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WSJ really makes you dig pretty far into the article to get to this nugget: > The U.S. is the only place among peer nations where firearms are the No. 1 cause

WSJ really makes you dig pretty far into the article to get to this nugget: > The U.S. is the only place among peer nations where firearms are the No. 1 cause of death in young people. For a country that's notorious for going above and beyond to protect children from immorality, it's almost shocking how it'll do basically nothing to protect them from actual death.

MattGaiser 3y ago
Death, hunger, illness, rotting teeth, etc. The problem (according to half the country) must be the LGBTQ and the teachers indoctrinating them.
- danlugo92 3y ago
  @dang
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    GP is clearly being sarcastic and mocking a current streak in US politics to further politicize and ostracize LGBTQ people instead of addressing issues of violence and drug use against and among children and young people. If the comment really offends your sensibilities though: 1. Earn enough karma (501) to downvote. 2. Earn enough karma (what's the target?) to flag. 3. Email hn@ycombinator.com; @dang doesn't summon him.
    - danlugo92 3y ago
      Accusing half of a country of being anti-LGBTQ stupid ignorants of big issues is super reductive and you shouldn't be defending this.
- achillesheels 3y ago
  I represent half that country. Are you familiar with sexual dimorphism, comrade?
akomtu 3y ago
I bet most of those deaths are gangs fighting gangs, that's why nobody cares. If tonorrow US includes Somalia as an overseas territory (like Guam), our stats would show a spike of AK-47 related deaths, even though nothing would have changed on the mainland.
dewfaced 3y ago
If you compare firearm & vehicle deaths Firearms Deaths per 100,000 population: 14.7 Motor vehicle traffic: Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.7. You only have a 1 person improvement in outcome with another severely regulated segment. I doubt putting in a licensing regime would significantly improve anything.
- acdha 3y ago
  Both of those are significant outliers over our peer countries, however, which tells us that this problem could be easily solved if we wanted to. Licensing would help if done properly, as would restrictions on type, storage, etc. – Switzerland has tons of guns but they also have those kind of restrictions and a much lower rate of death or injury. All we need to do is roll back some judicial activism earlier this century and agree that the preamble to the second amendment still has the meaning the founders intended. Similarly, America has reversed the declining vehicle death trend by subsidizing massive trucks which are designed to maximize the harm they inflict. Some of them would not be legal in other countries due to poor visibility or safety, and others are dangerous due to our culture of not enforcing traffic laws and designing unsafe roads. All of these are choices and we could simply copy what our peers do to save thousands of lives per year. We have chose not to, but we could make better choices.
- dllthomas 3y ago
  I'm not taking the other side, but that's a really bad argument. You're missing a reason for us to think that traffic deaths put any kind of floor on firearm deaths. Given the very different usage patterns, I would expect the two numbers to be basically unrelated. If we try to get at the impact of licensing and regulation by looking only at cars (and we can get very different answers if we look at other things) we see that comparing US historically to US today or US today to some other countries today, safety improvements are probably saving more like 20 people per 100k - bigger than the entire problem that remains with either cars or guns (and "bigger than both combined" is well within the error bars). And finally, if we can reliably save 1 person per 100k, that's a significant improvement for the 3k people we've saved and the people who love them! Whether it is worth what we have to trade away, and whether we can actually get a reliable improvement, is a separate question (whose answer likely depends on the particular policy proposal under discussion).
yieldcrv 3y ago
I don't really see how this is hard to understand: The US Federal government exerts control over things it has control over. Since it has limited control domestically (more so, consequences for exerting control domestically) it exerts control outside of the country. So foreign policy can contradict domestic policy easily. The entity has unparalleled resources but cant unilaterally do much for long domestically. Its tried to do a lot about gun availability periodically in the states, this was always struck down which is why we have more of a free for all now.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  > The US Federal government exerts control over things it has control over. The US Federal Government isn't even close to exerting control over the things it has control over. The federal government could enact firearm policies matching the most restrictive state policies. Closed private sale loopholes, concealed carry permits on a 'may issue' basis (and issued only by an understaffed ATF office upon proof of extensive training). Strict assault weapons ban. Huge hoops to jump though to obtain handguns. Beyond all this, the Constitution is open to amendment and in that area all bets are off.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    It derives power from the collection of states and their delegates It could do those things but like I said, not for long given the current consensus
    - mullingitover 3y ago
      Correct, which takes us back to my initial observation that the current consensus is to protect children at all costs from immorality, and not lift a finger to protect them from firearms.
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        paradoxical way to agree but we do agree

