[HN Gopher] Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds
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Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 211 points
Date : 2021-09-16 12:33 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| ajay-b wrote:
| The entire police force can do nothing for you on the phone. I
| think it is the reductions in police that are convincing more
| women to purchase.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Have you ever tried to call the police for an emergency? In my
| experience they've never been very responsive, no reductions
| needed.
|
| A friend of mine had literally held someone down who assaulted
| a woman on a train and the police took 20 minutes to arrive.
|
| I was in a hit and run that rendered my car unusable and the
| police told me to walk to the station and file a report.
|
| I've got a lifetime of stories like this. I don't even bother
| calling anymore. This is a major city with a police force that
| has enough funding to have multiple helicopters.
| advisedwang wrote:
| What reductions in police? Basically no location has actually
| defunded their police depts, despite all the talk.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Seattle cut police funding by 17%:
| https://mynorthwest.com/2339588/seattle-final-2021-budget-
| su...
|
| 180 police officers quit in 2020, 66 officers as of April
| 28th: https://apnews.com/article/seattle-police-government-
| and-pol...
| beerandt wrote:
| Department policies have caused a surge in resignations and
| early retirements, with no supply of new recruits eager to
| step up.
|
| In sense, the movement was successful because it reduced the
| number of police on the street. OTOH, those places are having
| to increase their police budgets and raise salaries to
| replace officers who have left.
| starik36 wrote:
| True, but lots of police have moved departments to safer
| places, e.g. suburbs.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I live in Seattle, and I can assure you that the SPD is
| basically useless now. Whether or not it was "defunded",
| there were budget cuts and enough restrictions added that the
| PD essentially doesn't respond to calls unless someone is
| being actively and indisputably murdered.
| nradov wrote:
| It's not just that police forces have been reduced. In some
| major cities police abandoned certain areas to anarchy.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53218448
| kyleee wrote:
| I believe also the police have no duty to respond based on a
| court ruling. Basically the entity we are supposed to rely on
| in the worst situations has no SLA and we have no recourse if
| they don't come and help.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Multiple court rulings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warre
| n_v._District_of_Columbia is the first major one.
| pope_meat wrote:
| I live in the PNW, I've been to the area. If spray paint on a
| police building is lawless anarchy, alright, I guess, but my
| best friends girlfriend works literally across the street
| from the police station depicted, and you know what? It's
| fine. These stories are bullshit meant to rile you up because
| fear gets clicks.
|
| Some folks have a different opinion, but these folks seem to
| be afraid anytime they see a houseless person, or a needle in
| an alley way, and neither of those problems have been solved
| with the ever increasing police budgets, just pushed it to a
| slightly different area, where the outrage starts all over
| again. There's a problem, sure, but the police ain't the tool
| to solve them, no matter how much we would like for complex
| problems to be solved with simple solutions.
| nradov wrote:
| Do you consider this fine? I don't think anyone benefits
| from a breakdown in civil order and the rule of law.
|
| https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
| politics/2020/7/2/21310109/ch...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53491223
| pope_meat wrote:
| CHOP was fine. Walked through there multiple times when
| it was happening because I was curious, it really does
| appear to me like media blowing things out of proportion
| for clicks/views.
| philwelch wrote:
| Aside from the half dozen people they shot, I guess.
| pope_meat wrote:
| What's the excuse for the shootings that happened in
| other areas that the police didn't abandon? Perhaps it's
| because shootings happen regardless?
|
| But you know, you're right, I'll take the news medias
| version of events, my eyes were lying to me, since what I
| witnessed doesn't jive with sensationalist news coverage.
| philwelch wrote:
| I'm glad you weren't there while any of the shootings
| were happening, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen.
| pope_meat wrote:
| I was, a man drove his car in to the crowd, when people
| tried to stop him he fired once out of his car. He ran
| past me on the way to the police line (the police hadn't
| abandoned the precinct yet).
|
| So, ironically enough, I was there for a shooting that
| happened while the police were still holding the area.
| standardUser wrote:
| Christiania has been operating in Copenhagen for generations
| and that's one of the wealthiest and healthiest cities on the
| planet.
| Zababa wrote:
| Christiana is very different from the areas the person you
| replied to described.
| blcknight wrote:
| This could just be titled "Nearly half of all new people are
| women!"
| vulcan01 wrote:
| First sentence of the article, emphasis mine:
|
| > Close to half of all new U.S. gun buyers since the beginning
| of 2019 have been women, _a shift for a market long dominated
| by men_ , according to a new study.
| rory wrote:
| Could it? The article says:
|
| > _For decades, other surveys have found that around 10% to 20%
| of American gun owners were women._
|
| ~15% -> ~47% is a pretty notable demographic shift IMO. Imagine
| if the same shift happened for new software engineers.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I dont think that's communicating the same trend.
| moate wrote:
| Not so fast! When it comes to demographics for groups, things
| don't always break down along populations. Think about how
| there we don't see women as ~51% of computer engineers.
|
| That said, previous numbers show that gun ownership by gender
| was about 2:1 in favor of men (45% of American men own guns vs
| 19% of women).
|
| This does show a pretty big spike in the number of women
| purchasing guns.
| pengaru wrote:
| I no longer visit my out of state sister since she became a gun
| enthusiast who goes to the shooting range regularly for the
| "muscle memory", to use her own words.
|
| It just didn't seem like a good idea anymore, considering my
| tendency to return home drunk in the wee hours on the weekends.
| Muscle memory, meet drunken brother repeatedly punching in the
| wrong alarm code @3AM, no thanks.
|
| The dog was better.
| TedShiller wrote:
| That's weird
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Hypothesis (which I have given about 30 seconds' thought): buying
| a gun was formerly a way to feel masculine, or to feel potent, or
| for use in a sport such as hunting or target shooting. In these
| situations, women found them to have little appeal.
|
| Recently, buying a gun is more often because of an actual concern
| for safety. Women are about as likely as men to feel concern
| about that. Hence, the numbers are now more equal.
|
| If this is the actual underlying reason, then these new gun
| buyers will be less likely to buy a second, third, fourth, etc.
| gun. Like someone who just buys a car to get around, and thus is
| less likely to have an urge to get a new one every year, the new
| gun buyers of 2019-2021 will be more likely to only buy another
| gun if there is something wrong with the old one.
|
| Again, I gave it about 30 seconds' thought, but that's my guess.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Statistically women should have much less concern for safety
| since they are less involved in violent altercations and men in
| general don't tend to attack women, unlike what popular culture
| these days tries to make us believe
| Zababa wrote:
| > Women are about as likely as men to feel concern about that.
|
| I'd say they are actually even more concerned. A gun is a way
| to equalize the physical differences between men and women.
| 01100011 wrote:
| > a way to feel masculine, or to feel potent
|
| This smacks of the modern left's derision for self defense
| tools. It's a nicer way of saying someone has a gun to
| compensate for their genital insecurities. Guns are largely a
| tool to the people purchasing them. They are also mechanical
| objects which give pleasure to people who appreciate
| craftsmanship.
|
| I generally agree with your post, but I think it would be
| better without that biased(intentional or not) take.
|
| For what it's worth, marginalized groups have often armed
| themselves when they feel the state is unwilling or unable to
| protect them.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This smacks of the modern left's derision for self defense
| tools. It's a nicer way of saying someone has a gun to
| compensate for their genital insecurities.
|
| One of the biggest issues I have with the modern left is
| their tendency to let their prejudices dictate their
| perceptions like that. It's annoying and repulsive, and it
| should be embarrassing for people who say stuff like they
| "believe in science."
| ssully wrote:
| Luckily the modern left is the only group of people who let
| their prejudices dictate their perceptions.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Luckily the modern left is the only group of people who
| let their prejudices dictate their perceptions.
|
| I never said they had a monopoly, but I'm not going let
| them off the hook just because they've got competition.
| Their displays of that repulsive tendency also clash more
| harshly with their rhetoric.
| ssully wrote:
| Well enjoy your endless conflict, because what you
| describe as your biggest issues with the modern left is
| simply a trait (some would call a flaw) that affects all
| people. I would work on something more concrete when it
| comes to your issues with a political leaning if I were
| you.
