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The gun control that works: no guns

28 points by dhathorn 14y ago

ohwp 14y ago
I think it's all about easy access. All shooters of shooting incidents I can think of had easy access to guns. The only exception is Breivik. But he was planning his attacks for years.
ISL 14y ago
A revolution that worked: American Revolution. By some measures, it began in Lexington (the linked Economist column is "Lexington"), when the British government moved to seize citizens' arms. We must better understand how it is that those who would choose to harm many people reach such a decision. Guns are a tool. So was anthrax, in the post-9/11 mail scare, and it could have been much worse. Mutual respect, understanding, education, kindness, and vigilance are our greatest bulwarks against tragedy. Banning guns won't solve the problem.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- richo 14y ago
  You're right, distributing them with wild abandon is working perfectly. As you were.
- phpnode 14y ago
  Guns are tools that kill. They have no other purpose. How anyone can defend the concept of gun ownership in a civilised society is genuinely beyond me.
  - dexen 14y ago
    > Guns are tools that kill. They have no other purpose. The other† purpose is to keep countries and people in check. The mere ability to immediately use firearms is enough to stop a lot of possible troublemakers. A country keeps armed forces: military and border guard to keep external actors in check, police to keep unruly citizens in check. A private person keeps arms to keep in check potential burglars, assailants etc., and any other actor who could come in force, of which there are some historical examples discussed in other posts. † aside of the sporting, hunting and collector activities.
    - skyhook_mockups 14y ago
      I have no problem with the military and police having access to weapons. They are (or should be) highly trained, Psych tested and they work within a regulated, highly structured, hierarchical organisation. All of this serves to keep the wanton violence (almost completely) in check. The issue arises when every schmoe off the street can go in and purchase a fully automatic, purpose built people killing machine. I also don't buy the people vs. the government scenario you allude to. Could you really picture a reality where a group of citizens could overthrow the US government just because they had some AK47s? In the event of run-away government, a far more rational and realistic scenario would be for mass protests that essentially halt the economy over night. There are countless examples of almost completely bloodless revolutions happening in exactly this manner (Polish Solidarnosc and more recently Egypt during the Arab Spring immediately come to mind). The alternative is a bloody coup which usually ends in civil war or military dictatorship.
- Gatsky 14y ago
  That's a lovely notion, but time and time again, harm minimisation has been the only successful method to deal with issues like this (eg needle exchanges for IV drug users, allowing abortion to prevent women dying awful deaths from botched backyard attempts). I'm happy for you to start a worldwide movement to end violence and abolish mental illness, but until then, I would rather that nobody has the ability to murder large numbers of people when they feel like it. And seriously, how many people can successfully weaponise anthrax?
- skyhook_mockups 14y ago
  My perspective is different since I come from a country with a different culture. Here in Australia there is essentially zero gun ownership by private citizens. We also had a gun buyback (1996) and changes in legislation after the Port Arthur massacre[1]. Basically, I would feel really nervous just being in the same room as a gun. So from my perspective statements such as 'Guns are a tool' just don't wash. They are the only tool that comes to mind that are specifically designed to kill humans. There is no other use (besides sport shooting) that I can think of for a handgun. The same goes for high powered fully automatic military style rifles. Zero use for hunting an animal, perfectly tailored for hunting humans. That's disturbing to me, and I wouldn't want to live in a society that vehemently fights for the right to bear these arms. Of course it is better to fix the root cause (mental illness, lack of empathy, education etc). Fighting the root is really hard and will take America generations of effort. Removing semi and full auto weapons can be done over night (the actual effectiveness could be argued ad nauseam, but at least the laws could be in place and some claw back of the 300 million odd weapons could begin). Psychos would still rampage, but there's a lot less damage you can do if you only have a knife, or you have to reload after each shot. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#The_Port_Arthur_massacre_and_its_consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#The_P... PS: I'd be happy to be corrected, but from the little I know about the issue, the meaning of 'right to bear arms' in the US constitution has been twisted away from the original intent of organised and well disciplined militias, to: hey look ma I bought a M16 from Walmart today hur hur
  - angersock 14y ago
    Please educate yourself about American gun availability before you give the wing nuts a reason to discredit your point. We do not sell automatic weapons without a whoooole lot of paperwork and money, we could not remove the weapons overnight, and your Walmart example is tasteless.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      Automatic vs semi-automatics is brought up frequently. The simple fact is that for killing a bunch of people in an enclosed space a semi-automatic is the 'right' kind of weapon, full-auto would actually be a lot less efficient. You'd run through your ammo quicker and you'd put many rounds into the walls and the ceiling.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  Another revolution that worked: the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia - non-violent, no guns. And another: the Egyptian revolution last year. Or the 2003 revolution in Georgia. Or 2005 in Kyrgyzstan, and I could go on. All successful, all non-violent, all more recent than the American Revolution. Seriously, if you think you need guns to defend yourself, you're basically saying you live in a state which has failed worse than communist era Czechoslovakia or Egypt under an effective dictatorship.
