6 ms·

Ask HN: Open source app idea. Get rid of my gun app

11 points by harichinnan 14y ago

Hello There This is in response to the horrible story from Connecticut. I live in Massachusetts with a little child. I was concerned and thought of creating a website/app in AWS that would basically let people give away a gun for guaranteed destruction. Let's say it would be a webapp, developed on github and deployed to AWS with money raised from say Kickstarter. The web site would give away tweetable/facebook badges and would profile people who give away their guns in support/memory of victims. The features of the web could be developed through an open source community. We may be able to enlist help from sympathetic celebrities. Please respond with what you know about the below. 1. Will you be interested in a weekend hacking session on a Python or Java app. We could launch a Google Hangout and put a website/raise money over kickstarter. 2. How can somebody in US get rid of a gun legally. I'm talking "assault weapons". There should be a guarantee that this will be destructed and not resold anywhere(Except may be resold to US army or so for a charge that would go into say gun control legislation lobby).

redspark 14y ago
I respect what you are trying to do, but do you really think the ones who commit these types of crimes will be using your system? In all honestly, anyone who would voluntarily give up their firearm, probably aren't someone we need to worry too much about.
- thoughtcriminal 14y ago
  I think you're missing the point. It's about a society that doesn't want guns anymore. It has to start somewhere.
  - harichinnan 14y ago
    If successful, this would become a grass roots level gun control movement with lots of press coverage. However I couldn't find any documentation that has instructions on how to get rid of a gun if the owner changes his mind/fears misuse by family members.
lingbing 14y ago
next we can decide to ban cars, since well they cause more deaths than guns. right?
- harichinnan 14y ago
  I'm asking for regulation on assault weapons. Not a ban on guns. This will be more like asking people to wear seat belts and take a license test than banning cars.
  - phaus 14y ago
    I think I know what you mean to say, but the term 'assault weapon' has no meaning. A pillow can be classified as an 'assault weapon' if you try to smother someone with it. I am kind of torn on whether or not I agree that some weapons should be illegal to own, but I'll explain my views and why I hold them. The term 'assault weapon' is very similar to the actual class of weapons known as 'assault rifles.' I think that the media was attempting to create a term that would define weapons that seem militarized, yet aren't rifles. So what's an assault rifle? Traditionally, it has been a term used to classify weapons that fire a rifle round (like a 7.62 or a 5.56) instead of a pistol round (such as a 9mm or a .357.) The distinction is notable, because rifle rounds are generally far more powerful. Another traditionally distinguishing characteristic is that assault rifles are normally capable of fully automatic or burst fire (more than one round per trigger pull.) In recent years, assault rifles have begun to include certain semi-automatics, like the AR-15. The second category of weapon is the submachinegun. While they often look and act similar to an assault rifle, they fire pistol rounds and therefore cannot be considered assault rifles. To my knowledge, semi-automatics that fire pistol rounds are not considered to be submachineguns, even when they look identical to their fully automatic counterparts. Finally, we have handguns, which many people seem to hate. If you don't know what a hand gun is, then you probably aren't smart enough to have read this far, so that's all I have to say about those. So why is it important to understand the differences? Well if you want to selectively ban firearms, you'll have a better chance of getting people to listen when you are well educated on the subject. In the same way it pisses programmers off when politicians try to regulate the Internet without understanding the slightest thing about computers, it pisses gun owners off when uninformed people try to implement broad, sweeping, policies that result in the banning of guns based on exaggerated or outright fabricated claims of a particular model's capabilities. In the 90s, a weapon called the Tec-9 became popular in movies. On screen, the gun was always shown to be fully automatic, even though the real one was almost always semi-automatic. There