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The difference being the modern right wears their
| prejudices on their sleeve, whereas the modern left
| hypocritically denounces prejudice, and then deploys
| prejudice at the drop of a hat when it supports their
| cause. See: discussions about whiteness, about men, about
| hetereosexuals, about Christians, about "Karens", etc.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| "[M]arginalized groups have often armed themselves when they
| feel the state is unwilling or unable to protect them."
|
| An example of this is calling to reduce policing, which
| probably would have the biggest (and very negative) impact in
| high crime areas. I believe gun sales increased rapidly
| starting last summer.
| Fogest wrote:
| I have watched a lot of videos from Peter Santenello [1] on
| YouTube. He takes a somewhat deep dive into a lot of
| communities that the traditional media typically fails to
| highlight or fails to do it properly. He has quite a few
| videos where he speaks with people in the "hood" or the
| "projects" in various places across America.
|
| In many of these videos he asks some of the people in these
| communities what they think about police. The response is
| often something along the lines of there being a "F the
| police" mentality, but at the same time they respect the
| good ones and still need their presence. So even the people
| living in the communities that are apparently most impacted
| by the police still are able to say positive things about
| them. Especially when they talk to any of the "elders" of
| these communities, they always preach the importance of the
| police in keeping their communities safe.
|
| So it begs the question, why do so many white people on the
| left constantly speak for these black communities? These
| communities never seem to actually say they want less
| policing in them. Yet it's something you hear all the time
| from the traditional media and from activist groups.
|
| Personally I am getting pretty sick of the white saviour
| complexes it seems like a lot of activist people have. They
| don't live in these communities and maybe have talked to a
| couple people, but that is enough for them to speak on
| behalf of a whole community. It's enough for them to go out
| in protest and riots on their "behalf". And the sad thing
| is that when black people in these communities speak out
| about this, they are usually attacked by the activist's and
| berated. I've seen seem people yelling racist slurs at
| black people at protests who oppose what is being
| protested. It's insane.
|
| The virtue signalling is insanely present these days and is
| super unproductive and harmful.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeterSantenello/videos
| ihsw wrote:
| The black communities are a captive audience -- they
| historically do not vote Republican and therefore
| Democrats of all stripes and sizes can spew vitriol
| without consequence.
|
| Pelosi famously chided AOC, saying "a glass of water with
| a (D) on it would get elected in her district."
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| > These communities never seem to actually say they want
| less policing in them.
|
| They do! They've been saying it a long time, but no one
| paid them any attention until George Floyd's life was
| slowly and casually extinguished by a police officer on
| camera. Go ask any black male from New York in their 20s
| or 30s what they think about "Stop and frisk" and the
| sense of being violated by over policing.
|
| Before you accuse me of having a "white saviour" complex,
| I'm black. Speaking of "saviour", I'm curious to know if
| you have experienced american policing, outside of
| youtube? No snark at all, this is a legitimate question.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I see your point, but I don't know another way to put it.
| It's like "why do men have swords on their wall more often
| than women"? Neither men nor women use swords in self-defense
| much anymore (at least not in the First World). But I would
| venture to say that there is at least a 10x factor of men vs.
| women having swords on their walls.
|
| By the way, I'm not politically left-wing, and I do have a
| few swords on my wall (although no firearms).
|
| I could see why you thought it was being said in this way,
| though. No offense intended; obviously there are many
| different reasons why a person might own a firearm.
| padastra wrote:
| There's a difference between "appeals to their masculine
| tendencies", which suggests they're baseline masculine and
| owning a gun matches it; versus "makes them feel
| masculine", which suggests they are baseline not masculine
| and are buying it to compensate.
| content_sesh wrote:
| The left (both modern and not) is much less self-defense
| averse than you think. There's plenty of leftist gun clubs;
| the Socialist Rifle Association and Redneck Revolt, formerly
| John Brown Gun Club, come to mind immediately.
|
| There's also the long history of unions literally going to
| war against capitalists, like in the Battle of Matewan.
|
| Also worth remembering that leftist groups like the BPP
| encouraging its members to legally own firearms led to
| significant gun control expansion in California.
| eigengrau5150 wrote:
| Good. Women should be armed. That way they can gutshoot
| conservative men who presume to try to control women's sex lives.
|
| LGBTQ people should be armed, too, so they can kneecap fundies.
|
| Everybody should be armed. The only good authoritarian is a dead
| authoritarian.
| [deleted]
| disneygibson wrote:
| God created (wo)man. Sam Colt made them equal.
|
| (This is an old tagline for a gun company, in case you are
| unfamiliar.)
| akomtu wrote:
| Some off topic here. The origin of word "man" is manas - an old
| word for mind. A man is basically any creature with mind.
| sharklazer wrote:
| If it ain't censorship, I don't know but this went from front
| page to page 3 in 5 minutes or less.
|
| This is why I'm growing more and more discontent with HN.
|
| Either it was unpopular with the crowd, or the mods. Either way,
| though, f** manipulated discourse and whoever is instrumentally
| responsible.
| [deleted]
| sharklazer wrote:
| I guess I get systemic downvotes for this.
| smoldesu wrote:
| There's nothing particularly systemic about it, I'd imagine a
| low-karma, paywalled post with 100 comments gets sandbagged
| instantly on this site, and the number of downvoted comments
| in this thread certainly don't help it's case.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Whenever things don't go your way, make sure to claim
| censorship at every possible opportunity...
| pixxel wrote:
| This is why I view HN via RSS. It delivers the top posts even
| if posts are flagged.
|
| >This is why I'm growing more and more discontent with HN.
|
| You're not alone. In fact HN is my last real contact with the
| mainstream curated internet. I left Twitter etc. some 6-7 years
| ago. My days here are numbered due to relentless injection of
| politics.
| tpush wrote:
| No conspiracy needed; Any thread with more comments than
| upvotes gets down-ranked by the flame war detector. Happens all
| the time, for good reasons.
| fouric wrote:
| HN is a community-driven news aggregator, where the community
| decides what stuff they want to see on the front page. "I want
| this on the front page" is done using upvotes, while "I don't
| want this on the front page" is done using flags - which are
| weighted _more_ heavily than upvotes.
|
| Also, as others have said, the HN algorithm penalizes things
| with more comments than upvotes.
|
| Finally, the mods (dang and...one other) tend to take a _very_
| light touch with respect to moderation.
|
| You can decide that you don't like the community (personally, I
| think that HN started its Eternal September 5-ish years ago),
| but I don't think that this counts as "manipulated discourse".
| throw123123123 wrote:
| Bojack ahead of the curve:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eG0y_nb5IA
| threshold wrote:
| And they're half of the population so....
| macrowhat wrote:
| For all the cry babies on the forum saying you can't defend
| against the government anyways, how would not having guns make
| that any easier?
|
| Also fuck you.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Giving women guns wouldn't prevent rape: it would land women in
| jail
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/23/dana-l...
|
| Guns Are Bad for Women:
| https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a18666337/nra...
| rpmisms wrote:
| Sounds like sexism to me.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| There's no substance to the _Harper 's Bazzar_ article, and
| _The Guardian_ one cites two cases, one I 'm not familiar with,
| but the other was a clear case of attempted murder that got so
| notorious the woman was given a pass in the end.
|
| Key detail in that case: when you withdraw from a heated
| situation, retrieve a gun from your vehicle, and go back to it
| and shoot at the person you're arguing with, you're not exactly
| demonstrating legitimate self-defense.
|
| Needless to say they don't list _any_ cases where things went
| right for a woman defending herself. Do you believe there are
| absolutely none of those? Do you follow any news sources that
| would even cover them??
| smoldesu wrote:
| I wonder if part of the driving force behind this is simply that
| men have purchased more guns in the past. Firearms are heirlooms
| in most families, and a hunting father is always want to expose
| their son to the craft. Men simply have more avenues to get guns
| from, with the strange way our social structure is organized.
|
| It will be interesting to watch the concept of weapon ownership
| be emasculated over the next few years, I can only wonder how the
| traditionalists will react in the long term.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Firearms are heirlooms in most families,
|
| I assume that cheap stuff outnumbers nice stuff by a few orders
| of magnitude, just like every other consumer facing industry.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I assume that cheap stuff outnumbers nice stuff by a few
| orders of magnitude, just like every other consumer facing
| industry.