  - taylodl 14y ago
    So how are things going in Syria?
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      Considerably more dead on both sides than during the non-violent revolutions. Just think, if you'd given the Egyptian's guns that could have been a bloodbath too.
EugeneOZ 14y ago
Is "Hacker News" a good place for the links to "economist.com"? Let's discuss the situation of Venezuela here also.
- rjknight 14y ago
  Discussing whether or not technology (guns, in this case) can be considered morally neutral? Whether freedom to own and operate any technology of your choice is a fundamental right? What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions?
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions? At a guess, those that flagged this so it's no longer on the homepage. Or possibly the last thing they want is a rational discussion about this, after all, imagine having to actually defend your position in a rational rather than an emotional way. You might even have to change your mind...
  - EugeneOZ 14y ago
    > What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions? Who doesn't live in USA.
    - tagada 14y ago
      I don't live in the USA and I'm interested in that question ... Americans shouldn't leave their socialists restrict their freedom. They do not understand that restricting the right to firearm is a way for the state to take more control. The problem is, maybe you never had any problem, but when you have, most of the time, the state isn't there to protect your ass. And ... Why not to forbid cars as well? Knives, glasses, alcohol, tobacco, chimneys and so on ...? You totally dumb guys. People are not self-responsible? Learn them to be, rather than resricting privacy to « protect them from themselves » ... But ... It won't happen. I'm living in a socialist country and I know how you, leftists, are thinking ... You only admit you mistakes when it's way to late. It's a shame.
    - 14y ago
jacquesm 14y ago
If you combine average people with lots of guns and then say 'people are the problem, not guns', you're missing out on an important fact. People are not a constant. They're not #defines, they may be sane today, insane tomorrow and sane the day after that. They are impulsive, prone to error and there are a thousand circumstances in life where otherwise perfectly normal people do things that we later label insane. Temporary insanity is a plea that is heard sometimes in the courts. The basic idea is that during the act the person was insane but is now sane. This is usually to either get a reduced sentence or none at all. The concept hinges on the fact that we are prone to mood swings, sometimes extreme ones. And that in a fit of anger or worse than that someone can do things that they would normally not do. And that's the sane people, claiming that. Imagine those that are not 100%. So if you mix a large number of guns with a large number of people without much training, oversight, discipline or checks you're asking for trouble. Some of them are bound to be unstable, and even they don't know about it, yet. But you'll read about it in the paper when they do find out. The 'right to carry arms' is a card played by people that are afraid they will no longer be a allowed to play with their toys, and cynically used by politicians to get them to vote against their own best interests. There is no way that an armed revolution will be initiated by them, or if it were initiated would be won by those with their guns. Even a large number of them vs the military is a foregone conclusion. If that were the case it should have happened when that was still possible. Now it's just a relic, a symbol of a nation born from violence unable to let go of its past. The only way to win a conflict like that is to get the military to side with you, or to fracture it to an extent that the outcome is no longer a certainty. And every year a hundred or so (or even a few thousand if you count the injured) people will die because of this stupidity. In incidents of 1 or 2, or 28. In a civilized country individuals do not need guns, should not need guns and should not have guns. If you do insist on that then you should also take responsibility for every time an insane person managed to get hold of one (note that the kid that did this didn't use his own guns but the guns legally owned by his mother, now murdered with her own weapon). edit: this thread has already been flagged off the homepage.
- subsystem 14y ago
  If you havn't already read it, "From Dictatorship to Democracy" supports some of your points. http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
happywolf 14y ago
In my opinion, no guns definitely will mean gun-related criminal cases will be lesser, but this doesn't make it safer to stay. Take Malaysia for example, a country that I am quite familiar with. In Malaysia, guns are banned, however, machet-wielding robbers and windshield-crashing bad guys abound. Violence is so common that newer houses are built gated-and-guarded (G&G) where locals literally live in cages in certain areas in central and south. Those who are interested about this and would like to see real-life examples could search YouTube for 'robbery in Malaysia'. The OP takes the relatively low crime-rate of UK to 'prove' no gun is a good choice. My opinion would be it holds true so long the overall crime rate isn't high. When the crime rate shoots up and more crazy/violent people go around the neighborhood, I would bet having fire-arms would be a good idea.