MattGaiser 3y ago

Death, hunger, illness, rotting teeth, etc. The problem (according to half the country) must be the LGBTQ and the teachers indoctrinating them.

danlugo92 3y ago
@dang
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  GP is clearly being sarcastic and mocking a current streak in US politics to further politicize and ostracize LGBTQ people instead of addressing issues of violence and drug use against and among children and young people. If the comment really offends your sensibilities though: 1. Earn enough karma (501) to downvote. 2. Earn enough karma (what's the target?) to flag. 3. Email hn@ycombinator.com; @dang doesn't summon him.
  - danlugo92 3y ago
    Accusing half of a country of being anti-LGBTQ stupid ignorants of big issues is super reductive and you shouldn't be defending this.
achillesheels 3y ago
I represent half that country. Are you familiar with sexual dimorphism, comrade?

akomtu 3y ago

I bet most of those deaths are gangs fighting gangs, that's why nobody cares. If tonorrow US includes Somalia as an overseas territory (like Guam), our stats would show a spike of AK-47 related deaths, even though nothing would have changed on the mainland.

dewfaced 3y ago

If you compare firearm & vehicle deaths Firearms Deaths per 100,000 population: 14.7 Motor vehicle traffic: Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.7. You only have a 1 person improvement in outcome with another severely regulated segment. I doubt putting in a licensing regime would significantly improve anything.

acdha 3y ago
Both of those are significant outliers over our peer countries, however, which tells us that this problem could be easily solved if we wanted to. Licensing would help if done properly, as would restrictions on type, storage, etc. – Switzerland has tons of guns but they also have those kind of restrictions and a much lower rate of death or injury. All we need to do is roll back some judicial activism earlier this century and agree that the preamble to the second amendment still has the meaning the founders intended. Similarly, America has reversed the declining vehicle death trend by subsidizing massive trucks which are designed to maximize the harm they inflict. Some of them would not be legal in other countries due to poor visibility or safety, and others are dangerous due to our culture of not enforcing traffic laws and designing unsafe roads. All of these are choices and we could simply copy what our peers do to save thousands of lives per year. We have chose not to, but we could make better choices.
dllthomas 3y ago
I'm not taking the other side, but that's a really bad argument. You're missing a reason for us to think that traffic deaths put any kind of floor on firearm deaths. Given the very different usage patterns, I would expect the two numbers to be basically unrelated. If we try to get at the impact of licensing and regulation by looking only at cars (and we can get very different answers if we look at other things) we see that comparing US historically to US today or US today to some other countries today, safety improvements are probably saving more like 20 people per 100k - bigger than the entire problem that remains with either cars or guns (and "bigger than both combined" is well within the error bars). And finally, if we can reliably save 1 person per 100k, that's a significant improvement for the 3k people we've saved and the people who love them! Whether it is worth what we have to trade away, and whether we can actually get a reliable improvement, is a separate question (whose answer likely depends on the particular policy proposal under discussion).

yieldcrv 3y ago

I don't really see how this is hard to understand: The US Federal government exerts control over things it has control over. Since it has limited control domestically (more so, consequences for exerting control domestically) it exerts control outside of the country. So foreign policy can contradict domestic policy easily. The entity has unparalleled resources but cant unilaterally do much for long domestically. Its tried to do a lot about gun availability periodically in the states, this was always struck down which is why we have more of a free for all now.

mullingitover 3y ago
> The US Federal government exerts control over things it has control over. The US Federal Government isn't even close to exerting control over the things it has control over. The federal government could enact firearm policies matching the most restrictive state policies. Closed private sale loopholes, concealed carry permits on a 'may issue' basis (and issued only by an understaffed ATF office upon proof of extensive training). Strict assault weapons ban. Huge hoops to jump though to obtain handguns. Beyond all this, the Constitution is open to amendment and in that area all bets are off.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  It derives power from the collection of states and their delegates It could do those things but like I said, not for long given the current consensus
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    Correct, which takes us back to my initial observation that the current consensus is to protect children at all costs from immorality, and not lift a finger to protect them from firearms.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      paradoxical way to agree but we do agree