|
| Depends on when it was made. Stuff made in the 70s and
| earlier are very high quality. Probably just like every other
| consumer facing industry. Even today, you can find cheap
| guns, but they're still made mostly of steel and they have to
| survive an explosion, so they're pretty sturdy.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Less that you'd think so, there's strict limits to how cheap
| you can make guns while their still being safe. Heirloom
| grade guns, though, not so much, nobody is going to treat a
| Glock as one unless it acquired that through its importance
| to a family over the years. Like one inexpensive and very
| worn 1930s .22LR I have that was first owned by my
| grandfather; still works very well though and doesn't look
| really bad or anything.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >there's strict limits to how cheap you can make guns while
| their still being safe
|
| We are nowhere near that limit.
|
| Handguns are hundred year old technology with few parts
| requiring good machining tolerances and lend themselves
| well to being manufactured in the cheapest places on earth.
|
| The fact that a bottom dollar handgun in the may cost as
| much as a bottom dollar replacement engine for a piece of
| power equipment that has many more parts, many more
| features requiring fairly precise machining, requires far
| more assembly and is many times larger is a testament to
| the cost of complying with industry regulation.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Kind of. The "Saturday Night Special", a racist term for a
| cheap handgun, generally refers to a Hi-Point or similar
| cheap polymer pistol, and used to refer to inexpensive
| revolvers. An heirloom may be a nice bolt-action or a Colt
| 1911 from one of the World Wars. Most modern guns are _very_
| good, though, especially compared to even 20 years ago. The
| Sig Sauer P365 is a great example, fitting 10+1 rounds of 9mm
| ammo into a complete package that would have barely fit 7+1
| of .380 just 10 years ago.
| deelowe wrote:
| The community has thus far been extremely supportive of women.
| Some of the most popular competitive shooters are females.
| Sporting clays is extremely popular with women now. Lena
| Miculek especially has made quite a name for herself.
|
| Despite what the media likes to portray, the gun community
| isn't a bunch of racist rednecks and tends to be a very open
| and welcoming group. Just don't bring up politics...
| smoldesu wrote:
| I grew up attending a Rod and Gun club where that was
| certainly not the case. Women were outright not allowed to
| register unless they married in, and the misogyny was
| palpable. That's just my personal experience, but I have yet
| to meet another group that rivals their level of gatekeeping.
| merpnderp wrote:
| Surely this wasn't the birthplace of Annie Oakley, Calamity
| Jane, Belle Star, Harriet Tubman, etc etc etc.
| opaidsj9123 wrote:
| I really think this is a great development. The only political
| cause I have ever donated to is gun rights, as I essentially
| view it as the canary in the coal mine for civil liberties in
| america. I would like to see gun owners as diverse as possible.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I would assume this is strictly a function of the more recent
| polarization of the political spectrum. I read the paper but it
| doesn't break down all the numbers in a more detailed way.
| macrowhat wrote:
| Also, what the fuck does this have to do with tech?
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Guns are the great equalizer. Women don't have equal rights until
| they are equally capable of defending themselves.
| onethought wrote:
| All the countries that have greater gender equality have strict
| control of firearms.
|
| (Sorry for the inconvenient facts down voters)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Inequality_Index
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Gun's per capita seems to be very high on that list?
|
| Top 3 (all per 100 persons)
|
| 1. Switzerland 26.3
|
| 2. Norway 28.8
|
| 3. Finland 32.4
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g.
| ..
| onethought wrote:
| Is guns per capita how you measure gun control?
|
| - do you factor in urban vs rural gun ownership?
|
| - do you factor type of gun?
|
| - do you factor whether ammunition is available for those
| guns?
|
| My earlier statement still holds true.
| foofoo4u wrote:
| Ironically Switzerland is #1 on that list -- a country with
| one of the most liberal policies on firearm ownership. This
| video shows what a typical store in Switzerland is like and
| what is available for purchase
| https://youtu.be/UOErri-3Z5E?t=538.
| natmaka wrote:
| Doesn't 'strict control' imply that few legally detain guns?
|
| Gender Inequality Index: #1 (best nation) is Switzerland.
| This country is shock-full of firearms, there is an assault
| rifle in many (most?) homes (a weird way to 'control', in my
| opinion).
|
| #2 is Norway, where 9% of the population legally owns 1.3
| million guns (population: 5.4 million)
|
| #3 Finland. 12% of Finns legally detain a firearm
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Switzerland's famous assault rifles are not kept with
| ammunition, and are mostly useless. (I suppose you could
| bludgeon a home invader with one.) Firearms are more
| heavily regulated there than in most of Europe.
|
| "He shakes out the gun holster. "And we don't get bullets
| any more," he adds. "The Army doesn't give ammunition now -
| it's all kept in a central arsenal." This measure was
| introduced by Switzerland's Federal Council in 2007."
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Question I've never been able to get an answer to,
| although I haven't tried hard: is it illegal to keep your
| own supply of ammo for the rifle?
|
| Possibly confounding issue: with the new SIG 550 the ammo
| was changed to use lead free primers, just like the GP 11
| 1911 ammo was changed to use non-corrosive primers far
| ahead of other nations (in the US, our first example was
| for the WWII M1 carbine). I wonder if the Army discovered
| those primers didn't last as long as projected....
| itsme-alan wrote:
| Guns are not the way to do anything
| opaidsj9123 wrote:
| I sincerely wish they were not necessary. However we live in
| a world where people are attacked, raped, and murdered with
| enough frequency that owning a gun to defend yourself is
| reasonable.
| onethought wrote:
| Which world/country are you referring to?
| stuff4ben wrote:
| You live in a place where none of that happens? Really?
| abestic9 wrote:
| People around the world are living in places where guns
| are not used as a solution to crime. There are many in
| fact that view guns as more of a problem than a solution.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Nice job not answering the question. If you're being
| raped or mugged, would you rather A) wait until it's over
| to call the police who may or may not do anything or B)
| defend yourself with a gun before you are raped or
| mugged? There is a third answer C) have physical/martial
| training to fight your way out of it, but never bring a
| fist to a gun or knife fight.
|
| A gun is not a "solution to crime" as you said. In the
| hands of a potential victim, it is a "preventative from
| the crime ever happening".
| abestic9 wrote:
| I can see why anti-rape self-defense is a popular
| rhetoric as gun ownership has indeed prevented crimes,
| and not being raped is a very good thing. Unfortunately,
| it's also used often as an emotional sales tactic,
| causing people who shouldn't be in possession of a gun to
| be in possession of one, resulting in unnecessary injury
| and death.
|
| Coupled with the fact that even if you arm every single
| person capable with a gun, there's still going to be
| crime, you have to consider a balance. Some countries are
| doing very well without them.
| AustinDev wrote:
| I leave thousands of dollars of firearms out on a bench
| feet behind me at the shooting range every time I go. So
| do countless other shooters. I've never personally
| witnessed a crime at a shooting range or even read of
| one. Why do you think that is if not for the 100%
| guarantee that everyone is armed at the range?