- balac 14y ago
  While this is true, banning guns makes it harder for a single crazy person to kill many people at once and could prevent some of these US public area mass killings.
- apl 14y ago
  You're comparing wildly different situations. I'm honestly not worried at all about the US equivalent of machete-wielding robbers. Plus, even if I was, I'd prefer a thousand criminals with machetes to a thousand criminals with rifles (all other things being equal). There's no reason why US law enforcement would become less efficient if people's guns were taken away tomorrow. Trouble with firearms boils down to their utterly disproportional power -- a single madman sporting a gun is capable of killing dozens of people before intervening forces can end the spree. A single madman sporting a knife may kill one, two, five, ten others, but not more. Knife-attacks are horrific yet self-limiting.
  - happywolf 14y ago
    I do agree these two are different situations. However I would think banning firearms in the states would be next to impossible, given how widespread firearms are, and the strength of the weapon makers in lobbying the congress. Instead, I would say having teachers trained in shooting and equipping firearms in schools for emergency access could be easier to realize (compared to outlawing firearms). I kept wondering if the teachers were armed, would the death toll be any lesser?
wildranter 14y ago
Guns kill people. Knives kill people. Rocks kill people. Truth of the matter is if people want to kill people they will use any weapon available, even their bare hands. Sure if governments all around the world ban guns people will kill less people, but they still kill. Now, how do you stop all this killing? Because, that's the point. Right? People kill for different reasons, even with no reason at all.
- dontstealmyname 14y ago
  Yes but the horrible truth is guns have a higher mortality rate than all the other killing methods you listed. Also there is a lot more physical effort in killing someone with a knife, rocks or bearhands and it its more likely that you can fend someone off or dodgy whats being throw at you. I don't think its as easy to dodgy a bullet.
  - wildranter 14y ago
    Try dodging a 100kg man armed with 5kg rock. I had to do it once while wandering the streets of a big South American country. If I had a gun I certainly would have not killed the bastard as just waving it should've solved the situation. Instead I had to keep cool, pull a Jedi mind trick, and literally run for my life. Yeah, guns kill. So rocks too. Again, how do we stop all this killing? Either way, I think we should start by banning cars. People kill much more people with cars than with any other tool. Maybe except for voting, but that's another matter.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Guns greatly amplify the power to act out a killing urge. That is, after all, their purpose. I am, by most measures, a strong man. But given a rock or a knife, I would not, within 2 minutes, be able to kill 20 people and injure 12 in a crowded cafe in Port Arthur, before going on to kill another 12 people and injuring 3 within the following hour. Neither could I, with a rock or a knife, visit Utøya and kill 69 people and wound 110 within one hour. These acts are physically beyond me. I suspect they are physically beyond anybody. The only other way for me to kill so many people would be to use high explosives. And guess what? High explosives are regulated out the fricking wazoo.
noonespecial 14y ago
America was made from violent revolution against tyranny, so as part of its 'DNA' (constitution) it includes a simple inoculation against that sort of tyranny in the future in the form of the right of private citizens to be armed. It was technology that threw the founding fathers the unforeseen curve ball. What seemed like a simple question of allowing or disallowing private weapons was really an un-enumerated, technology restricted question of the form "should a private citizen have the means to deploy deadly force against 1 to 3 others". Today we ask a different question. "How many other citizens should a private individual be allowed the power deploy deadly force against." Now the answer can be 0, 1, 5, a classroom, a neighborhood, even a small town. But the top end is getting higher every year. The 2nd amendment is useless to us in answering this question. All that's left is haphazard whack-a-mole bans on emerging technologies. The founding fathers didn't mean to give us a binary choice between total forced disarmament and allowing red-necks to have their own black-hawk helicopters. Its time for an amendment.
- angersock 14y ago
  Your history is wrong, and the killing power of your average citizen hasn't gone up significantly since the end of the 1920s. Look up the Bath school bombing in 1927-near double the casualties of the current tragedy. Your interpretation is interesting, though. Edit--Okay, say, the roaring 20s with the Thompson.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    The 2nd amendment: 1791. The first practical automatic repeat firing weapons didn't show up until almost 100 years later and they still required a crew to operate. There was a touch of progress in that first 100 years. I'm going to go ahead and make the weak point that bombings, poisonings, and sabotage are a slightly different animal than purpose build firearms and would likely be treated differently in the law. There is a huge element of luck to those attacks. The crux of it is, that rampages last 5 to 10 minutes. This is probably going to be true whether the first responders are armed citizens or police. We're going to have to decide how many people we're going to allow a private citizen the capability of killing in that time. We're going to have to very explicitly choose or technology will choose "a whole damn lot" for us by default. I'm thinking your point just indicates that we should have started addressing this long about the time Swing was King.
