4 ms·

Well, maybe people should not own guns. At all. Any gun, let alone "a collection".

by bambax 2y ago

lazide 2y ago
Why allow anyone to own anything? In this case, while it may (temporarily) remove (if the party is willing to follow the law!) one method of domestic violence, it’s not like it’s hard to come up with alternatives. In many parts of the world, the preferred method of domestic violence is throwing acid on someone’s face. The concern here is abuse of due process, and that it’s so trivial to take away someones rights and property using falsehoods and BS bureacracy, while also not actually solving any of the underlying problems. Since, for instance, if that emergency order was for someone who actually was a problem, they still have a full day to go after whoever while still legally owning everything, and if they go on the run, it’s not like they care about another felony!
- bambax 2y ago
  I'm not defending the police, or forfeiture laws; I'm just surprised one would use guns as an example, because it's still so surprising to me, as a European, that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. Guns are dangerous -- in fact they don't have any other purpose beyond inflicting harm (unlike other dangerous things such as cars or drugs, etc.) I'm aware of the 2nd amendment, but firearms don't look like a good rhetorical argument in a discussion about property.
  - lazide 2y ago
    In the US it is, clearly. And statistically, very very very few guns kill people. The US has well over 300 million, and it is far from the top cause of death or serious injury. If anything, a collection of them is even less likely to be dangerous, no? Since if someone is collecting something, they tend to be familiar with it and are putting effort into keeping it safe and in good condition. Even Germany allows gun collections, albeit with a mind blowing amount of paperwork. And they are worth money. And prone to people trying to grab/forfeit/confiscate.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > as a European "European": I'm getting a bit tired of this trope on HN. What does that even mean? There are fifty countries in Europe and twenty-seven in the EU. There is huge cultural variation over that continent that is, give-or-take, the size of the continental United States. > that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. This is weird. There are many countries in Europe with hunting (or sport shooting) laws where it is legal to own a firearm and keep at your home. For many countries, it needs to be locked up.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    As a casual gun owner, my main requirement for entertaining any sort of gun prohibition is simple - disarm the police first. The police operate within domestic society, where the power of the government is supposed to flow from the rights of the citizenry. Police are also involved in the sheer majority of violent confrontations across society, and thus preemptive de-escalation would be quite significant at changing the overall societal dynamic. And disarming the police wouldn't even involve any kind of constitutional amendment, since we're essentially talking about employment regulations. It would also address the worry that police will find some way to except themselves from any new regulations prohibiting firearms, as they have traditionally done with existing regulations on guns and many other judicially-banned armaments. So if you're advocating for gun prohibition, put your best foot forward and get to work on the police.
    - bambax 2y ago
      I would agree we should disarm the police. For some reason most people get upset when you say this, not just in the US but everywhere I've tried. In France at the last presidential election there was only one candidate (out of 12) who defended the idea, and he scored 0.77% of the vote, so there's a long way to go...
      - lazide 2y ago
        It’s the mindset difference between DIY and outsourcing, essentially. Denser populations are used to their biggest problem (and biggest help) being other people. So they tend to outsource more. Less dense populations are used to their biggest problem being something they need to do themselves, because there aren’t a lot of people all up in their business/available when they have a problem. So they’re more comfortable doing DIY. The issue in this case of course that outsourcing personal safety puts a lot of power in other people’s hands. Typically, this results in people in dense areas being more manipulative and avoidant to compensate. You can have a good life by getting other people (readily available) to do things for you. Having certain people be mad at you can result in really bad outcomes if you can’t manage the people around you. Folks in less dense areas being typically more direct, because they can/need to be. You can have a good life by doing things yourself, and you don’t need to worry if someone is going to be (moderately) unhappy with you. And even if they’re really mad at you, you can do something about it directly without needing someone’s help. For exteme examples in either direction; - less dense, say Siberia, Alaska, Sudan - ‘everyone’ is armed, ‘everyone’ knows how to jump their car and fix basic plumbing issues, how to do basic first aid, etc. (at least 50% of the population, anyway). - more dense, say Mumbai, Tokyo, New York City - only the cops/military and extreme outliers in the population are armed (< 5%) and ‘no one’ (well under 10% of the population) knows how to jump their car, fix plumbing issues, basic first aid, etc. This has always resulted in tension. Ghenghis Khan was on record for really hating ‘decadent city dwellers’ for instance, and made a habit of destroying any particularly decadent cities he ran across (and either slaughtering their populations or driving them out of the city) apparently out of spite. Large cities have always expended significant effort in controlling who is armed and when (including Rome, London, Paris, etc). This is directly applicable to US politics, and shows up quite clearly in the gun control debate too, where gun control laws have a clear and nearly (but not completely) 100% correlation with population density. It’s also something you can see as a clear trend in Europe, with West and South-West European countries being strictly controlled, and less dense Northern, Eastern, and Central European countries being looser. South and Eastern Asia, being exceptionally population dense, has almost complete prohibition of firearms for civilians. Even air guns are strictly controlled in most countries.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Your legal system that considers you a serf is not to be emulated.