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _causing people who shouldn 't be in possession of a gun
| to be in possession of one, resulting in unnecessary
| injury and death._
|
| Figures on injuries are iffy in the US, for example the
| degree involved, but death is binary and since 1980
| accidental deaths from firearms have gone from 800 to 500
| a year, at the same time both the number of people in the
| US have increased by 50% and percentage armed have
| increased by even more. The latter probably due to the
| nationwide sweep of "shall issue" or better concealed
| carry regimes in states, now covering 42 states and ~75%
| of the nation's people.
|
| One of the reasons this is a red hot issue it that it's
| the _only_ failure of the Left 's in its culture war on
| the Right, and it's a very big failure.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Pretty sure the Taliban disagrees.
| [deleted]
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Tell that to the criminal with guns breaking into your home
| and taking all your property.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| In unequal power situations, guns are mighty useful. A world
| where no one needs firearms is a nice ideal, but
| unfortunately we don't live in that world. The police cannot
| be trusted to show up anywhere in time to defend you, and in
| fact might shoot you instead of whoever is attacking you
| anyway.
|
| Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or
| reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal
| consequences? Yes. Should we work towards a world where no
| one feels the need to own a firearm for self defence?
| Absolutely.
|
| But saying that firearms "are not the way to do anything" is
| just denying reality.
| tootie wrote:
| Women have been fighting for representation in government,
| pay equality, education equality. None of those are helped
| by owning a gun. How many women have had their access to
| personal development opportunities restricted by their
| inability to apply deadly force? I'm guessing it's a
| trivially small number.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > How many women have had their access to personal
| development opportunities restricted by their inability
| to apply deadly force?
|
| The dead ones.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| It makes it a lot more _expensive,_ shall I say, for the
| opposing side to rid themselves of such turbulent
| agitators.
|
| There's memorials to people who were killed during the
| Civil Rights era; there's not very many names on them,
| around 33 for the first I heard of, 41 for the SPLC's
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Memorial and
| it includes a number that aren't relevant to my point.
| One reason for this is because a lot of them including
| Eleanor Roosevelt were armed.
| soco wrote:
| Somehow I never read news about "rapist shot dead by
| attacked woman". Are you positive that buying more firearms
| will make it happen? Because it definitely doesn't look
| we're there yet.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| They do exist, but Youtube's algo won't suggest them
| unless that is something you are already interested in. I
| find videos almost weekly of store owners and individuals
| defending themselves. The people that have training and
| experience with their tools are usually able to
| successfully fend off the attackers.
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| > Kristen McMains, a 25-year-old lawyer in Louisville,
| Kentucky, first became suspicious that John Ganobcik was
| stalking her when she traversed the skywalk connecting
| her office building to the parking garage across the
| street. She felt her fears were confirmed when she
| boarded an elevator and the suspicious man followed --
| but did not press a button. When the doors opened on the
| fourth level of the parking garage, she bolted for her
| car, and Ganobcik sprinted after her.
|
| > Before McMains could get in her car, her attacker
| caught up, slammed her head, and jabbed at her with an
| eight-inch rusty serrated knife. He forced her into the
| passenger seat and said, "We're going." Fearing rape and
| murder, McMains fought viciously to escape, tearing off
| all 10 of her fingernails in the struggle, but she was
| unable to escape. Desperate, she told Ganobcik that she
| had just cashed a check and could offer him money. When
| she reached for her purse, instead of money, she pulled
| out the .32 Beretta Tomcat her father had bought for her.
|
| > At first, it failed to fire, but McMains kept pulling
| the trigger and ultimately she shot Ganobcik in the neck
| and the buttocks. He fled, and a passerby called 911.
| Eventually, Ganobcik pled guilty to robbery and attempted
| kidnapping, receiving a 15-year prison sentence. McMains'
| use of force was immediately recognized as justified.
|
| https://ccwsafe.com/blog/the-kristen-mcmains-case-pt3
| a_conservative wrote:
| If an attacker is stopped before it happens, we don't
| really know if it would have been a rape or a mugging or
| an assault.
|
| Don't take my post as fact, please research this and come
| up with your own opinion. Let it simmer a bit in your
| mind. You can call me crazy later, just let it percolate
| for a little bit first!
|
| Here are my thoughts (or hypotheses, if you will):
|
| Guns are a very political topic. There are narratives in
| place on both sides of the aisle. Most news is reported
| in service to the narratives that outlet supports.
|
| Do the news sources you consume ever tell you about about
| defensive gun usage? In any context? These stories aren't
| hard to find if you look for them.
| merpnderp wrote:
| There is a plethora of research and data attempting to
| estimate how many crimes are stopped/deterred beforehand
| merely by the presence of a firearm by the victim. None
| of these estimates are small.
|
| Research questioning prisoners why they don't commit home
| invasions list the presence of firearms in the home as
| the number one reason. My state has very few home
| invasions and nearly all of them are drug/gang related.
| AustinDev wrote:
| There dozens of defensive uses of firearms daily. Many
| don't result in shooting and even when they do they
| rarely make local news and certainly not beyond. There
| are a few sources that are trying to catalog these events
| I'll try to snag one when I'm not on mobile. I've had to
| use a firearm before and it was never reported because no
| one got shot.
| jabedude wrote:
| Have you considered that you don't hear about those
| defensive uses because your sources of news simply don't
| report them?
|
| 1. https://www.fox13memphis.com/top-stories/teen-tries-
| to-rape-...
|
| 2. https://www.foxnews.com/us/south-carolina-mother-
| of-3-shoots...
|
| 3. https://www.azfamily.com/news/us_world_news/police-
| woman-sho...
|
| 4. https://www.al.com/news/anniston-
| gadsden/2015/04/17-year-old...
|
| 5. https://myfox8.com/news/nc-grandfather-shoots-home-
| invaders-...
|
| 6. https://www.kltv.com/2019/12/05/tyler-police-arrive-
| scene-fi...
| igetspam wrote:
| It happens but even the six stores a month in American
| Rifleman aren't statistically significant, when compared
| to the number of "bad person kills less bad/good person"
| numbers or "accidental shooting death" numbers.
|
| > in 2020, there have been unintentional shootings by
| over 220 children. This has resulted in 92 deaths and 135
| injuries
|
| Math is hard...
| jabedude wrote:
| You should look up the numbers of yearly defensive gun
| uses in the United States. The CDC reports 60,000 to 2.5
| million defensive gun uses each year
| eweise wrote:
| "Police: Woman shoots, kills man peeping into her bedroom
| window"
|
| Maybe she could have just called the police? Or take a
| picture of him and post on NextDoor, which is what
| happens in our neighborhood. Of course, it always turns
| out to be a misunderstanding; the Amazon delivery guy
| trying to figure out if someone's home so they can leave
| a package. But at least they are just publicly shamed on
| the web instead of dead from a gunshot wound.
| jabedude wrote:
| The article is short on details but it's possible she did
| call the police. Other articles explored the possibility
| the woman knew the man, which would bolster a claim of
| self defense (a stalker, abusive ex-lover, etc)
| moduspol wrote:
| It's also possible that she's tried that in the past, but
| given that the guy would be watching her as she does it,
| it may not be super practical to expect him to wait
| around for the police to arrive.
|
| And I don't know how many times the police have to be
| called for this only to show up and find nothing before
| they stop promptly sending an officer for new reports.
| nradov wrote:
| In most incidents where people use firearms to protect
| themselves no shots are fired, just brandishing the
| weapon is enough. Those incidents don't make the news.
|
| Buy if you're looking for an actual news story, here's
| one.
|
| https://www.wtol.com/article/news/local/resident-shoots-
| woul...
| derstander wrote:
| > just brandishing the weapon is enough
|
| The comment is probably not meant this way, but
| brandishing has connotations of anger, excitement, or
| intimidation.
|
| I would caution one not to do this as it may be illegal
| in your jurisdiction. Only draw a firearm with the intent
| to use it, not with the intent to intimidate. Certainly,
| the intent to use it may have a side effect of
| intimidating an aggressor -- I don't dispute that.
| rpmisms wrote:
| You don't pull a gun unless you intend to use it. The law
| recognizes this. If you pull the gun with justified
| intent, and you end up not having to use it, that's just
| a happy circumstance. This has happened to me.
| carlob wrote:
| Are you aware of the fact that there is a number of
| countries where the average police officer is unarmed as
| well?
| Clubber wrote:
| The patrolmen are unarmed, police with rifles are just a
| radio call away though.
| Balero wrote:
| You need to have the big "I consider America the world"
| disclaimer at the top.
|
| A world where a regular person in their everyday life do
| not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the
| police? are you the military? and if so are you currently
| working? If not then you do not need a gun.
|
| The police all over the world do show up when needed, and
| the don't shoot people unless it is a complete last resort.
| In the very rare case you are a person that is being
| attacked, they're even trained so well they don't shoot the
| person attacking you and can deal with it in better ways.
|
| The only thing firearms help an average person do is
| compete in a shooting competition. Take a look at the rest
| of the developed world and realise that your thoughts on
| this only apply to one country.