were a few people who managed to modify them to fire on full-auto, but your average gang member probably struggled just to load it. While movies portrayed tec-9 as the ultimate weapon for badasses (because it actually looked pretty cool), the truth is that the gun's popularity was largely due to the fact that it was a total piece of shit, and therefore could be purchased for about 100-150 dollars, which was ridiculously cheap for a 9mm. Another oft maligned weapon is the AK-47. Unlike most of the world's AKs, the ones that are available in the U.S. are semi-automatic only. Unfortunately, fear sells, causing the media to imply that thousands of people are running around with machine guns. So why do people buy AK-47s if they are semi-automatic? Well, they are reliable, cheap (unless you get an actual Russian made ak, which can cost thousands) and the ammo is inexpensive. They also look just like a normal ak, and some people want a weapon that looks badass, even if it isn't. Like the AK, the AR-15 is often mistaken for its military counterpart, but the AR-15 is not an M16. The m16/m4 series of weapons can fire full auto or in three round bursts, depending on the model/revision. The AR-15 on the other hand, fires semi-auto only. While these weapons are often mistaken for automatics, there are some other criticisms that are often mentioned. When the original assault weapon ban was implemented, high capacity magazines and bayonet lugs were two of the defining attributes of an 'assault weapon.' First of all, bayonets are less effective than bullets, and the use of bayonets is so situational that many soldiers aren't issued bayonets anymore (many still do get them, but they are rarely used for combat purposes, and Even then, there is a good chance that it won't be attached to the weapon. Because of this, it's pretty stupid to ban a gun because you can attach a knife to it. If I had to guess, the only reason AR-15s had bayonet lugs was to keep from having to spend extra money manufacturing two different barrels. Now I'll talk about the only argument that has a bit more legitimacy, high capacity magazines. While it is true that they hold more rounds, super-high capacity magazines (50-200 rounds) like the one used in Aurora, have a slightly higher chance of causing the weapon to jam. That still leaves magazines from 11-30, which are far more common. I can sympathize with the argument that such a magazine contributes to the death count, but a skilled gunman (most aren't skilled) can reload a handgun in under 2 seconds, and a rifle in a similar amount of time. There are videos available on YouTube that show swat/special forces guys loading amazingly fast. It ust takes a little bit of practice. So basically, I'm not sure what the solution is. Clearly it's not optimal to ban guns outright when there's a hundred million peaceful gun owners in America, yet everyone wants to find a way to prevent mass shooting from happening ever again. Personally, for the reasons I listed, I don't think that the banning of semiautomatic firearms or high capacity magazines is going to be productive. I support the restriction of fully automatic weapons, but they are already illegal to own, unless you go through a process that can take years, that includes a background check.
propercoil 14y ago
ban also knifes then. Today in China someone killed 22 children with a knife.
- harichinnan 14y ago
  A man stabbed 22 children. Nobody died. They are in hospital. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/man-stabs-22-children-in-china/article6353552/?cmpid=rss1 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/man-stabs-22-child... I wish the man in Connecticut stabbed the kids instead of using an assault weapon to blast them away.
  - nhangen 14y ago
    A pistol is no more an assault weapon than a knife. There are far more dangerous types of guns than a 9mm pistol. I'm a gun owner, former Army, and gun rights advocate, but I'm not crazy, and I do recognize the need for change. I just want to discuss it with level head, outside of the gun/anti-gun lobby confines.
    - powatom 14y ago
      > A pistol is no more an assault weapon than a knife. You're just arguing semantics here - if you assault somebody with a pistol, then it's an assault weapon. Saying that there are more dangerous types of guns than a 9mm pistol is like saying that getting hit by a lorry is worse than getting hit by a car: it doesn't fucking matter, it's still going to kill you.
      - nhangen 14y ago
        My point is that if a pistol is an assault weapon, then so is a knife.