    - jknoepfler 2y ago
      serfdom disappeared from western europe in the 1400's... several hundred years before slavery in the united states. what are you talking about?
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        The American constitution is based on the enlightenment idea that people have "natural rights" granted by God whereas Europe still operates on the feudal idea that rights and privileges are granted by the powers that be and can be revoked.
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    >because it's still so surprising to me, as a European, that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. Then you must be one very insulated or ignorant European. Many people in many European countries own guns and keep them in their homes. Some states, such as the Czech Republic, even have remarkably flexible gun ownership laws and others have widespread private gun ownership to a degree that's not too different from that of the U.S. In Norway and Finland for example, private possession of firearms amounts to something like a quarter of the population measured per 100 people. I'm also a European, and i'm not sure how being one means a damn thing about categorically judging a complex thing like gun ownership in any other culture or place. This applies particularly since many other Europeans in dozens of different states with their own contexts have entirely different motives for doing something practical one way or another. It's downright absurd to claim that "as a European" you can make any kind of value statement about the tendencies in such a diverse range of countries and contexts. Never mind being able to judge the personal protection motives of people in other continents. Owning guns has many good reasons behind it in any case. These include the obvious like general self protection, home protection, hunting and collecting, but also less obvious reasons that are specific to very particular places. I currently live in a country where gun ownership is severely restricted, legally at least, but in which violent crime and firearm homicide rates are rampantly high. Many people here have very good reasons to keep guns, under the real world circumstances of criminal groups and gangs having them, the police being uselessly corrupt, and the practical reality of all of that being something that one can't simply wish away by magic, even if they're wishing "as a European". It's ever more tedious to see random comments with "As a European" appear on this site, followed by some smug, morally superior little value judgement of others from the perspective of one very narrow, insular mindset.
    - defrost 2y ago
      > In Norway and Finland for example, private possession of firearms amounts to something like a quarter of the population measured per 100 people. Weird sentence. What would that be per 1000 people .. still a quarter? To clarify, Norway has ~ 28 firearms per 100 people but only 1 in 10 people own at least one firearm. So, like say Australia (where I'm from) it's a relatively low ownership rate but firearm owners tend to have multiple firearms.
throwaway2037 2y ago
What about Finland or Switzerland? Both have very high personal gun ownership rates, but incredibly low gun violence. How do you explain that?
- lrasinen 2y ago
  Speaking only for Finland: most of the guns are for hunting: rifles, shotguns and the like. A statistic from 2016 has 1.5 million guns, 220 000 of which are handguns. Second, the legislation is very strict. You need to have a reason for owning a gun; hunting and shooting sports are valid, personal protection isn't. You need to belong to a relevant association (such as hunting clubs or shooting clubs). You need proper locked storage in your apartment. Carrying a gun in public without a reason (such as going to a shooting range) is forbidden, and even then should be minimized. Should you violate any of these conditions, you're liable to lose your gun license and all guns will be seized. Also the police may revoke the license on suspicion of violent behaviour. So, if you want to get a gun, you have to live squeaky-clean. Illegal guns are of course another matter.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Those things you list as "very strict" are incredibly easy. And they do not make any difference to the US regarding domestic violence.
    - lrasinen 2y ago
      True; the intent isn't to make owning guns impossible, but it takes some dedication to get into guns, and once you get one, next ones are easier to obtain. The end result is a small minority having multiple guns per person, the majority not having any, so citing Finland as a country with high gun ownership is misleading.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        I am not replying to dispute your comment. I didn't consider your idea about concentration of ownership. It is a good point! About gun ownership in Finland, Wiki tells me: > There are approximately 1.5 million registered small firearms in the country. Out of those, 226,000 are short firearms (pistols, revolvers) with the rest being long firearms (rifles, shotguns). There are approximately 650,000 people with at least one permit, which means 12% of Finns own a firearm. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland
namlem 2y ago
People who cannot own weapons are not truly free.
- bambax 2y ago
  People who cannot consume drugs or walk topless in the street aren't free either.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Yup, and the hard part for many folks in the US right now is that in many areas of the US, their other freedoms (and wealth) are being taken away, using the ‘bait’ of gun rights to distract them from it. And in other areas, the same thing, but using the bait of reproductive rights. While those nominally ‘protecting’ those rights actually sabotage them in often subtle ways, while blaming the opposition. Perhaps such as it ever was? It’s hard to not yell ‘wake up sheeple!’ at the end of that.
  - namlem 2y ago
    I agree. But there are parts of the US where you are allowed to do those things fwiw.