| true_religion wrote:
| I agree with the OP, but I am not in America. Sadly, my
| nation definitely wouldn't be considered a developed
| country (we are in the 60s or 70s by GDP).
|
| So maybe instead of the OPs thoughts only applying the
| one country, maybe your thoughts only apply to one
| continent: Europe?
|
| Now with respect to the article, my sisters are very
| interested in gun ownership because in their own words
| "no one needs guns _just_ to protect against robberies".
| And I agree, for peace of mind when it comes to bodily
| safety it's better to trust yourself instead of being
| forced to trust crime statistics and police response
| times.
|
| To correct one fallacy, brandishing a gun is largely
| unnecessary. If you brandish, you might as well use.
| However, knowing that you are armed can give you the
| courage and confidence that puts off attackers. For the
| most part these guys are opportunistic, and only escalate
| when they are sure someone is defenseless.
| merpnderp wrote:
| Whenever I hear about how the rest of the world doesn't
| need guns I always think of the Mexican avacado farmers
| who used (highly illegal) guns to protect their farms
| from cartels because the government can't protect them.
|
| Always funny when a European corrects an American that
| the rest of the world is not America, as it is obviously
| Paris.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Kinda surprised Parisians weren't busy arming themselves
| to the teeth after the Bataclan.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Useless unless you also have the right to bear them into
| potential death traps like a theater.
|
| Very needed when like in Bataclan the authorities take a
| secure the parameter and wait approach, like for
| Columbine and the Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando,
| Florida massacres. Or when the closest authorities cower
| in fear as in the Stoneman high school shooting (that was
| addressed by police units from further away).
| a_conservative wrote:
| Many ignore that the authorities always have guns. The
| only question is whether the civilians are able to have
| them too!
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| In London, unarmed police stood and watched as a man was
| beheaded in broad daylight in front of a crowd.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Funny because your link directly contradicts the version
| of events you put forward. Not only was he killed before
| the police arrived but the two attackers were shot by
| armed police very shortly after the regular police
| arrived and prevented any other mayhem. AND a whole bunch
| of unarmed regular people intervened as well.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Not only was he killed before the police arrived
|
| I don't know if that can be proven. He never had a
| medical assessment that established that at the time, and
| everyone involved would have had incentive to say he was
| already dead to avoid initiating a confrontation with the
| armed attackers.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Okay he was attacked and left for dead by the attackers
| (although the bystanders who helped said he was dead at
| that point after the fact) who didn't further attack him
| before the police arrived or after they arrived. It
| doesn't make your version any less completely counter-
| factual because no police were there when Lee was
| attacked and they did in fact later successfully
| intervene to stop them doing anything further.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| I've seen enough videos of the unarmed British police
| getting their ass handed to them by crazy Somali's with
| nothign but a knife to realize that yes, the police need
| guns.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > A world where a regular person in their everyday life
| do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you
| the police? are you the military? and if so are you
| currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.
|
| Someone upthread made a good point: a regular person in
| their everyday life does not need a fire extinguisher.
| Most people go their whole lives without ever using one.
|
| Several months ago I listened to a story about Myanmar on
| (I think) NPR's The World. After the coup and after the
| military started shooting protesters, many urban pro-
| democracy activists sensibly realized that nonviolent
| action wasn't going to work, and headed out of the city
| to get trained by some ethic rebel groups in the
| countryside.
|
| However, when they were done with their training they had
| to do back home unarmed. Myanmar has strict gun control,
| and the rebels didn't have any guns to spare.
|
| So, in summary: you don't need a gun _until you do_.
|
| Edit: I think this is the story:
| https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-06-02/souring-peace-
| marches...
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Do you have a right to defend yourself when your life is
| threatened and fleeing is not an option? If so, then why
| should your physical stature limit you?
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| "Political power flows from the barrel of the gun."
| seneca wrote:
| That is an extremely naive view of the world.
|
| Many places in the world have long response times for police.
| A home invader is now going to wait patiently for the police
| to come save you.
|
| Revolutions against tyrannical government are quite difficult
| for an unarmed population.
|
| Many poor families feed themselves via hunting. I personally
| grew up in that situation and know many people who still
| experience it.
| eplanit wrote:
| Tell that to a home invader who just kicked in your front
| door at 2am.
| ryan93 wrote:
| If a women shots and kills her abuser how can he abuse her
| when he is dead?
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/in-the-
| news/women-...
| jsudi wrote:
| Then those women should also buy a silencer and a bag of
| caustic soda.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Dont tell me what i already know
| ryan93 wrote:
| It would literally solve the problem though. Police
| should really be able to install hidden cameras at the
| request of abuse victims.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| They're an excellent way to stop an aggressor.
|
| >God made man, and Sam Colt made them equal!
| [deleted]
| AnEro wrote:
| I thought that too, then I saw LA police slowly drive past a
| trans woman screaming for help to flag them down as her and
| her friends were getting mugged, which lead later to assault.
| There's video evidence since the mugger was on insta live and
| recording it to get clout, then a friend assaulted another
| trans woman on as their friends laughed at her. That logic
| works if you can trust the police to do the bare minimum.
|
| With video evidence, and the assailants live-streaming
| repeatedly after from their apartments bragging about the
| assault, trying to hype up their rap career. It took weeks to
| get the police to do anything about it, where they would tell
| the women that they had no leads despite the livestreams.
|
| If someone I'm with or myself is allowed to have a gun I
| prefer it.
| AustinDev wrote:
| Police will never protect you. If you want to be able to
| defend yourself and your family either be rich enough to
| have private security or train to use a gun, if you have
| the right. Many of our offices are guarded by guys with
| guns and many of the anti-gun advocates you see on TV have
| bodyguards with guns.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| I'm reminded of this Thomas Carlyle quote: "The real use of
| gunpowder is to make all men tall."
| bm3719 wrote:
| Excellent. There's no reason defensive gun buyers should be
| demographically different from the general population. It's
| understandable that gun sales for hunting or other activities
| might show differences, but we all have the same personal
| security needs.
|
| Side note: I'm one of the people here with a large collection of
| firearms. One thing to realize when you see the statistic that
| the US has more firearms than people is that only a percentage of
| them are really combat worthy/capable. Most of my collection, for
| example, are collectable historic pieces, or dedicated
| target/sporting firearms. Some of these could feasibly be pressed
| into service if you had absolutely nothing else, but they would
| be extremely sub-optimal for the task.
| standardUser wrote:
| For decades I have lived deep in the heart of some of the
| densest cities in the country (SF and NYC). These are places
| with serious and obvious crime problems that I have seen up
| close and personal, day in and day out. Yet to me, despite
| these experiences, the entire concept of "personal security
| needs" involving firearms is absolutely absurd. It sounds like
| a Monty Python sketch. Silly to the point of absurdity.
|
| But, I don't deny that tens of millions of Americans do
| genuinely think that owning a firearm is a legitimate security
| precaution. Even though they mostly live in vastly, vastly
| safer zip codes.
| malwrar wrote:
| Using city life as baseline to measure personal safety needs
| ignores the fact that living in a city safely usually is a
| matter of luck & avoiding places like the tenderloin in SF,
| the west & south sides in Chicago, etc. There's also cops
| that are minutes away, and worst case violent people
| typically want your valuables more than your life.
|
| I grew up in Chicago, but I also spent my summers living on
| my grandparents' farm in a deep rural area. It's just a
| different experience out there when you're alone in the
| middle of nowhere surrounded by occasionally hostile wildlife
| and occasionally some pretty weird people. There's much less
| room for avoidance or flight from danger, which makes guns
| feel useful to carry. I still feel naked hiking unarmed in
| California.
| bm3719 wrote:
| Not sure how anyone can respond to your assertion that it's
| silly and absurd. I'm fine with you feeling that way as long
| as you don't try to restrict my right to own them.
|
| I guess one thing I can say is that security needs indeed are
| met by firearms, including yours to the degree that the
| police or private security protect you. So, it shouldn't be
| too foreign of a concept to anyone. Some of us choose to
| extend that protection to our homes and person, and take
| responsibility over it to varying degrees.
| Fogest wrote:
| > Even though they mostly live in vastly, vastly safer zip
| codes.
|
| Do they though? Not sure where you got this information from.
| And are we talking legal gun ownership or guns in general?
| Because even in the "hood" and the "projects" it's quite
| common for people to be "strapped". Those guns may often not
| be legal, but they are also still carrying them for self-
| defense in most cases. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if
| these communities had a much higher percentage of weapons. I
| am sure you'd feel a lot safer walking at night in a low
| income neighbourhood if you had that kind of protection and I
| could definitely understand why someone would want to walk
| around armed.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| You live somewhere with strict gun laws, and in your own
| words, serious and obvious crime problems.
|
| You think the people living in much safer places have a
| viewpoint that's "silly to the point of absurdity".
|
| Yet, they're the ones living somewhere with _much_ lower
| crime and murder rates.
|
| How is this an argument for the efficacy of your preferred
| policies?
