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I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. Those countries may be New World, but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random place

I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. Those countries may be New World, but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. In other words, if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Reddit's running joke is that every gunfight happened in Brazil. In fact, I often wonder if most of the gunfight videos actually do come from Brazil.

betwixthewires 5y ago
> I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. What about Greenland? > ...anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. > ...if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Put it undiplomatically. What exactly do you mean by that? Draw me a picture with crayons, I want to understand clearly what this means. An important point in the comment you replied to was that maybe demand for firearms is the result of the crime rate and not the cause. Care to address that?
- sho_hn 5y ago
  > It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. No, it's really not. I spent a number of years living in Seoul, and you can have a 25 million people metro area with virtually no areas you wouldn't go to alone at night. They may exist, somewhere, but you really have to struggle to find them. That plus no loud and aggressive people on the streets, basically never having to feel guarded or adjusting your walking path to avoid that one sketchy person. US cities can be such stressful, on-guard, subtly "stand your ground"/"toughen up" experiences in comparison sometimes. It's draining, really just wasted energy, and as a man, makes me behave in wasy I don't actually want to. Culture really matters. Weapon laws really matter. And national pride in places and spaces that just simply don't shape up well is something to resist. I have a feeling that the entire "arm the populace" mindset and everything that goes along with it (the lack of interest in consensus-building displayed by wanting to maintain an exit from it, etc.) is much more likely to generate the sort of politics and politicians that would ever require civilian I arms use. States can certainly go bad in many ways. South Korea managed to impeach its most recent bad President through peaceful protest alone (search "Park Geun-Hye protests") with basically not even a punch thrown, however.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    Seoul is a collectivist society without "diversity." You can't compare it to the US. Shootings are highly concentrated in "diverse" neighborhoods.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      diverse == poor, right? I find it very interesting that race is so front and center in the US, while class hides behind it and rarely gets mentioned.
      - orangepurple 5y ago
        No, it is meant in the true general sense of the term
        disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        So, you are claiming that diverse (what does that even mean, racial, social, intellectual diversity?) neighbourhoods have more crime. That's an interesting theory, are there sources which I can read up on around this theory and the evidence for it?
  - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
    Idk why the downvotes for orangepurple, that is basically correct. Heterogeneous societies are much harder to govern. Different kinds of people living side-by-side fight. The calmest, most in-control societies around the world are homogeneous. SK, NK, and Japan are the most ethnically homogeneous countries on earth. Oh, and SK is an oligarchy. Essentially everything is run by a handful of families (those who run the chaebol), everybody knows about it, and it's been the status quo for years. Not that that's necessarily bad, though it isn't ideal. SK has risen from destruction to dictatorship to mostly-rich-and-democratic. I disagree that weapon laws really matter, they matter maybe a little. Most of the variance in murder rates is more productively explained by things like homogeneity, rich-poor divide, cultures of violence, etc.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  > What about Greenland? It's not a country and it has a very low population (less than 60k). Small regions make bad statistical samples.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    OK, how about Argentina?
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      What about Canada, Australia, and New Zealand?
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        Because I can't help but get the sense that using those countries, culturally very distinct from the US, is cherry picking st best. If the "legal firearms lead to more violence and crime, and if we restrict comparison to new world highly developed countries this still holds" argument is to stand, then the comparison has to apply to every country with firearm restrictions, not just a couple. If it doesn't apply across the board then that is an indicator that culture plays an outsized role and legal status of firearms does not. So I answered your question, now your turn, what about Argentina?
        smnrchrds 5y ago
        Because Canada is the closest country on earth to the US culturally and Australia and New Zealand are not far behind. Also, poverty tends to increase crime and CA/AU/NZ are closer to US economically as well, while Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa are far behind. If you want to pick one country to compare it to the US, it only makes sense to pick Canada. Argentina is very far down the list. The main difference between Canada and US (and to a great extent Australia and New Zealand) are not cultural or economical. The main differences are in access to firearms. I fully expect Canada's murder rate to rise to US levels if US gun laws were adopted here.
rufus_foreman 5y ago