mikeratcliffe 14y ago
Criminals take what they need to commit a crime. If the victim is will be armed then the criminal will bring a gun. If the victim is unarmed there is no reason for the criminal to bring a gun. Fairly simple really.
tagada 14y ago
It's a pity men use a tragedy to promote their political freedom killer ideologies.
cpursley 14y ago
There is an important fact that is always missed in the gun control debate. People like to get caught up about minutiae - who and what type of guns should we be able to own, if at all. Not sure how people miss this - the largest groups of murders in human history are governments by a long shot - events that typically take place some time after guns are confiscated. Ultimately, the right to bare arms is about a last resort against tyrannical government.
benjohnson 14y ago
Disarming citizes is the frst step to genocide. I trust my neighbor more than the governemnt we elect - just 60 years ago, America rounded up our ethnic Japanese citizens and stuck them in concentration camps. What would gave happened if the war didn't go so well for us in the Pacific?
- Erwin 14y ago
  So why wasn't there violent armed response to the American concentration camps back then? Presumably you were at least as well armed. What kind of event would it take for you to take up arms against the government now? And whom exactly will you be shooting at? Let's say that somehow a 100% tax on income above $50k gets passed through legislation tomorrow -- who are you going to shoot to revert this? Or perhaps the next president will order an invasion of Canada to take their natural resources (without which many Americans would die: it's either us or them, and voters agree). In what countries in the world now would you say that access to guns is helping to maintain democracy and liberty? How well are things going for Palestine or Syria?
  - benjohnson 14y ago
    Let us discuss facts and now weird hypotheticals. In the last hundred years, millions of people were killed when governemnts stripped the citizines of their weapons and subsequently murdered them. To think it "can't happen here" is is not historically unsound - gernocide came frightengly close here in America, and it happened in 'civilised' socialist Germany and communist Russia. The diference that I can find, is we had an armed population tht would have revolted had our Japanese citizens been murdered. To think that we're just better people is hubris.
leephillips 14y ago
This article does a fairly convincing impression of being reasonable and balanced. However, a typical sentence is this one: "And my hunch is that the model found in places like Japan or Britain—no guns in homes at all, or almost none—is on balance safer." My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable. He's entitled to his "hunches", but they are not useful to me.
- summerdown2 14y ago
  > My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable. Assuming it could be carried out, what research would you find convincing?
  - leephillips 14y ago
    At a minimum I would like to see a clear statement of what hypothesis is being examined.
    - summerdown2 14y ago
      Hypothesis: removing guns from a society can be done to a tolerance of X within Y years. (i.e. there will always be some guns, but you can restrict them to rare status) Hypothesis: doing so reduces deaths from A to B. ... assuming there could be a study of the above, and it came up with yes in both cases, and A >> B, would the case for gun control be made? The question I'm asking is whether there is a study that would be acceptable, and gun control simply depends on whether this can be proven, or whether the question of reducing death is a red herring, and gun ownership is believed worth it regardless?
      - leephillips 14y ago
        Are these your proposals for research, or are they hypotheses that you claim the author was examining and that I somehow missed? If the former and you're looking for a critique, I would start by saying that I don't think hypothesis #1 is well posed. Do you mean any society, or the USA? And do you mean by any means at all, or only using legal, constitutional means? In examining hypothesis #2, do we have available a sample of societies where guns were removed and nothing else changed, so we can perform a statistical analysis of the change in "death" rate following the sudden removal of guns? I think that's extremely unlikely, and therefore I don't see how we can reach reliable conclusions. Also, I'm confused about what you're proposing to look at: by "death", do you mean murder by gun? All murders? Suicides? Accidents, illness, etc.? Of course we can be confident of tautologies: if all guns were made to disappear, including those in the hands of the government, there would not be any gun murders. But this does not seem very illuminating. Even in that case, how do we know that murders by other means, and other violent crimes, would not increase? Your question is "whether there is a study that would be acceptable". I think the answer is clearly yes, and there are studies on this subject in the literature, of varying quality. My point was that the author seems not to know or care much one way or the other, and prefers to sling "hunches". I'm not sure I understand anything that follows "acceptable", but I think you're wondering whether some people would be against a gun control measure even if it could be known that said measure would lead to a net decrease in murders. The answer to that (and I'm sorry if that's not what you were asking) is obviously "yes" in some cases. As an analogy, many people are harmed, even driven to suicide, by speech. This harm could possibly be reduced by enacting speech controls. But there are people who, even if they agree that a particular speech control measure would reduce harm caused by speech, would nevertheless be against it.