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| Or, the fact that you don't really know a particular gun fits
| you until you buy it and use it for a decent period of time. I
| have 6 different semi-automatic pistols because it's hard to
| find the right fit. Personally, it takes me 1000 rounds or so,
| plus 8+ hours of draw practice to feel comfortable with a given
| platform. Finally, selling used guns kinda sucks so I just end
| up keeping them.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Your standard of combat is obscenely high. Any weapon that can
| kill an animal can be used quite well against humans in
| defense.
|
| Would they be standard issue arms for a modern army?
| Irrelevant.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Your comment seems to be a bit of a non sequitur. GP said
| they were not combat-worthy due to being
| collectibles/antiques, not due to... whatever it is you're
| talking about.
|
| Among my collection is a 100-year-old 16ga. H&R single-barrel
| shotgun passed down through four generations. It hasn't been
| fired in decades, and hasn't seen an armorer in longer than
| that. Not only is there no semi-auto, there is no magazine at
| all, and even if you'd be willing to go to war with something
| that needed to be manually reloaded after every shot, I am
| not altogether convinced the breach wouldn't explode upon
| firing.
| bm3719 wrote:
| This is correct. My current collectables (C&R and antique)
| are all capable of being fired, but I almost never do due
| to their value and risk of damaging them. Many are over 100
| years old and there's a decent enough chance some
| irreplaceable part will break during use. I can also easily
| reduce their value by 1000s of dollars by doing something
| like this. I keep them because I enjoy their historical
| significance and the interesting mechanical solutions they
| embody, not for their ability to launch projectiles. When
| I'm ready to go to the nursing home, I'll sell them and get
| my money back or more.
|
| A good percentage of the firearms out there are like this,
| which was my point for those not aware. Another good
| percentage are specialized for sporting use. Some are so
| inappropriate for combat that you'd be better off with a
| spear (e.g., if given the choice between a 50lb benchrest
| rifle and a spear, I'll take the spear).
| xdennis wrote:
| I've never touched a gun, but as far as a know hunting
| weapons are not optimal for self defense.
|
| When you hunt a deer you try to hit from far away and if you
| miss, well, you'll find another.
|
| When someone is trying to harm you (even with a knife), you
| want to shoot multiple times and as fast as possible. If you
| shoot once and miss, by the time you manually reload, the
| attacker can get to you. If you do hit, but with a small
| caliber, that doesn't have stopping power. You might
| seriously injure the attacker, but he'll also injure/kill
| you.
| Zababa wrote:
| Sure, but if I had to choose between a hunting rifle and a
| knife I would still take the hunting rifle.
| rpmisms wrote:
| But if the choice comes down to a hunting rifle, a knife,
| and a Glock 19, I'm going to choose the option that will
| put the threat down quickly and humanely.
| bm3719 wrote:
| Between the two, I might go with the knife in most
| situations. I can't carry my hunting rifle around with me
| all day. Mine also has a huge scope on it that makes it
| useless at the distances you would typically encounter a
| hostile human attacker. The rifle is also overpowered for
| the job, and introduces concern for damage to unintended
| targets.
| kube-system wrote:
| Some old collectables are not safely operable against any
| target. Some simply aren't operable. Even if they're not worn
| out from use or disrepair, the chemistry of ammunition has
| changed over the years and it may not be safe to use with
| modern ammunition. For others, commercially made ammunition
| might not be available at all.
|
| Yes, people have been killed by old antique guns. But most of
| them in this category them are rotting away in attics or
| forgotten in safes. They're certainly not what is
| predominantly being used in street crime.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| I don't know, if a military goes rogue, they'll go for the gun
| owners first. I don't know how many of the contributors here have
| been to the army, but if you have been, you will know that some
| shotguns and guns won't go far against military arsenals. It
| might help a bit against police forces, but military? Forget it.
| To even compete with a military force, you need coordination and
| logistics.
|
| And this is one of the reasons why I am against civilian gun
| carriage:
|
| https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/b9b/49f/034f952656161db66b95...
|
| I am in Europe and have lived in some LATAM places where
| everyone, everyone carries a gun or has a couple of them at home,
| the law be damned. It's a bit better in the US, as the poverty in
| the US is not as widespread, but I believe a peaceful society
| should be without guns, police can have them, military can have
| them. If that don't work, you need a revolution or run away
| anyway, and a Glock won't do much there.
| Bhilai wrote:
| A friend of our family recently bought a gun and that made me ask
| them why. Their response was of course personal safety at which
| point I asked them some more questions and turns out they keep
| the gun in a gun safe and bullets in another location so as to
| not cause any accidents as they have kids. But this practice
| seemed utterly useless if their home was being actively being
| robbed/attacked since they wont have the time to go fetch
| bullets/gun and most likely they ll end getting their weapon
| robbed as well.
|
| They also don't carry it everywhere they go so its mostly a
| trophy in a safe.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I leave my guns around the house when I'm home, but I don't
| have kids. When I do, the guns will be locked away safely,
| either inside my waistband or in a safe, and the dog will be
| the first line of defense until the safe is opened.
|
| This is standard practice until kids are old enough to learn
| gun safety and be trusted around guns, so 6-10 years old,
| depending on the kid.
|
| Please note that I'm predicating this on the kids receiving
| actual training, not saying "don't touch". Children should be
| able to fully field-strip every gun in the house as soon as
| they can handle it, and the 4 rules are paramount.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I imagine the friend may believe that being confident in one's
| ability to use guns safely and effectively is also a hedge
| against danger, independent of the utility of that specific
| gun. That specific gun may make training and becoming confident
| with guns possible. Playing it conservatively with storage and
| handling as a someone new to firearms seems like the reasonable
| path.
| Fogest wrote:
| They also have kids so it sounds like that plays into why
| they would be extra cautious. Maybe they are willing to risk
| that extra time needed to have the gun out for protection if
| it means they don't have to worry about their kids getting
| ahold of their gun.
| zepto wrote:
| > Playing it conservatively with storage and handling as a
| someone new to firearms seems like the reasonable path.
|
| More than reasonable. Highly recommended. Just like driving a
| car, it takes some practice to routinely handle guns in a
| safe way. Even if you eventually become an expert who is
| comfortable with having a loaded gun available at all times,
| it's a great idea to respect your own level of knowledge, and
| to take time to develop practices that make sure nobody else
| can gain access to your gun.
| zeteo wrote:
| You're probably overestimating how fast a home invasion can
| proceed. Unless the intruders are completely silent and/or have
| perfect information about the home layout and people's
| locations in it, it will take them quite a few minutes to round
| up everyone.
| zepto wrote:
| Yup, and common advice by well known firearms experts is not
| to confront intruders, but to retreat to a known location,
| ideally upstairs and call the police.
|
| Only if the intruders seem like they are going to come up the
| stairs do you announce that you have a gun and that the
| police are on their way.
|
| The purpose of the gun is not to kill the intruders. It is to
| deter them from approaching you and your family, and make it
| preferable for them to leave.
| rpmisms wrote:
| This is correct, guns are a last resort. They come out when
| your life is directly in danger, and you shoot to kill, not
| wound. Most scenarios, like the one I was in, are resolved
| without a shot being fired.
|
| Edit: I don't believe this warrants downvoting. I'm sharing
| useful information that would be covered in any Concealed
| Carry class.