Mexico is a big country. There are places in Mexico where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the US where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the Baltimore metro area where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world. But different places have different statistical properties. Look, my grandpa took me shooting when I was young. I remember doing target practice under a bridge when I was like 7, using a freakin' magnum revolver of all things. It was next to a very small river, and someone further downstream was trying to fish. I asked gramps "Do you think he heard us?" and he laughed "I don't think anybody didn't hear us." That's the kind of culture I come from. I suspect in this thread there are at least three factions: the pro-guns, the anti-guns, and the undecideds. As someone who was raised from an early age to be pro-gun, I do see the merits. But it's important that we acknowledge the downsides. If, statistically, America is so screwed up that you need to compare to Brazil and Mexico before the numbers start looking sort of reasonable, there may be a correlation with gun ownership the way that smoking may be correlated with cancer.
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    >> That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world Well I think Mexico is a sufficiently-large section of the world that statements like "anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone" should be called out, don't you agree?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    I would say poverty has more to do with the murder rate than anything else. If you want to go and rob houses or join a gang, you'll get a gun, legally or illegally. This happens everywhere, not only where guns are legal. If you can't get a gun, you'll get a big knife or a baseball bat. The USA is rich in GDP per capita but has patches with poor people with little to lose. In many EU countries there is far less people with little to lose, even among the poor ones. Crime in EU is, similarly, disproportionally caused by those who have little to lose, eg. illegal immigrants.
philwelch 5y ago
Brazilian gunfights between criminals and off-duty cops are a pretty big trope when it comes to videos of self-defense incidents. Of course, off-duty cops are basically the only Brazilians allowed to conceal carry. Numbers wise, we are doing much better than Mexico and Brazil, by about the same factor that France is doing better than we are and Japan is doing better than France. US homicide rates are a lot closer to Greenland or Argentina, and significantly less than a lot of nice LatAm countries that are popular with Western expats such as Costa Rica or Panama or Uruguay. The legality and availability of firearms cannot fully explain these differences, and it’s incomplete to simply compare the US to the EU.
stefan_ 5y ago
It's doubly ironic because of course a large swath of the guns in what is bordering on civil war in Mexico are supplied by the US, made possible through the (lack of) gun ownership regulation.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  > made possible through the (lack of) gun ownership regulation. The US has plenty of gun ownership regulation. Criminals choose not to follow that though.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    Lackadaisical enforcement in the US
    - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
      Violent gun crimes are felonies with the exception of the victimless I tried to carry my handgun through the airport type of crimes. Do you have evidence otherwise?
      - vlovich123 5y ago
        I meant more than just criminal prosecution. For example, federal gun control checks are prohibited from being automated and there’s a fixed time limit the FBI needs to respond within or the gun can be sold. Effectively this neuters federal background checks. Similarly, there’s ways of skirting even that trivial thing through private sale and firearm shows. The entire system is a farce and I’m surprised there’s anyone who thinks it’s not. I would have though pro gun advocates would at least know enough to acknowledge the Swiss cheese nature of the systems in place around gun ownership in America.
        OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        > federal gun control checks are prohibited from being automated There is an automated system behind it. > Effectively this neuters federal background checks That is incorrect. https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-guide/ https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-g... As the article mentions, there are people that slip through the cracks, but the foremost problem around keeping weapons out of the wrong hands has little to do with the FBI.
tonyarkles 5y ago
> but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone Canadian here... isn't that true in most of the highly-populated areas in the US as well? And, to be honest, some parts of Canada as well; I definitely know a neighbourhood not to far from where I live where I'm highly unlikely to walk in the dark.
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  It's going to be true almost everywhere (not Japan? Switzerland?) The real question is to what extent is it true? I think stumbling into such a place at night in the U.S. would be quite hard, Canada even harder. In Mexico, my feeling is you really ought to plan. You can't just drive from Point A to Point B across the country at night, whereas in the rest of North America you sure can.
ixacto 5y ago
All that gun control in Mexico is working just great with its low murder rate…oh wait.
throwaway09223 5y ago
" if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison" Almost half of all US homicides are drug/gang related, so obviously there will be links to south american countries where these enterprises also operate. If you want to avoid high crime, move north. Northern states have a homicide rate roughly half the national average.
- asquabventured 5y ago
  You ever heard of Chicago? Up to the minute crime statistics in this northern state city with some of the most restrictive gun control can easily be found. [1.] [1.] https://heyjackass.com https://heyjackass.com
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway09223 5y ago
    Yes, and Mexico has even more restrictive gun control with many times more murders than the USA. It's pretty clear that gun control is not the most significant factor.