        powatom 14y ago
        Well, yes - but you don't use a pistol to cut your steak.
gavanwoolery 14y ago
Gun or not, the criminally-insane will always find ways to kill. You can make about 100 different types of bombs using household chemicals, all with far more lethal and discreet potential than a gun. Maybe we should start burning all cleaning agents. Take a hard look at history, namely Prohibition. What happens when you restrict access to a resource in demand? People find new, illegal, and potentially more dangerous ways to sell it. Let's disperse with the idealism that regulating/destroying guns will somehow create world peace. It will create new opportunities for criminal-entrepreneurs. Black markets. Increased crime. More guns in the hands of criminals, and less in the hands of honest people (I don't particularly care about how many "honest" people have guns, but I do care about the consequences of over-regulation).
- harichinnan 14y ago
  People with mental health issues usuaaly won't have the techincal know how/ skills to build a bomb using toilet cleaners. I come from India, where there are groups that make low tech bombs. Not individuals. Often times they injure themselves than kill a lot of people. The ones that kill 100's often require well regulated chemicals.
  - gavanwoolery 14y ago
    Mental health does not always negate mental power. Sociopaths and Psychopaths (a very similar classification) have perfectly normal brain function, only (to some degree) violence does not bother them -- some even enjoy it. Not all socio/psychopaths are killers though, in fact some are very good people (it has been theorized that a few US Presidents were sociopaths). Often times sociopaths can be very intelligent people, especially with regards to social hacking (they can be very charming on the outside, and very manipulative). (Source: my parents are psychiatrists who deal with the criminally insane, among many other types of mental cases).
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- powatom 14y ago
  And yet, countries with strict gun control tend to have far less deaths caused by guns. Nobody is saying that gun control will mean that nobody will ever get shot and killed again, but the harder you make it for people to act on their murderous feelings, the less likely they are to do so. It is objectively more difficult and time-consuming to build a bomb than it is to point a gun and somebody and shoot them. Lots of people have feelings of rage at some point in their lives. Most people don't act on those feelings in a destructive way. Even though most of these school shootings in the US don't seem to be random - there usually turns out to be at least some form of pre-meditation as far as I can tell - the fact that it is so easy to act on your feelings of rage / destruction cannot do anything but lead people who have those feelings down that path.
csense 14y ago
Let's imagine -- and this is a hypothetical that treads on fantastical ground -- that due to this tragedy, the US quickly passes a new Constitutional amendment banning guns. There are millions of guns that are already in circulation. Anyone who wants to flout the new law will have plenty of warning and opportunity to start stockpiling them. Gun control might work, if guns had just been invented and were only in the hands of a few governments and manufacturers. Or if we were some European/Asian country that's had a tight grip on weapons for a long time.
- serge2k 14y ago
  There isn't an instant solution so just do nothing?
1123581321 14y ago
1. I'm not interested. It's a pretty simple project if you take my advice at the end of this post, so you could easily do it yourself. 2. The three ways to legally destroy a gun are: 1) destruction by the owner (google instructions), 2) giving the gun to someone who can legally possess it who will destroy it, 3) turn it in at a police station to be destroyed, although the guarantee depends here as some departments resell and won't necessarily tell you. You will need a federal license from the ATF to broker guns which is what your service will be doing despite your goals. You will probably need one organization per state since you can't easily trade guns across state lines. The military will absolutely not buy from you, even if you go to all the trouble to become a federal vendor. Because of these difficulties, I suggest you stick to a simple pledge plus social media share system, provide destruction instructions and suggest gun-regulation lobbies to interested donors.

