preventing injury than other protective actions > Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no less likely to be injured after taking protective action than victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss. > This article helps provide accurate information concerning self-defense gun use. It shows that many of the claims about the benefits of gun ownership are largely myths. > Hemenway D, Solnick SJ. The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007-2011. Preventive Medicine. 2015; 79: 22-27. * https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-thr...

beerandt 5y ago
This is like claiming people get in car accidents during every single driving trip, because accident reports fail to ever mention drivers reaching their destination safely and without incident.
- worrycue 5y ago
  Is having a gun in your purse really going to protect you from getting mugged? The person mugging you surely realises there is a possibility you have a gun and will shoot the moment he/she thinks you are pulling a gun out. Attackers always have first mover advantage and be better able to utilise their weapons.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > The person mugging you surely realises there is a possibility you have a gun and will shoot the moment he/she thinks you are pulling a gun out. There's a study bearing this out: > Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05). * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ * https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2008.143099 https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2008.143099

wittycardio 5y ago

There is nothing admirable about it . If the military actually turns against its civilians then the civilians stand no chance despite whatever guns they own. All it does is increase the total violence in American society and all the neighbouring countries

betwixthewires 5y ago
As has been replied to this exactly fallacious point multiple places in this thread, 75,000 men in Afghanistan just defeated the US military.
- King-Aaron 5y ago
  This is such a shitty reductionist argument.
- wittycardio 5y ago
  They didn't defeat the us military lol , there was just no political will to continue a war on the other side of the world with no real value to the American establishment. But in your scenario where the American establishment goes rogue and decides to launch a punitive campaign against its own population that won't be a problem
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    What exactly do you mean by political will? The US fought a war of attrition for 20 years and finally withdrew, their enemy being in a better position than before the invasion. You wouldn't call that a defeat? Why exactly do you think that a better armed and much larger force, one that is the economic backing of the military they'd be facing, would stand less of a chance?
    - wittycardio 5y ago
      Politicians ran on the promise of getting the troops out of Afghanistan. They chose to leave , the Taliban didn't force them to. You're imagining a situation where the government is choosing to bully the population into submission. There are tools far more powerful than guns that they have at their disposal. Cutting off food / water / electricity / internet is a far easier way to threaten a population than attack them with guns. Likewise the real complex work of standing up to authoritarianism requires organization , thought and planning more so than just guns. Your idea of a militia standing up to a government is essentially historical cosplay.

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makeitdouble 5y ago

> There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. This is the glass half full view. The other view is that gov. doesn’t need to care about people with guns because that long hasn’t mattered in any way. A civil war hasn’t been at stake for a century, and the gov got away with anything it really wanted without ever having to fear for physical unrest. It feels a lot like letting your kid have his plastic knife so he can wield it to you to protest your authority when times come. ‘Not having to rely on police” also means they give themselves the option to just let civilians fight it out when shit hits the fan, which doesn’t look like a great thing to me.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

I’m not a gun owner, and not interested in being a gun owner. I have shot guns, and it was fun, but I already have more hobbies than I have time. I’m a city kid, so I don’t really have a need for guns as tools the way country people do. Guns as a political issue are great for getting the base riled up. But they really aren’t that important in the big picture, either for the liberals that want to get rid of them or for the conservatives that want to keep them. We all have a lot bigger fish to fry.

King-Aaron 5y ago

Americans really don't get it. Guns aren't the issue. Americans are.

zarzavat 5y ago

> you might guess that people would be dropping like flies. But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really. Murder is not a major concern outside of a handful of dangerous areas. In the US. But look at the effect it has on your neighbours. The most violent and dangerous countries in the world are in Central America, and that is a direct result of the US being awash with guns.

hcurtiss 5y ago
So, if guns are in both places, what accounts for the different outcomes? Could it be something other than guns?

elil17 5y ago

I too sleep better knowing that while the gun industry is built on a graveyard of dead elementary schoolers, it’s only a few dead elementary schoolers.

optymizer 5y ago

> ability to fight but not to win. You realize how ridiculous it sounds to go against the US government with rifles? It's worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight. Sometimes I can't help but feel like most of you gun loving folks are dreaming that you're in a Hollywood movie, where you're the hero and you die in glorious battle protecting your freedoms and family. But it's ok, because at least you put up a fight and credits will roll. The reality is that you will do nothing at best, and die at worst.

grogenaut 5y ago
Did I miss something, did America NOT just pull out of Afghanistan?
- optymizer 5y ago
  That's such a bad example. Let's just look at a few differences from Taliban: * the government controls your money and can freeze all your accounts. * the government controls all the imports and exports. You're not going to get massive shipments of reinforcements. * the government has all your information, where you live, where your parents live, how many kids you have, and who your friends are * the government controls all the roads, toll booths and CC cameras. Where you're going to hide? At Yosemite? Are you going to burrow yourself in the ground and dig networks of tunnels? You've been spoon fed this story of a militia since you were little. It's not the 1800s anymore. You can't take a gun and multiply it by 10000, and then walk into DC from Nebraska to take your freedoms back. That's a dream. Meanwhile, back on Earth, there's school shootings, mass murders at a scale that's not found in any other country... but it's a small price to pay, because one day you'll get to play out that militia fantasy of yours, right?

IgorPartola 5y ago

Look, for better or worse I think we might be better off with just no private gun ownership, but I will tell you why I think the anti-gun part of the country is so riled up: It’s not the murder rate itself. That doesn’t matter as much to people emotionally. They know it happens, but for the most part it is so concentrated in areas people mostly want to not think about that they ignore it. I have never heard of anyone say that they want to outlaw guns because of handgun murders in the inner cities (which is obviously a problem, obviously wrong, and obviously fucked up in its own way). I think the main reasons people want guns gone is because of school shootings. And the percentages and chances here don’t play as much of a role as the fact that most people like kids and don’t want them to get shot and that it’s not the kind of tragedy you can easily write off. When some random person is murdered by some other random person I think people assume either bad luck or bad judgement. But most people aren’t willing to accept that children could have their lives cut short and that preventing this should a top priority compared to private gun ownership. I am sympathetic to the idea that a targeted minority or an oppressed group greatly benefits from gun ownership. If the day Zimmerman followed Martin and Martin was the one with the gun then both might well be alive or at least the person being attacked would be. Or every time a woman can fight off her domestic abuser with the help of a gun. But how do you do the cost benefit analysis on that calculation? I think it’s difficult but the majority rarely thinks of the needs of a minority. On the other hand everyone thinks about children whether they want to or not. Lastly and slightly off topic: I am baffled by the fact that mosr police officers are pro-gun. If I was afraid for my life on my job I would want the threat at least reduced if not eliminated. Outlawing private gun ownership will reduce private gun ownership and more importantly their availability to criminals who the police might apprehend. So why would they not want to have that happen?

rowanG077 5y ago

If I would live in the US it's not being murdered by some random I would be worried about. It's the cops that are badly trained and because of the very high possibility of someone having a gun are incredibly trigger happy.

koonsolo 5y ago

US always needs to think black and white. Either you are free to have guns, or you cannot have any guns. This is not true at all. I'm a gun owner in Europe. First I needed to be member of a shooting range for 6 months. Then I have to pass a theoretical and practical exam. Then the people I live with have to sign that I can own guns. Plus, I need to have a clean criminal record. To keep my guns, I need to go shooting 12 times a year, and every 4 years my doctor has to approve that I'm mentally stable to keep them. There are also very strict rules on where I keep my guns an ammo, and where I can transport them. Do I like all the effort I have to put into this? No. Do I prefer that over giving crazy and/or incompetent people guns? Yes.