| mmmpop wrote:
| This is correct and any good conceal-carry instructor will
| make this clear. If your home state does not recognize some
| form of the "castle doctrine", you can only use deadly
| force if you believe you're in actual danger. If someone
| breaks in and you gun them down without being presented
| with a threat, you're most likely going to jail. Even if
| you live in one of these states, you'd better hope you get
| a sympathetic jury and rightfully so.
| motohagiography wrote:
| I suspect that those women are realizing they can't reasonably
| rely on men for any kind of protection, as any kind of physical
| protection is basically illegal, taboo, and effectively bred out
| of the middle class now anyway, so it makes sense more women
| would take responsibility themselves.
|
| Gun purchases also correlate to perceptions of changes in social
| order as well, where there's a "get 'em before they're gone!"
| cycle in the political climate. This change in numbers is
| probably not significant compared to other gun purchase bumps in
| front of political threats for additional restrictions.
| [deleted]
| cdiamand wrote:
| Is it illegal, taboo, and bred out though?
|
| We live in a culture of glorified violence seen widely in film,
| print, pop culture. We've got an enormous catalog of shooter
| videogames going back decades that our youngster clamor to
| purchase and play.
|
| We've got a set of laws that allow you to take steps to defend
| yourself in your own home, with varying degrees of strictness
| and leniency.
|
| Anecdotally, I know many people in the middle class who, while
| abhorring violence, would defend themselves and their families.
|
| I'm not sure I agree.
| archontes wrote:
| A gentleman's cane used to be a bludgeon in addition to being
| a fashion accessory.
|
| Video games are the furthest thing from physical defense.
| They're amusement. Do you really think that playing video
| games leads to increased skill and confidence when engaging
| in a fistfight in the street?
|
| In schools in the US, children are punished for defending
| themselves in a fight. There is a vanishingly small
| percentage of people who have the practical experience to be
| comfortable physically battering a stranger on the street
| corner to a reasonable degree.
|
| I imagine that description will evoke the thought in your
| head that there is no reasonable degree, that physical
| violence isn't the answer, and that the right thing to do in
| a situation where you're physically accosted is to leave the
| area or call for security. Yep. That's what we're talking
| about. There's an amount of security provided by a man who's
| comfortable slapping another man in the head because the
| other man is being aggressive, if only because that comfort
| is communicated in non-verbal ways which subsequently make it
| unnecessary.
| Zababa wrote:
| > In schools in the US, children are punished for defending
| themselves in a fight.
|
| Not only in the US. In France, I had troubles in middle
| school because I reacted physically to bullying.
| danielrpa wrote:
| Maybe the comment refers to the changes in gender roles over
| the past decades. Our society no longer widely accepts the
| idea that women are fragile and men have the responsibility
| to protect them.
| motohagiography wrote:
| A bit of both. First, men aren't responsible for women, but
| also, the legal consequences for violence are aimed at
| punishing it for its own sake instead of recognizing that
| it is a necessary social deterrant, and removing it rewards
| certain kinds of predators.
|
| The bred-out part is that administrative institutional jobs
| that make up the middle class select for traits that
| disadvantage the skills and traits of traditionally
| masculine roles like soldiers, builders etc, and so the
| odds of your partner in a middle class job relationship
| having the physical presence to fend off a safety threat
| are less than they once may have been. The best these guys
| can do is threaten to sue. Hence, this story about women
| taking on responsibility for their own protection
| themselves.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _the legal consequences for violence are aimed at
| punishing it for its own sake instead of recognizing that
| it is a necessary social deterrant_
|
| Depends on where you live in the US; I don't think this
| is true for most of the country, but that's not clear to
| most people because the MSM is very anti-gun and very
| rarely reports on self-defense cases unless they're
| twisted into claimed crimes. Since there are millions of
| these every year, that statistic first gleaned from data
| collected by an anti-gun group....
| majani wrote:
| I agree on the illegality and taboo nature, but I strongly
| disagree with the breeding out. Stats show that Western
| societies are getting taller and heavier with time. All these
| giants walking around us could easily conjure up knockout power
| if they get enough adrenaline coarsing through their veins.
| sharklazer wrote:
| Everyone should own a gun, and most more than 1. If we were to
| maintain public education (which... just no, please) gun
| education should be standard.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| You sound like a gun industry rep.
|
| "Everyone should own a car" is what a car lobbyist says.
| "Everyone should own a gun" is what a gun lobbyist says.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend
| myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to
| lawfully defend themselves.
|
| So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of
| such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of
| unlawful or unintentional killings.
| briffle wrote:
| is that so strange? In 40+ years, I have never needed a
| seatbelt. I do know of 2 people that were prevented from
| escaping their car because of their seatbelt, and died. yet
| every time I get in a car, I put one on.
| oblio wrote:
| You've probably used it when braking hard, you just didn't
| realize it at the time due to the adrenaline pumping
| through you.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| To begin with you're creating a premise that the only reason
| gun legality can be justified is self defense, particularly
| against other people.
|
| I do not accept this premise. There are many other premises
| for gun legality.
|
| That said, when I was very young my grandfather had to shoot
| a number of stray dogs out his car window while driving
| through a rough pasture because they'd killed a couple calves
| and were attacking his cows. Some tried to bite the vehicles
| tires after the first shots. Gun used was a Ruger Mini-14
| Ranch Rifle. I didn't witness, but saw pictures, possibly
| originally taken for insurance purposes.
|
| He was not, under a very strict definition, defending
| himself. But it still seems very unproblematic to me.
|
| In many ways being adult enough to vote is synonymous with
| being adult enough to own a gun safely: the ballot box is as
| capable as any gun of unleashing horrors on the world.
| asdff wrote:
| Most people would have just called animal control
| nradov wrote:
| In most US counties animal control responds late or not
| at all. Obviously you can't seriously expect farmers to
| just wait around while feral dogs kill their livestock.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Even in a city I don't really think someone would sit and
| wait for animal control while a pack of strays attack a
| pet or try to break into a chicken coop (or something
| else similar) rather than try to save their animal(s)
| somehow.
|
| (Though in a city I imagine that means things like
| throwing rocks or using a shovel.)
| sbierwagen wrote:
| And if the nearest animal control office is 200 miles
| away?
| nradov wrote:
| The vast majority of firearm use is 100% lawful for target
| shooting, hunting, and self defense.
| sharklazer wrote:
| Lawful use: 600k-2.5m per year. Gun deaths per year: ~40k.
| A lot of those being suicide.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I don't have any particular interest here, as I'm quite
| ambivalent about guns but the 600k-2.5m is hotly debated
| and comes from phone surveys. The CDC cites Priorities
| for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related
| Violence (2013)[1] when reporting that number. The source
| says it may actually be as low as 100k uses per year.
|
| [1] https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3?term=defensi
| ve#15
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Funny thing, the first study was done by a gun control
| group, and long before shall issue concealed carry made
| self-defense a lot more common by allowing it outside the
| house. Their number, which did not include a person using
| a gun more than once a year: about a million.
|
| But it doesn't matter, it's an unalienable right
| enshrined in the Constitution, "and if it saves just one
| life...."
| laverya wrote:
| 600k-2.5m/year is specifically lawful _defensive_ uses.
| If you count "shot skeet", or "went hunting", or "went
| to the range", the number of lawful uses goes up a LOT.
| sharklazer wrote:
| Yes, technically you are correct.
|
| But I hesitate to bring that up, because I don't believe
| there is ANY moral ambiguity for the use of firearms for
| sporting purposes. Ambiguity only arises in the face of
| human conflict.
|
| I will defend the ownership, possession, use and carry of
| firearms on the specific grounds that they ARE tools with
| the express purpose of hurting, maiming and killing. The
| specific justification in the US Constitution for citizen
| ownership of arming of a militia. I also oppose the use
| of professional militaries as I believe they are corrupt.
| Fundamentally professional armies have an incentive
| misalignment: fight for pay, not, fight for something
| "virtuous". Therefore "don't bite the hand that feeds".
|
| Moreover, the rights of the first amendment can only
| ensured by the use of force, ultimately, by those
| exercising said rights. The first amendment is
| meaningless without the second.
