6 ms·

Because it isn't about CSAM, IMO. You see this with plenty of social issues, notably firearms ownership. The claim is we will restrict/license/outlaw xyz for th

• mschuster91 3mo ago
  > The claim is we will restrict/license/outlaw xyz for the kids, but really, a data-drive approach would have focused on different things entirely (eg additional behavioral health services for kids, suicide prevention etc) Well, most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians instead, so that's some data as well. The only reason why the US is so extremely lax on firearms is because people keep blathering on about how guns are the last line of defense against a tyrannical government - and yet, what do the most rabid of these people do? Vote in and defend a literal tyrant.
  • jaharios 3mo ago
    > Vote in a literal tyrant. Tyrant? You may disagree with him, but he got in through the system. Now if he doesn't get out that is another story.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    • mallets 3mo ago
      Being a tyrant has little to do with term limits or office duration.
      • Ntrails 3mo ago
        A couple of dictionary checks suggest some set of: - Ruler who is unrestrained by law or constitution - A usurper of sovereignty - Ruler who uses power oppressively or unjustly Obviously b) is not applicable as per GP. He has also been constrained by the supreme court and others multiple times in this term, which suggests a) is a stretch. c) probably a fair accusation, though I'm not sure I would agree.
    • one33seven 3mo ago
      Hitler was elected too (not saying he is Hitler)
      • Gareth321 3mo ago
        Hitler was not elected Chancellor by the German public. Germany had/has a mixed-member proportional system, meaning that coalitions may form after everyone votes President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 after negotiations among conservative politicians who believed they could control him. The Nazi Party was the largest party, but it won only 33.1% of the vote in the final free Reichstag election of November 1932 and never secured a popular majority. Once appointed, Hitler exploited emergency powers and political intimidation to dismantle democratic institutions and convert his government into a dictatorship. During his political ascent he used his Brownshirts - a large, organised paramilitary force - to assault political opponents, break up rival meetings, intimidate voters, and fight street battles, helping destabilise the Weimar Republic and suppress opposition.
        • greedo 3mo ago
          Your comment implies that Hitler seized power despite a lack of popularity. The historical record shows that Hitler was wildly popular in Germany, even up to the end of WW2.
          • Gareth321 3mo ago
            I very clearly provided the exact percentage popularity he had at the height of his democratic rise. Whether you'd like to accurately call that less than a third, or "wildly popular" is I suppose subjective.
            • greedo 3mo ago
              You provided the percentage of voters. This is not an accurate proxy for support.
          • marysol5 3mo ago
  • derektank 3mo ago
    >The only reason why the US is so extremely lax on firearms is because people keep blathering on about how guns are the last line of defense against a tyrannical government No, it’s because the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution and the constitution requires an extreme super majority to update. A 50%+1 majority is all that’s required to ban civilian ownership of guns in most parliamentary systems, not so in the US. The culture is downstream of the law.
    • phoghed 3mo ago
      Or just a reinterpretation of a single line of the constitution.
      • plagiarist 3mo ago
        Oh, SCOTUS doesn't radically reinterpret the Constitution in that direction. Or, perhaps maybe it does, but nobody's bought Clarence the right RV yet.
    • xethos 3mo ago
      > the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution The right to bear arms does not necessarily mean firearms. Arms doesn't necessarily even have to include firearms, and America is already pretty damn strict about certain armaments, such as sub-machine guns. Americans are allowed to have certain firearms, sometimes, in some places. I'm not sure how one squares that with the blanket statement from the American constitution that Americans have the right to bear arms, unless it's simply an impossibly poorly-informed citizenry
      • kelnos 3mo ago
        You can personally interpret the US constitution however you want, I suppose, but the only interpretation that matters is that of the Supreme Court. And they have held over and over that 2A includes a right to many different kinds of firearms. I feel like you're the one who is poorly informed? (For the record, I am in favor of strong gun control laws, but your statement just ignores reality.)
  • wang_li 3mo ago
    No part of Europe has “simply banned guns”. Some countries have stricter policies but it’s possibly to own a gun in every country. Some countries are famous for gun ownership, eg switzerland that expects men to keep their militarily issued gun in the home.
    • kelnos 3mo ago
      I'd be a lot more comfortable with gun ownership in the US if we could require every owner to have military-level firearms training and certification.
      • eecc 3mo ago
        Well, that was the whole point of the 2A: effective preparedness. But gun manufacturers ragebaited this exceptionally effective marketing campaign around their products and here’s where you folks stand
      • marysol5 3mo ago
        That would require you to actually follow the constitution, instead you've got "Nuh-uh! I don't read the rest of the 2A"
  • psd1 3mo ago
    > Well, most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians instead, so that's some data as well No, that's some bullshit. How do you think we eat pheasant and rabbit and venison? Show me a pheasant farm and I'll show you forty acres of unfenced woodland littered with empty cartridges. Observe! https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-owner...
    • consp 3mo ago
      My guess is the person is drawing from one country and applying it to all. The rules are varied all over the EU. e.g. You can buy pheasant, rabbit and venison at the butcher shop where I live. No hunting required, which you can do but requires a special permit, next to the weapons permit for the shotgun and is very limited in scope.