betwixthewires 5y ago

> I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. What about Greenland? > ...anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. > ...if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Put it undiplomatically. What exactly do you mean by that? Draw me a picture with crayons, I want to understand clearly what this means. An important point in the comment you replied to was that maybe demand for firearms is the result of the crime rate and not the cause. Care to address that?

sho_hn 5y ago
> It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. No, it's really not. I spent a number of years living in Seoul, and you can have a 25 million people metro area with virtually no areas you wouldn't go to alone at night. They may exist, somewhere, but you really have to struggle to find them. That plus no loud and aggressive people on the streets, basically never having to feel guarded or adjusting your walking path to avoid that one sketchy person. US cities can be such stressful, on-guard, subtly "stand your ground"/"toughen up" experiences in comparison sometimes. It's draining, really just wasted energy, and as a man, makes me behave in wasy I don't actually want to. Culture really matters. Weapon laws really matter. And national pride in places and spaces that just simply don't shape up well is something to resist. I have a feeling that the entire "arm the populace" mindset and everything that goes along with it (the lack of interest in consensus-building displayed by wanting to maintain an exit from it, etc.) is much more likely to generate the sort of politics and politicians that would ever require civilian I arms use. States can certainly go bad in many ways. South Korea managed to impeach its most recent bad President through peaceful protest alone (search "Park Geun-Hye protests") with basically not even a punch thrown, however.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  Seoul is a collectivist society without "diversity." You can't compare it to the US. Shootings are highly concentrated in "diverse" neighborhoods.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    diverse == poor, right? I find it very interesting that race is so front and center in the US, while class hides behind it and rarely gets mentioned.
    - orangepurple 5y ago
      No, it is meant in the true general sense of the term
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        So, you are claiming that diverse (what does that even mean, racial, social, intellectual diversity?) neighbourhoods have more crime. That's an interesting theory, are there sources which I can read up on around this theory and the evidence for it?
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  Idk why the downvotes for orangepurple, that is basically correct. Heterogeneous societies are much harder to govern. Different kinds of people living side-by-side fight. The calmest, most in-control societies around the world are homogeneous. SK, NK, and Japan are the most ethnically homogeneous countries on earth. Oh, and SK is an oligarchy. Essentially everything is run by a handful of families (those who run the chaebol), everybody knows about it, and it's been the status quo for years. Not that that's necessarily bad, though it isn't ideal. SK has risen from destruction to dictatorship to mostly-rich-and-democratic. I disagree that weapon laws really matter, they matter maybe a little. Most of the variance in murder rates is more productively explained by things like homogeneity, rich-poor divide, cultures of violence, etc.
smnrchrds 5y ago
> What about Greenland? It's not a country and it has a very low population (less than 60k). Small regions make bad statistical samples.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  OK, how about Argentina?
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    What about Canada, Australia, and New Zealand?
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Because I can't help but get the sense that using those countries, culturally very distinct from the US, is cherry picking st best. If the "legal firearms lead to more violence and crime, and if we restrict comparison to new world highly developed countries this still holds" argument is to stand, then the comparison has to apply to every country with firearm restrictions, not just a couple. If it doesn't apply across the board then that is an indicator that culture plays an outsized role and legal status of firearms does not. So I answered your question, now your turn, what about Argentina?
      - smnrchrds 5y ago
        Because Canada is the closest country on earth to the US culturally and Australia and New Zealand are not far behind. Also, poverty tends to increase crime and CA/AU/NZ are closer to US economically as well, while Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa are far behind. If you want to pick one country to compare it to the US, it only makes sense to pick Canada. Argentina is very far down the list. The main difference between Canada and US (and to a great extent Australia and New Zealand) are not cultural or economical. The main differences are in access to firearms. I fully expect Canada's murder rate to rise to US levels if US gun laws were adopted here.