28 points by dhathorn 14y ago

ohwp 14y ago

I think it's all about easy access. All shooters of shooting incidents I can think of had easy access to guns. The only exception is Breivik. But he was planning his attacks for years.

ISL 14y ago

A revolution that worked: American Revolution. By some measures, it began in Lexington (the linked Economist column is "Lexington"), when the British government moved to seize citizens' arms. We must better understand how it is that those who would choose to harm many people reach such a decision. Guns are a tool. So was anthrax, in the post-9/11 mail scare, and it could have been much worse. Mutual respect, understanding, education, kindness, and vigilance are our greatest bulwarks against tragedy. Banning guns won't solve the problem.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
richo 14y ago
You're right, distributing them with wild abandon is working perfectly. As you were.
phpnode 14y ago
Guns are tools that kill. They have no other purpose. How anyone can defend the concept of gun ownership in a civilised society is genuinely beyond me.
- dexen 14y ago
  > Guns are tools that kill. They have no other purpose. The other† purpose is to keep countries and people in check. The mere ability to immediately use firearms is enough to stop a lot of possible troublemakers. A country keeps armed forces: military and border guard to keep external actors in check, police to keep unruly citizens in check. A private person keeps arms to keep in check potential burglars, assailants etc., and any other actor who could come in force, of which there are some historical examples discussed in other posts. † aside of the sporting, hunting and collector activities.
  - skyhook_mockups 14y ago
    I have no problem with the military and police having access to weapons. They are (or should be) highly trained, Psych tested and they work within a regulated, highly structured, hierarchical organisation. All of this serves to keep the wanton violence (almost completely) in check. The issue arises when every schmoe off the street can go in and purchase a fully automatic, purpose built people killing machine. I also don't buy the people vs. the government scenario you allude to. Could you really picture a reality where a group of citizens could overthrow the US government just because they had some AK47s? In the event of run-away government, a far more rational and realistic scenario would be for mass protests that essentially halt the economy over night. There are countless examples of almost completely bloodless revolutions happening in exactly this manner (Polish Solidarnosc and more recently Egypt during the Arab Spring immediately come to mind). The alternative is a bloody coup which usually ends in civil war or military dictatorship.
Gatsky 14y ago
That's a lovely notion, but time and time again, harm minimisation has been the only successful method to deal with issues like this (eg needle exchanges for IV drug users, allowing abortion to prevent women dying awful deaths from botched backyard attempts). I'm happy for you to start a worldwide movement to end violence and abolish mental illness, but until then, I would rather that nobody has the ability to murder large numbers of people when they feel like it. And seriously, how many people can successfully weaponise anthrax?
skyhook_mockups 14y ago
My perspective is different since I come from a country with a different culture. Here in Australia there is essentially zero gun ownership by private citizens. We also had a gun buyback (1996) and changes in legislation after the Port Arthur massacre[1]. Basically, I would feel really nervous just being in the same room as a gun. So from my perspective statements such as 'Guns are a tool' just don't wash. They are the only tool that comes to mind that are specifically designed to kill humans. There is no other use (besides sport shooting) that I can think of for a handgun. The same goes for high powered fully automatic military style rifles. Zero use for hunting an animal, perfectly tailored for hunting humans. That's disturbing to me, and I wouldn't want to live in a society that vehemently fights for the right to bear these arms. Of course it is better to fix the root cause (mental illness, lack of empathy, education etc). Fighting the root is really hard and will take America generations of effort. Removing semi and full auto weapons can be done over night (the actual effectiveness could be argued ad nauseam, but at least the laws could be in place and some claw back of the 300 million odd weapons could begin). Psychos would still rampage, but there's a lot less damage you can do if you only have a knife, or you have to reload after each shot. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#The_Port_Arthur_massacre_and_its_consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#The_P... PS: I'd be happy to be corrected, but from the little I know about the issue, the meaning of 'right to bear arms' in the US constitution has been twisted away from the original intent of organised and well disciplined militias, to: hey look ma I bought a M16 from Walmart today hur hur
- angersock 14y ago
  Please educate yourself about American gun availability before you give the wing nuts a reason to discredit your point. We do not sell automatic weapons without a whoooole lot of paperwork and money, we could not remove the weapons overnight, and your Walmart example is tasteless.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Automatic vs semi-automatics is brought up frequently. The simple fact is that for killing a bunch of people in an enclosed space a semi-automatic is the 'right' kind of weapon, full-auto would actually be a lot less efficient. You'd run through your ammo quicker and you'd put many rounds into the walls and the ceiling.
Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
Another revolution that worked: the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia - non-violent, no guns. And another: the Egyptian revolution last year. Or the 2003 revolution in Georgia. Or 2005 in Kyrgyzstan, and I could go on. All successful, all non-violent, all more recent than the American Revolution. Seriously, if you think you need guns to defend yourself, you're basically saying you live in a state which has failed worse than communist era Czechoslovakia or Egypt under an effective dictatorship.
- taylodl 14y ago
  So how are things going in Syria?
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    Considerably more dead on both sides than during the non-violent revolutions. Just think, if you'd given the Egyptian's guns that could have been a bloodbath too.