Well, maybe people should not own guns. At all. Any gun, let alone "a collection".

by bambax 2y ago

Well, maybe people should not own guns. At all. Any gun, let alone "a collection".

Why allow anyone to own anything? In this case, while it may (temporarily) remove (if the party is willing to follow the law!) one method of domestic violence, it’s not like it’s hard to come up with alternatives. In many parts of the world, the preferred method of domestic violence is throwing acid on someone’s face. The concern here is abuse of due process, and that it’s so trivial to take away someones rights and property using falsehoods and BS bureacracy, while also not actually solving any of the underlying problems. Since, for instance, if that emergency order was for someone who actually was a problem, they still have a full day to go after whoever while still legally owning everything, and if they go on the run, it’s not like they care about another felony!

bambax 2y ago
I'm not defending the police, or forfeiture laws; I'm just surprised one would use guns as an example, because it's still so surprising to me, as a European, that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. Guns are dangerous -- in fact they don't have any other purpose beyond inflicting harm (unlike other dangerous things such as cars or drugs, etc.) I'm aware of the 2nd amendment, but firearms don't look like a good rhetorical argument in a discussion about property.
- lazide 2y ago
  In the US it is, clearly. And statistically, very very very few guns kill people. The US has well over 300 million, and it is far from the top cause of death or serious injury. If anything, a collection of them is even less likely to be dangerous, no? Since if someone is collecting something, they tend to be familiar with it and are putting effort into keeping it safe and in good condition. Even Germany allows gun collections, albeit with a mind blowing amount of paperwork. And they are worth money. And prone to people trying to grab/forfeit/confiscate.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > as a European "European": I'm getting a bit tired of this trope on HN. What does that even mean? There are fifty countries in Europe and twenty-seven in the EU. There is huge cultural variation over that continent that is, give-or-take, the size of the continental United States. > that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. This is weird. There are many countries in Europe with hunting (or sport shooting) laws where it is legal to own a firearm and keep at your home. For many countries, it needs to be locked up.
- mindslight 2y ago
  As a casual gun owner, my main requirement for entertaining any sort of gun prohibition is simple - disarm the police first. The police operate within domestic society, where the power of the government is supposed to flow from the rights of the citizenry. Police are also involved in the sheer majority of violent confrontations across society, and thus preemptive de-escalation would be quite significant at changing the overall societal dynamic. And disarming the police wouldn't even involve any kind of constitutional amendment, since we're essentially talking about employment regulations. It would also address the worry that police will find some way to except themselves from any new regulations prohibiting firearms, as they have traditionally done with existing regulations on guns and many other judicially-banned armaments. So if you're advocating for gun prohibition, put your best foot forward and get to work on the police.
  - bambax 2y ago
    I would agree we should disarm the police. For some reason most people get upset when you say this, not just in the US but everywhere I've tried. In France at the last presidential election there was only one candidate (out of 12) who defended the idea, and he scored 0.77% of the vote, so there's a long way to go...
    - lazide 2y ago
      It’s the mindset difference between DIY and outsourcing, essentially. Denser populations are used to their biggest problem (and biggest help) being other people. So they tend to outsource more. Less dense populations are used to their biggest problem being something they need to do themselves, because there aren’t a lot of people all up in their business/available when they have a problem. So they’re more comfortable doing DIY. The issue in this case of course that outsourcing personal safety puts a lot of power in other people’s hands. Typically, this results in people in dense areas being more manipulative and avoidant to compensate. You can have a good life by getting other people (readily available) to do things for you. Having certain people be mad at you can result in really bad outcomes if you can’t manage the people around you. Folks in less dense areas being typically more direct, because they can/need to be. You can have a good life by doing things yourself, and you don’t need to worry if someone is going to be (moderately) unhappy with you. And even if they’re really mad at you, you can do something about it directly without needing someone’s help. For exteme examples in either direction; - less dense, say Siberia, Alaska, Sudan - ‘everyone’ is armed, ‘everyone’ knows how to jump their car and fix basic plumbing issues, how to do basic first aid, etc. (at least 50% of the population, anyway). - more dense, say Mumbai, Tokyo, New York City - only the cops/military and extreme outliers in the population are armed (< 5%) and ‘no one’ (well under 10% of the population) knows how to jump their car, fix plumbing issues, basic first aid, etc. This has always resulted in tension. Ghenghis Khan was on record for really hating ‘decadent city dwellers’ for instance, and made a habit of destroying any particularly decadent cities he ran across (and either slaughtering their populations or driving them out of the city) apparently out of spite. Large cities have always expended significant effort in controlling who is armed and when (including Rome, London, Paris, etc). This is directly applicable to US politics, and shows up quite clearly in the gun control debate too, where gun control laws have a clear and nearly (but not completely) 100% correlation with population density. It’s also something you can see as a clear trend in Europe, with West and South-West European countries being strictly controlled, and less dense Northern, Eastern, and Central European countries being looser. South and Eastern Asia, being exceptionally population dense, has almost complete prohibition of firearms for civilians. Even air guns are strictly controlled in most countries.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Your legal system that considers you a serf is not to be emulated.
  - jknoepfler 2y ago
    serfdom disappeared from western europe in the 1400's... several hundred years before slavery in the united states. what are you talking about?
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      The American constitution is based on the enlightenment idea that people have "natural rights" granted by God whereas Europe still operates on the feudal idea that rights and privileges are granted by the powers that be and can be revoked.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  >because it's still so surprising to me, as a European, that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world. Then you must be one very insulated or ignorant European. Many people in many European countries own guns and keep them in their homes. Some states, such as the Czech Republic, even have remarkably flexible gun ownership laws and others have widespread private gun ownership to a degree that's not too different from that of the U.S. In Norway and Finland for example, private possession of firearms amounts to something like a quarter of the population measured per 100 people. I'm also a European, and i'm not sure how being one means a damn thing about categorically judging a complex thing like gun ownership in any other culture or place. This applies particularly since many other Europeans in dozens of different states with their own contexts have entirely different motives for doing something practical one way or another. It's downright absurd to claim that "as a European" you can make any kind of value statement about the tendencies in such a diverse range of countries and contexts. Never mind being able to judge the personal protection motives of people in other continents. Owning guns has many good reasons behind it in any case. These include the obvious like general self protection, home protection, hunting and collecting, but also less obvious reasons that are specific to very particular places. I currently live in a country where gun ownership is severely restricted, legally at least, but in which violent crime and firearm homicide rates are rampantly high. Many people here have very good reasons to keep guns, under the real world circumstances of criminal groups and gangs having them, the police being uselessly corrupt, and the practical reality of all of that being something that one can't simply wish away by magic, even if they're wishing "as a European". It's ever more tedious to see random comments with "As a European" appear on this site, followed by some smug, morally superior little value judgement of others from the perspective of one very narrow, insular mindset.
  - defrost 2y ago
    > In Norway and Finland for example, private possession of firearms amounts to something like a quarter of the population measured per 100 people. Weird sentence. What would that be per 1000 people .. still a quarter? To clarify, Norway has ~ 28 firearms per 100 people but only 1 in 10 people own at least one firearm. So, like say Australia (where I'm from) it's a relatively low ownership rate but firearm owners tend to have multiple firearms.