11 points by harichinnan 14y ago

redspark 14y ago

I respect what you are trying to do, but do you really think the ones who commit these types of crimes will be using your system? In all honestly, anyone who would voluntarily give up their firearm, probably aren't someone we need to worry too much about.

thoughtcriminal 14y ago
I think you're missing the point. It's about a society that doesn't want guns anymore. It has to start somewhere.
- harichinnan 14y ago
  If successful, this would become a grass roots level gun control movement with lots of press coverage. However I couldn't find any documentation that has instructions on how to get rid of a gun if the owner changes his mind/fears misuse by family members.

lingbing 14y ago

next we can decide to ban cars, since well they cause more deaths than guns. right?

harichinnan 14y ago
I'm asking for regulation on assault weapons. Not a ban on guns. This will be more like asking people to wear seat belts and take a license test than banning cars.
- phaus 14y ago
  I think I know what you mean to say, but the term 'assault weapon' has no meaning. A pillow can be classified as an 'assault weapon' if you try to smother someone with it. I am kind of torn on whether or not I agree that some weapons should be illegal to own, but I'll explain my views and why I hold them. The term 'assault weapon' is very similar to the actual class of weapons known as 'assault rifles.' I think that the media was attempting to create a term that would define weapons that seem militarized, yet aren't rifles. So what's an assault rifle? Traditionally, it has been a term used to classify weapons that fire a rifle round (like a 7.62 or a 5.56) instead of a pistol round (such as a 9mm or a .357.) The distinction is notable, because rifle rounds are generally far more powerful. Another traditionally distinguishing characteristic is that assault rifles are normally capable of fully automatic or burst fire (more than one round per trigger pull.) In recent years, assault rifles have begun to include certain semi-automatics, like the AR-15. The second category of weapon is the submachinegun. While they often look and act similar to an assault rifle, they fire pistol rounds and therefore cannot be considered assault rifles. To my knowledge, semi-automatics that fire pistol rounds are not considered to be submachineguns, even when they look identical to their fully automatic counterparts. Finally, we have handguns, which many people seem to hate. If you don't know what a hand gun is, then you probably aren't smart enough to have read this far, so that's all I have to say about those. So why is it important to understand the differences? Well if you want to selectively ban firearms, you'll have a better chance of getting people to listen when you are well educated on the subject. In the same way it pisses programmers off when politicians try to regulate the Internet without understanding the slightest thing about computers, it pisses gun owners off when uninformed people try to implement broad, sweeping, policies that result in the banning of guns based on exaggerated or outright fabricated claims of a particular model's capabilities. In the 90s, a weapon called the Tec-9 became popular in movies. On screen, the gun was always shown to be fully automatic, even though the real one was almost always semi-automatic. There were a few people who managed to modify them to fire on full-auto, but your average gang member probably struggled just to load it. While movies portrayed tec-9 as the ultimate weapon for badasses (because it actually looked pretty cool), the truth is that the gun's popularity was largely due to the fact that it was a total piece of shit, and therefore could be purchased for about 100-150 dollars, which was ridiculously cheap for a 9mm. Another oft maligned weapon is the AK-47. Unlike most of the world's AKs, the ones that are available in the U.S. are semi-automatic only. Unfortunately, fear sells, causing the media to imply that thousands of people are running around with machine guns. So why do people buy AK-47s if they are semi-automatic? Well, they are reliable, cheap (unless you get an actual Russian made ak, which can cost thousands) and the ammo is inexpensive. They also look just like a normal ak, and some people want a weapon that looks badass, even if it isn't. Like the AK, the AR-15 is often mistaken for its military counterpart, but the AR-15 is not an M16. The m16/m4 series of weapons can fire full auto or in three round bursts, depending on the model/revision. The AR-15 on the other hand, fires semi-auto only. While these weapons are often mistaken for automatics, there are some other criticisms that are often mentioned. When the original assault weapon ban was implemented, high capacity magazines and bayonet lugs were two of the defining attributes of an 'assault weapon.' First of all, bayonets are less effective than bullets, and the use of bayonets is so situational that many soldiers aren't issued bayonets anymore (many still do get them, but they are rarely used for combat purposes, and Even then, there is a good chance that it won't be attached to the weapon. Because of this, it's pretty stupid to ban a gun because you can attach a knife to it. If I had to guess, the only reason AR-15s had bayonet lugs was to keep from having to spend extra money manufacturing two different barrels. Now I'll talk about the only argument that has a bit more legitimacy, high capacity magazines. While it is true that they hold more rounds, super-high capacity magazines (50-200 rounds) like the one used in Aurora, have a slightly higher chance of causing the weapon to jam. That still leaves magazines from 11-30, which are far more common. I can sympathize with the argument that such a magazine contributes to the death count, but a skilled gunman (most aren't skilled) can reload a handgun in under 2 seconds, and a rifle in a similar amount of time. There are videos available on YouTube that show swat/special forces guys loading amazingly fast. It ust takes a little bit of practice. So basically, I'm not sure what the solution is. Clearly it's not optimal to ban guns outright when there's a hundred million peaceful gun owners in America, yet everyone wants to find a way to prevent mass shooting from happening ever again. Personally, for the reasons I listed, I don't think that the banning of semiautomatic firearms or high capacity magazines is going to be productive. I support the restriction of fully automatic weapons, but they are already illegal to own, unless you go through a process that can take years, that includes a background check.

propercoil 14y ago

ban also knifes then. Today in China someone killed 22 children with a knife.