EugeneOZ 14y ago

Is "Hacker News" a good place for the links to "economist.com"? Let's discuss the situation of Venezuela here also.

rjknight 14y ago
Discussing whether or not technology (guns, in this case) can be considered morally neutral? Whether freedom to own and operate any technology of your choice is a fundamental right? What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions?
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions? At a guess, those that flagged this so it's no longer on the homepage. Or possibly the last thing they want is a rational discussion about this, after all, imagine having to actually defend your position in a rational rather than an emotional way. You might even have to change your mind...
- EugeneOZ 14y ago
  > What kind of hacker isn't interested in those questions? Who doesn't live in USA.
  - tagada 14y ago
    I don't live in the USA and I'm interested in that question ... Americans shouldn't leave their socialists restrict their freedom. They do not understand that restricting the right to firearm is a way for the state to take more control. The problem is, maybe you never had any problem, but when you have, most of the time, the state isn't there to protect your ass. And ... Why not to forbid cars as well? Knives, glasses, alcohol, tobacco, chimneys and so on ...? You totally dumb guys. People are not self-responsible? Learn them to be, rather than resricting privacy to « protect them from themselves » ... But ... It won't happen. I'm living in a socialist country and I know how you, leftists, are thinking ... You only admit you mistakes when it's way to late. It's a shame.
  - 14y ago

jacquesm 14y ago

If you combine average people with lots of guns and then say 'people are the problem, not guns', you're missing out on an important fact. People are not a constant. They're not #defines, they may be sane today, insane tomorrow and sane the day after that. They are impulsive, prone to error and there are a thousand circumstances in life where otherwise perfectly normal people do things that we later label insane. Temporary insanity is a plea that is heard sometimes in the courts. The basic idea is that during the act the person was insane but is now sane. This is usually to either get a reduced sentence or none at all. The concept hinges on the fact that we are prone to mood swings, sometimes extreme ones. And that in a fit of anger or worse than that someone can do things that they would normally not do. And that's the sane people, claiming that. Imagine those that are not 100%. So if you mix a large number of guns with a large number of people without much training, oversight, discipline or checks you're asking for trouble. Some of them are bound to be unstable, and even they don't know about it, yet. But you'll read about it in the paper when they do find out. The 'right to carry arms' is a card played by people that are afraid they will no longer be a allowed to play with their toys, and cynically used by politicians to get them to vote against their own best interests. There is no way that an armed revolution will be initiated by them, or if it were initiated would be won by those with their guns. Even a large number of them vs the military is a foregone conclusion. If that were the case it should have happened when that was still possible. Now it's just a relic, a symbol of a nation born from violence unable to let go of its past. The only way to win a conflict like that is to get the military to side with you, or to fracture it to an extent that the outcome is no longer a certainty. And every year a hundred or so (or even a few thousand if you count the injured) people will die because of this stupidity. In incidents of 1 or 2, or 28. In a civilized country individuals do not need guns, should not need guns and should not have guns. If you do insist on that then you should also take responsibility for every time an insane person managed to get hold of one (note that the kid that did this didn't use his own guns but the guns legally owned by his mother, now murdered with her own weapon). edit: this thread has already been flagged off the homepage.

subsystem 14y ago
If you havn't already read it, "From Dictatorship to Democracy" supports some of your points. http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf

happywolf 14y ago

In my opinion, no guns definitely will mean gun-related criminal cases will be lesser, but this doesn't make it safer to stay. Take Malaysia for example, a country that I am quite familiar with. In Malaysia, guns are banned, however, machet-wielding robbers and windshield-crashing bad guys abound. Violence is so common that newer houses are built gated-and-guarded (G&G) where locals literally live in cages in certain areas in central and south. Those who are interested about this and would like to see real-life examples could search YouTube for 'robbery in Malaysia'. The OP takes the relatively low crime-rate of UK to 'prove' no gun is a good choice. My opinion would be it holds true so long the overall crime rate isn't high. When the crime rate shoots up and more crazy/violent people go around the neighborhood, I would bet having fire-arms would be a good idea.