      • psd1 3mo ago
        I'll wager that rabbit and that pheasant that you see skinned and cleaned in the shop were shot by a man in a field. I'm open to counterexamples, so let me know what your butcher tells you. I like your attitude of charity - we should not rush into judgement. But mschuster91's comment said: > most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians This is bullshit. GP must be aware that they are profoundly ignorant on the topic, so why are they holding an opinion, let alone posting it? Should we tolerate bullshit on HN?
  • marysol5 3mo ago
    >Well, most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians instead Nope
• kryogen1c 3mo ago
  epsteins case tells you how much the US political class cares about SA and CSA happening in the US.
  • ryandrake 3mo ago
    Yea, until at least one non-ringleader Epstein party participant goes to jail, I'm not going to believe the US actually gives a shit about protecting children.
    • throwaway85825 3mo ago
      Every president since Clinton protected epstein too, it's not a partisan thing.
      • myko 3mo ago
        always with the "both sides" stuff, meanwhile trump literally provided girls to Epstein through Mar-A-Lago
        • marysol5 3mo ago
          I always love his defenders who will cite "But he banned him from MAL" Yes, as in the documents, he kicked him out for "stealing his girls". Fucking hell
    • derektank 3mo ago
      There’s no concrete evidence that anyone besides Epstein (and by extension Maxwell, who assisted Epstein) actually abused children. Besides the testimony of Virginia Giuffre, nobody else has claimed they were sexually assaulted as minors (Sjoberg was groped by Prince Andrew at Epstein’s home when she was in her early 20s). And neither the FBI nor the Palm Beach PD found physical evidence of such or communications between Epstein or others indicating this was going on. Why would you expect anyone else to go to jail under those circumstances? Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt seems very unlikely
• nativeit 3mo ago
  When did we aggressively legislate against, search for, monitor, investigate, and prosecute owning firearms?
  • throwaway17824 3mo ago
    I'm taking a guess at what the OP meant, but people focus on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Supposedly most incidents and deaths are caused by handguns. They're more affordable, and easy to discretely keep on your person. A data-driven policy would focus on them first, but it's easier to rile up the public about AR-15s so we keep doing the less-effective thing.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    • forshaper 3mo ago
      One might wonder about why ceramic plates are controlled in Connecticut or New York.
      • philipkglass 3mo ago
        It looks like Connecticut first enacted body armor regulations in 1998, the year after the North Hollywood police shootout with a pair of heavily armed and armored men: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#Weapons_and_armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#Weapo... It's hard to find 1998 news articles about it now, but I would guess that the law was a reaction to this high profile crime.
        • forshaper 3mo ago
          Why did Connecticut do it, as opposed to other states? I guess CA would've made sense for that example. I understand such events would be used to argue in favor of the policy, but it seems like if it was just the event, other states would've done the same. And other countries do it as well, without as salient an event.
• holgerschurig 3mo ago
  The thing is that a society does not always do only ONE thing. You mentioned that there are better ways to protect kids. But maybe they cost more (e.g. banning firearms is dead cheap, while setting up a structure with lots of psychologists specialized in teenager problems is really expensive). Also you can do one and the other ... at the same time. E.g. suicides of kids/teenagers (<= 19) in Germany in 2025: 216. That is, compared to the population in this age group, 1.38 per 100'000. In the USA that ratio is 9.4 in the age-group 15-19 and 2.3 in the age group 10-14. And keep in mind, the total deaths by firearms in Germany in 2024 was "just" 168 (we have 1/4th of the US population, in the US police forces alone killed more people ... the total number of 44'000 firearms deaths in USA/2024 is even more staggering). Even if I multiply the 168 by 4 for the population difference ... then 672 vs. 44'000 is still a point of shame for the USA. So in Germany, we do BOTH better regarding firearms AND regarding health services on kids. And if the USA truly would try MAGA they'd actually copy good results from other countries. So a real-MAGA-person must be against liberal firearms distribution AND for better social health work with teenagers. BTW, the USA ideology of "the population needs arms to fight a corrupt state" is laughable. When you had your armed religious sects clash with the state, then the state always won. They still have more and better weapons and armor. On the other side, if you look how east-europe shed off their socialist regimes 40 years ago, than nowhere was an armed general population involved. So one can conclude that private firearms may as well be highly regulated and diminshed.
  • giantg2 3mo ago
    Banning firearms isn't "dead cheap" if you have 400 million in existence. The enforcement would cost a lot, even if you didn't perform a mandatory buyback program. Germany doesn't have an outright ban on guns, but strict regulation. Running the regulation costs money. A note about copying - you have to look at the culture to see if how things will work. Germany has vastly different socioeconomics than the US, and socioeconomics are major factors in crime and homicide. Not to mention the percentage of people who own guns and are pro-gun are vastly different. Applying the same regulations in the US will take decades for criminals to no longer have many guns and then they will switch to knives and screwdrivers as we see in the UK, which has about dowluble the violent crime rate as the US after accounting for differences in the stats (somewhat culturally/socioeconomically similar). So it might make the gun numbers better, but it won't solve the real drivers. The best approach would be to address the underlying factors and causes of all violence while still allowing freedoms for the 44% who do not support stricter regulation.
• lazide 3mo ago
  The literal president of the United States is heavily implicated in a giant CSA (and trafficking) scandal.