rufus_foreman 5y ago

Mexico is a big country. There are places in Mexico where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the US where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the Baltimore metro area where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world. But different places have different statistical properties. Look, my grandpa took me shooting when I was young. I remember doing target practice under a bridge when I was like 7, using a freakin' magnum revolver of all things. It was next to a very small river, and someone further downstream was trying to fish. I asked gramps "Do you think he heard us?" and he laughed "I don't think anybody didn't hear us." That's the kind of culture I come from. I suspect in this thread there are at least three factions: the pro-guns, the anti-guns, and the undecideds. As someone who was raised from an early age to be pro-gun, I do see the merits. But it's important that we acknowledge the downsides. If, statistically, America is so screwed up that you need to compare to Brazil and Mexico before the numbers start looking sort of reasonable, there may be a correlation with gun ownership the way that smoking may be correlated with cancer.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  >> That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world Well I think Mexico is a sufficiently-large section of the world that statements like "anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone" should be called out, don't you agree?
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  I would say poverty has more to do with the murder rate than anything else. If you want to go and rob houses or join a gang, you'll get a gun, legally or illegally. This happens everywhere, not only where guns are legal. If you can't get a gun, you'll get a big knife or a baseball bat. The USA is rich in GDP per capita but has patches with poor people with little to lose. In many EU countries there is far less people with little to lose, even among the poor ones. Crime in EU is, similarly, disproportionally caused by those who have little to lose, eg. illegal immigrants.

philwelch 5y ago

Brazilian gunfights between criminals and off-duty cops are a pretty big trope when it comes to videos of self-defense incidents. Of course, off-duty cops are basically the only Brazilians allowed to conceal carry. Numbers wise, we are doing much better than Mexico and Brazil, by about the same factor that France is doing better than we are and Japan is doing better than France. US homicide rates are a lot closer to Greenland or Argentina, and significantly less than a lot of nice LatAm countries that are popular with Western expats such as Costa Rica or Panama or Uruguay. The legality and availability of firearms cannot fully explain these differences, and it’s incomplete to simply compare the US to the EU.

stefan_ 5y ago

It's doubly ironic because of course a large swath of the guns in what is bordering on civil war in Mexico are supplied by the US, made possible through the (lack of) gun ownership regulation.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> made possible through the (lack of) gun ownership regulation. The US has plenty of gun ownership regulation. Criminals choose not to follow that though.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  Lackadaisical enforcement in the US
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
    Violent gun crimes are felonies with the exception of the victimless I tried to carry my handgun through the airport type of crimes. Do you have evidence otherwise?
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      I meant more than just criminal prosecution. For example, federal gun control checks are prohibited from being automated and there’s a fixed time limit the FBI needs to respond within or the gun can be sold. Effectively this neuters federal background checks. Similarly, there’s ways of skirting even that trivial thing through private sale and firearm shows. The entire system is a farce and I’m surprised there’s anyone who thinks it’s not. I would have though pro gun advocates would at least know enough to acknowledge the Swiss cheese nature of the systems in place around gun ownership in America.
      - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        > federal gun control checks are prohibited from being automated There is an automated system behind it. > Effectively this neuters federal background checks That is incorrect. https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-guide/ https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-g... As the article mentions, there are people that slip through the cracks, but the foremost problem around keeping weapons out of the wrong hands has little to do with the FBI.

tonyarkles 5y ago

> but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone Canadian here... isn't that true in most of the highly-populated areas in the US as well? And, to be honest, some parts of Canada as well; I definitely know a neighbourhood not to far from where I live where I'm highly unlikely to walk in the dark.

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
It's going to be true almost everywhere (not Japan? Switzerland?) The real question is to what extent is it true? I think stumbling into such a place at night in the U.S. would be quite hard, Canada even harder. In Mexico, my feeling is you really ought to plan. You can't just drive from Point A to Point B across the country at night, whereas in the rest of North America you sure can.

ixacto 5y ago

All that gun control in Mexico is working just great with its low murder rate…oh wait.

throwaway09223 5y ago

" if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison" Almost half of all US homicides are drug/gang related, so obviously there will be links to south american countries where these enterprises also operate. If you want to avoid high crime, move north. Northern states have a homicide rate roughly half the national average.

asquabventured 5y ago
You ever heard of Chicago? Up to the minute crime statistics in this northern state city with some of the most restrictive gun control can easily be found. [1.] [1.] https://heyjackass.com https://heyjackass.com
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway09223 5y ago
  Yes, and Mexico has even more restrictive gun control with many times more murders than the USA. It's pretty clear that gun control is not the most significant factor.