balac 14y ago
While this is true, banning guns makes it harder for a single crazy person to kill many people at once and could prevent some of these US public area mass killings.
apl 14y ago
You're comparing wildly different situations. I'm honestly not worried at all about the US equivalent of machete-wielding robbers. Plus, even if I was, I'd prefer a thousand criminals with machetes to a thousand criminals with rifles (all other things being equal). There's no reason why US law enforcement would become less efficient if people's guns were taken away tomorrow. Trouble with firearms boils down to their utterly disproportional power -- a single madman sporting a gun is capable of killing dozens of people before intervening forces can end the spree. A single madman sporting a knife may kill one, two, five, ten others, but not more. Knife-attacks are horrific yet self-limiting.
- happywolf 14y ago
  I do agree these two are different situations. However I would think banning firearms in the states would be next to impossible, given how widespread firearms are, and the strength of the weapon makers in lobbying the congress. Instead, I would say having teachers trained in shooting and equipping firearms in schools for emergency access could be easier to realize (compared to outlawing firearms). I kept wondering if the teachers were armed, would the death toll be any lesser?

wildranter 14y ago

Guns kill people. Knives kill people. Rocks kill people. Truth of the matter is if people want to kill people they will use any weapon available, even their bare hands. Sure if governments all around the world ban guns people will kill less people, but they still kill. Now, how do you stop all this killing? Because, that's the point. Right? People kill for different reasons, even with no reason at all.

dontstealmyname 14y ago
Yes but the horrible truth is guns have a higher mortality rate than all the other killing methods you listed. Also there is a lot more physical effort in killing someone with a knife, rocks or bearhands and it its more likely that you can fend someone off or dodgy whats being throw at you. I don't think its as easy to dodgy a bullet.
- wildranter 14y ago
  Try dodging a 100kg man armed with 5kg rock. I had to do it once while wandering the streets of a big South American country. If I had a gun I certainly would have not killed the bastard as just waving it should've solved the situation. Instead I had to keep cool, pull a Jedi mind trick, and literally run for my life. Yeah, guns kill. So rocks too. Again, how do we stop all this killing? Either way, I think we should start by banning cars. People kill much more people with cars than with any other tool. Maybe except for voting, but that's another matter.
jacques_chester 14y ago
Guns greatly amplify the power to act out a killing urge. That is, after all, their purpose. I am, by most measures, a strong man. But given a rock or a knife, I would not, within 2 minutes, be able to kill 20 people and injure 12 in a crowded cafe in Port Arthur, before going on to kill another 12 people and injuring 3 within the following hour. Neither could I, with a rock or a knife, visit Utøya and kill 69 people and wound 110 within one hour. These acts are physically beyond me. I suspect they are physically beyond anybody. The only other way for me to kill so many people would be to use high explosives. And guess what? High explosives are regulated out the fricking wazoo.

noonespecial 14y ago

America was made from violent revolution against tyranny, so as part of its 'DNA' (constitution) it includes a simple inoculation against that sort of tyranny in the future in the form of the right of private citizens to be armed. It was technology that threw the founding fathers the unforeseen curve ball. What seemed like a simple question of allowing or disallowing private weapons was really an un-enumerated, technology restricted question of the form "should a private citizen have the means to deploy deadly force against 1 to 3 others". Today we ask a different question. "How many other citizens should a private individual be allowed the power deploy deadly force against." Now the answer can be 0, 1, 5, a classroom, a neighborhood, even a small town. But the top end is getting higher every year. The 2nd amendment is useless to us in answering this question. All that's left is haphazard whack-a-mole bans on emerging technologies. The founding fathers didn't mean to give us a binary choice between total forced disarmament and allowing red-necks to have their own black-hawk helicopters. Its time for an amendment.

angersock 14y ago
Your history is wrong, and the killing power of your average citizen hasn't gone up significantly since the end of the 1920s. Look up the Bath school bombing in 1927-near double the casualties of the current tragedy. Your interpretation is interesting, though. Edit--Okay, say, the roaring 20s with the Thompson.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  The 2nd amendment: 1791. The first practical automatic repeat firing weapons didn't show up until almost 100 years later and they still required a crew to operate. There was a touch of progress in that first 100 years. I'm going to go ahead and make the weak point that bombings, poisonings, and sabotage are a slightly different animal than purpose build firearms and would likely be treated differently in the law. There is a huge element of luck to those attacks. The crux of it is, that rampages last 5 to 10 minutes. This is probably going to be true whether the first responders are armed citizens or police. We're going to have to decide how many people we're going to allow a private citizen the capability of killing in that time. We're going to have to very explicitly choose or technology will choose "a whole damn lot" for us by default. I'm thinking your point just indicates that we should have started addressing this long about the time Swing was King.