harichinnan 14y ago
A man stabbed 22 children. Nobody died. They are in hospital. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/man-stabs-22-children-in-china/article6353552/?cmpid=rss1 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/man-stabs-22-child... I wish the man in Connecticut stabbed the kids instead of using an assault weapon to blast them away.
- nhangen 14y ago
  A pistol is no more an assault weapon than a knife. There are far more dangerous types of guns than a 9mm pistol. I'm a gun owner, former Army, and gun rights advocate, but I'm not crazy, and I do recognize the need for change. I just want to discuss it with level head, outside of the gun/anti-gun lobby confines.
  - powatom 14y ago
    > A pistol is no more an assault weapon than a knife. You're just arguing semantics here - if you assault somebody with a pistol, then it's an assault weapon. Saying that there are more dangerous types of guns than a 9mm pistol is like saying that getting hit by a lorry is worse than getting hit by a car: it doesn't fucking matter, it's still going to kill you.
    - nhangen 14y ago
      My point is that if a pistol is an assault weapon, then so is a knife.
      - powatom 14y ago
        Well, yes - but you don't use a pistol to cut your steak.

gavanwoolery 14y ago

Gun or not, the criminally-insane will always find ways to kill. You can make about 100 different types of bombs using household chemicals, all with far more lethal and discreet potential than a gun. Maybe we should start burning all cleaning agents. Take a hard look at history, namely Prohibition. What happens when you restrict access to a resource in demand? People find new, illegal, and potentially more dangerous ways to sell it. Let's disperse with the idealism that regulating/destroying guns will somehow create world peace. It will create new opportunities for criminal-entrepreneurs. Black markets. Increased crime. More guns in the hands of criminals, and less in the hands of honest people (I don't particularly care about how many "honest" people have guns, but I do care about the consequences of over-regulation).

harichinnan 14y ago
People with mental health issues usuaaly won't have the techincal know how/ skills to build a bomb using toilet cleaners. I come from India, where there are groups that make low tech bombs. Not individuals. Often times they injure themselves than kill a lot of people. The ones that kill 100's often require well regulated chemicals.
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  Mental health does not always negate mental power. Sociopaths and Psychopaths (a very similar classification) have perfectly normal brain function, only (to some degree) violence does not bother them -- some even enjoy it. Not all socio/psychopaths are killers though, in fact some are very good people (it has been theorized that a few US Presidents were sociopaths). Often times sociopaths can be very intelligent people, especially with regards to social hacking (they can be very charming on the outside, and very manipulative). (Source: my parents are psychiatrists who deal with the criminally insane, among many other types of mental cases).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
powatom 14y ago
And yet, countries with strict gun control tend to have far less deaths caused by guns. Nobody is saying that gun control will mean that nobody will ever get shot and killed again, but the harder you make it for people to act on their murderous feelings, the less likely they are to do so. It is objectively more difficult and time-consuming to build a bomb than it is to point a gun and somebody and shoot them. Lots of people have feelings of rage at some point in their lives. Most people don't act on those feelings in a destructive way. Even though most of these school shootings in the US don't seem to be random - there usually turns out to be at least some form of pre-meditation as far as I can tell - the fact that it is so easy to act on your feelings of rage / destruction cannot do anything but lead people who have those feelings down that path.

csense 14y ago

Let's imagine -- and this is a hypothetical that treads on fantastical ground -- that due to this tragedy, the US quickly passes a new Constitutional amendment banning guns. There are millions of guns that are already in circulation. Anyone who wants to flout the new law will have plenty of warning and opportunity to start stockpiling them. Gun control might work, if guns had just been invented and were only in the hands of a few governments and manufacturers. Or if we were some European/Asian country that's had a tight grip on weapons for a long time.

serge2k 14y ago
There isn't an instant solution so just do nothing?

1123581321 14y ago

1. I'm not interested. It's a pretty simple project if you take my advice at the end of this post, so you could easily do it yourself. 2. The three ways to legally destroy a gun are: 1) destruction by the owner (google instructions), 2) giving the gun to someone who can legally possess it who will destroy it, 3) turn it in at a police station to be destroyed, although the guarantee depends here as some departments resell and won't necessarily tell you. You will need a federal license from the ATF to broker guns which is what your service will be doing despite your goals. You will probably need one organization per state since you can't easily trade guns across state lines. The military will absolutely not buy from you, even if you go to all the trouble to become a federal vendor. Because of these difficulties, I suggest you stick to a simple pledge plus social media share system, provide destruction instructions and suggest gun-regulation lobbies to interested donors.