throwaway2037 2y ago

What about Finland or Switzerland? Both have very high personal gun ownership rates, but incredibly low gun violence. How do you explain that?

lrasinen 2y ago
Speaking only for Finland: most of the guns are for hunting: rifles, shotguns and the like. A statistic from 2016 has 1.5 million guns, 220 000 of which are handguns. Second, the legislation is very strict. You need to have a reason for owning a gun; hunting and shooting sports are valid, personal protection isn't. You need to belong to a relevant association (such as hunting clubs or shooting clubs). You need proper locked storage in your apartment. Carrying a gun in public without a reason (such as going to a shooting range) is forbidden, and even then should be minimized. Should you violate any of these conditions, you're liable to lose your gun license and all guns will be seized. Also the police may revoke the license on suspicion of violent behaviour. So, if you want to get a gun, you have to live squeaky-clean. Illegal guns are of course another matter.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Those things you list as "very strict" are incredibly easy. And they do not make any difference to the US regarding domestic violence.
  - lrasinen 2y ago
    True; the intent isn't to make owning guns impossible, but it takes some dedication to get into guns, and once you get one, next ones are easier to obtain. The end result is a small minority having multiple guns per person, the majority not having any, so citing Finland as a country with high gun ownership is misleading.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      I am not replying to dispute your comment. I didn't consider your idea about concentration of ownership. It is a good point! About gun ownership in Finland, Wiki tells me: > There are approximately 1.5 million registered small firearms in the country. Out of those, 226,000 are short firearms (pistols, revolvers) with the rest being long firearms (rifles, shotguns). There are approximately 650,000 people with at least one permit, which means 12% of Finns own a firearm. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland

namlem 2y ago

People who cannot own weapons are not truly free.

bambax 2y ago
People who cannot consume drugs or walk topless in the street aren't free either.
- lazide 2y ago
  Yup, and the hard part for many folks in the US right now is that in many areas of the US, their other freedoms (and wealth) are being taken away, using the ‘bait’ of gun rights to distract them from it. And in other areas, the same thing, but using the bait of reproductive rights. While those nominally ‘protecting’ those rights actually sabotage them in often subtle ways, while blaming the opposition. Perhaps such as it ever was? It’s hard to not yell ‘wake up sheeple!’ at the end of that.
- namlem 2y ago
  I agree. But there are parts of the US where you are allowed to do those things fwiw.