mikeratcliffe 14y ago

Criminals take what they need to commit a crime. If the victim is will be armed then the criminal will bring a gun. If the victim is unarmed there is no reason for the criminal to bring a gun. Fairly simple really.

tagada 14y ago

It's a pity men use a tragedy to promote their political freedom killer ideologies.

cpursley 14y ago

There is an important fact that is always missed in the gun control debate. People like to get caught up about minutiae - who and what type of guns should we be able to own, if at all. Not sure how people miss this - the largest groups of murders in human history are governments by a long shot - events that typically take place some time after guns are confiscated. Ultimately, the right to bare arms is about a last resort against tyrannical government.

benjohnson 14y ago

Disarming citizes is the frst step to genocide. I trust my neighbor more than the governemnt we elect - just 60 years ago, America rounded up our ethnic Japanese citizens and stuck them in concentration camps. What would gave happened if the war didn't go so well for us in the Pacific?

Erwin 14y ago
So why wasn't there violent armed response to the American concentration camps back then? Presumably you were at least as well armed. What kind of event would it take for you to take up arms against the government now? And whom exactly will you be shooting at? Let's say that somehow a 100% tax on income above $50k gets passed through legislation tomorrow -- who are you going to shoot to revert this? Or perhaps the next president will order an invasion of Canada to take their natural resources (without which many Americans would die: it's either us or them, and voters agree). In what countries in the world now would you say that access to guns is helping to maintain democracy and liberty? How well are things going for Palestine or Syria?
- benjohnson 14y ago
  Let us discuss facts and now weird hypotheticals. In the last hundred years, millions of people were killed when governemnts stripped the citizines of their weapons and subsequently murdered them. To think it "can't happen here" is is not historically unsound - gernocide came frightengly close here in America, and it happened in 'civilised' socialist Germany and communist Russia. The diference that I can find, is we had an armed population tht would have revolted had our Japanese citizens been murdered. To think that we're just better people is hubris.

leephillips 14y ago

This article does a fairly convincing impression of being reasonable and balanced. However, a typical sentence is this one: "And my hunch is that the model found in places like Japan or Britain—no guns in homes at all, or almost none—is on balance safer." My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable. He's entitled to his "hunches", but they are not useful to me.

summerdown2 14y ago
> My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable. Assuming it could be carried out, what research would you find convincing?
- leephillips 14y ago
  At a minimum I would like to see a clear statement of what hypothesis is being examined.
  - summerdown2 14y ago
    Hypothesis: removing guns from a society can be done to a tolerance of X within Y years. (i.e. there will always be some guns, but you can restrict them to rare status) Hypothesis: doing so reduces deaths from A to B. ... assuming there could be a study of the above, and it came up with yes in both cases, and A >> B, would the case for gun control be made? The question I'm asking is whether there is a study that would be acceptable, and gun control simply depends on whether this can be proven, or whether the question of reducing death is a red herring, and gun ownership is believed worth it regardless?
    - leephillips 14y ago
      Are these your proposals for research, or are they hypotheses that you claim the author was examining and that I somehow missed? If the former and you're looking for a critique, I would start by saying that I don't think hypothesis #1 is well posed. Do you mean any society, or the USA? And do you mean by any means at all, or only using legal, constitutional means? In examining hypothesis #2, do we have available a sample of societies where guns were removed and nothing else changed, so we can perform a statistical analysis of the change in "death" rate following the sudden removal of guns? I think that's extremely unlikely, and therefore I don't see how we can reach reliable conclusions. Also, I'm confused about what you're proposing to look at: by "death", do you mean murder by gun? All murders? Suicides? Accidents, illness, etc.? Of course we can be confident of tautologies: if all guns were made to disappear, including those in the hands of the government, there would not be any gun murders. But this does not seem very illuminating. Even in that case, how do we know that murders by other means, and other violent crimes, would not increase? Your question is "whether there is a study that would be acceptable". I think the answer is clearly yes, and there are studies on this subject in the literature, of varying quality. My point was that the author seems not to know or care much one way or the other, and prefers to sling "hunches". I'm not sure I understand anything that follows "acceptable", but I think you're wondering whether some people would be against a gun control measure even if it could be known that said measure would lead to a net decrease in murders. The answer to that (and I'm sorry if that's not what you were asking) is obviously "yes" in some cases. As an analogy, many people are harmed, even driven to suicide, by speech. This harm could possibly be reduced by enacting speech controls. But there are people who, even if they agree that a particular speech control measure would reduce harm caused by speech, would nevertheless be against it.