|
| We can count the rounds fired this year alone probably
| number great than the whole conflict in Afghanistan, all
| lawful use, but I want to highlight that a GUN is useful
| being a GUN, not a hobby tool for target practice. If
| it's merely a sporting device, well then you should be
| happy when they take away the guns as we still have
| airsoft and crossbows for sporting purposes.
|
| No, we defend firearms for what they are and justify them
| on that use: Force, or the threat of force.
| tootie wrote:
| Same. I've lived in NYC since the tail end of the crime wave
| in the 90s. Walked past drug dealers 80 times a day when I
| was younger. Lived across from a supposed crack house in my
| 20s. I only personally know of two people were attacked on
| the street in about 25 years. One was sucker punched and
| didn't even see who did it before they ran off. The other
| fought off a very scrawny attacker with an umbrella. I've
| never been on the receiving end of anything worse than an
| insult. I don't know a single person who owns a gun and I've
| even seen one that wasn't in the holster of a cop. My number
| one fear of living here by a mile is me or my family (my kids
| walk themselves home from school) getting hit by a car.
| sharklazer wrote:
| 1. Most people don't even understand how a gun mechanically
| functions. It lives in the realm of magic for most people,
| despite being mechanically very simple. This base ignorance
| of the function of a firearm is one of the biggest reasons
| why firearm-related accidents happen. You might not want a
| gun, and fine--that's your stance--but you should know how it
| works and how to use it.
|
| 2. We don't nuke each other all the time either. But "God
| made man and Colt made 'em equal"--the gun is an equalizer.
|
| I think people in America think we're some united hegemony,
| believing all the same thing. No. We don't. We all have
| different views and are pursuing happiness differently.
| Sometimes this pursuit leads to injury of someone else's
| pursuit of happiness. Guns, along with education, give people
| the means of preventing and give meaningful deterrence to
| those who would disrupt their rightful pursuit of happiness.
|
| Also, guns in the US are used nearly a million times a year
| to prevent violence (CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevent
| ion/firearms/fastfact.htm...)
|
| Finally, regarding unintentional killings: that's why I said
| education on guns in necessary. Regarding unlawfulness: you
| must have your head in the sand to think a criminal isn't
| already committed to breaking the law.
|
| Guns for everyone.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > 1. Most people don't even understand how a gun
| mechanically functions. It lives in the realm of magic for
| most people, despite being mechanically very simple.
|
| I don't know; roller-delayed blowback took me a _long_ time
| to wrap my head around.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Now take a look at the H&K G11 schematics. It's mind-
| boggling.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| If you're talking the feeding mechanism, the FN P90 has
| something similar (though the ammunition is stored
| longitudinally rather than vertically).
|
| [edit]
|
| Oh wait, I see now it's the burst-fire mode, where it
| doesn't buffer until after the 3rd round has been fired.
| I remember seeing that a while back; it is crazy.
| dirtyoldmick wrote:
| Take the MG-42 but make it in a half-assed kind of way.
| jonp888 wrote:
| Guns are evil and disgusting machines that exist only for
| murder.
|
| Guns for no-one.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _1. Most people don't even understand how a gun
| mechanically functions. It lives in the realm of magic for
| most people, despite being mechanically very simple. This
| base ignorance of the function of a firearm is one of the
| biggest reasons why firearm-related accidents happen. You
| might not want a gun, and fine--that's your stance--but you
| should know how it works and how to use it._
|
| Unless you need to clean it and for that you can get help
| if you're ignorant, you don't need this detailed knowledge.
| You need to only know how to load and safety clear it,
| ideally know how to clear a jam, and that if you move any
| safeties to "Fire" it will fire if you pull the trigger.
|
| As much as people like us are horrified by how little
| education so many people get about their guns, centuries of
| ergonomic improvements would seem to allow a tremendous
| number of them to use them safely and effectively in high
| stress self-defense situations.
| laverya wrote:
| > > Most people don't even understand how a gun
| mechanically functions. It lives in the realm of magic
| for most people, despite being mechanically very simple.
| This base ignorance of the function of a firearm is one
| of the biggest reasons why firearm-related accidents
| happen. You might not want a gun, and fine--that's your
| stance--but you should know how it works and how to use
| it.
|
| > Unless you need to clean it and for that you can get
| help if you're ignorant, you don't need this detailed
| knowledge. You need to only know how to load and safety
| clear it, ideally know how to clear a jam, and that if
| you move any safeties to "Fire" it will fire if you pull
| the trigger.
|
| That is FAR more information than most people have. Even
| the basic rules of gun safety - never point a gun at
| something you aren't willing to shoot, treat every
| firearm as if it's loaded, and keep your booger hook off
| the bang switch (and outside of the trigger guard
| entirely) until you're ready to fire - are more than most
| people know. "How to clear the gun or check the safety"
| might as well be rocket science.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| I know a lot of people like to look down on their fellow
| Americans to the extent they even consider them to be so,
| but the hardest statistics we have on your concern is
| fatal gun accidents per year, and they've gone down from
| 800 to 500, actually 486 for 2019 from the CDC's most
| recent statistics, as the population has increased by
| 50%, the number of gun owners has massively increased and
| the number of guns owned by them has as much as doubled.
|
| The "massive increase" is hard to get numbers for due to
| our culture war, but no one sane doubts it, and there's
| obvious reasons for it and the last fact which is on more
| solid ground, the nationwide sweep of "shall issue" or
| better concealed carry regimes and then add the
| "troubles" of the 21st Century starting with 9/11. And
| how many states went "Constitution Carry," we don't need
| no stinking licences this year? We're up to 21 total per
| Wikipedia.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Another question is how many fatal gun accidents were
| intentional suicides that the medical examiner, for
| whatever reason, didn't want to enter as such.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| I know of one which was blatant second degree murder, but
| the perp was a "friend" visiting with a few others to the
| victim's home, all around 14 years old. Taking a gun on
| its way to the safe you found in a part of the house no
| one was supposed to be in, pointing it at your "friend's"
| head and pulling the trigger was ruled an unfortunate
| "accident."
|
| See a bunch that just so happened to occur while the gun
| was "being cleaned," you can even begin that without
| emptying the chamber so you can work on the barrel.
| Animats wrote:
| Surprisingly, no. The number of misses at very close
| range in high-stress situations is very high. Hit rates
| for cops are in the 25% - 50% range, and that's with
| training.
|
| It's easy enough to get a gun to fire. Hitting the right
| target requires practice.
| Vecr wrote:
| I know NYPD had guns with really heavy triggers, far past
| anything reasonable. Lighter triggers (not really light,
| standard) and red dot optics would probably help a lot.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| The vast majority of cops don't train very much, and
| requalification is often minimally difficult. _Overall_
| the civilian population is probably better trained.
|
| This is also biased by big cities that have extinguished
| their gun culture, NYC in particular. That has grave
| consequences, shall I say.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| I mean, an evergreen category of unintentional discharges
| is people pulling the magazine, and then accidentally
| firing the chambered round because they thought the gun
| was empty.
|
| Notoriously, Glock pistols don't have a magazine
| disconnect, and their field strip procedure is to drop
| the magazine, rack the slide, pull the trigger, then
| pushing the slide lock to remove it. Skipping one of
| those steps has put a lot of holes in walls over the last
| few decades.
|
| It's a gun. It's supposed to be dangerous! Owning a gun
| without knowing how it works is bad.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your house,
| car or place of work, only buy car liability insurance
| because it's the law, or home insurance because it's required
| by your mortgage holder? No insurance for your personal
| property?
|
| I've owned guns for self protection in the same 40+ years and
| have never needed them for self-protection, but I also
| haven't needed any of the other above forms of insurance
| except the last which came in really handy when my apartment
| was hit by a natural disaster.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your
| house, car or place of work, only buy car liability
| insurance because it's the law, or home insurance because
| it's required by your mortgage holder? No insurance for
| your personal property?
|
| GP said he didn't know anybody who needed to use a gun.
|
| - My wife has used a fire extinguisher
|
| - I have been reimbursed by car insurance
|
| - I have several friends who have been reimbursed by
| homeowners and renters insurance.
| Zababa wrote:
| I don't know anyone who ever had a fire at their home,
| but I know a few people that were attacked on the street.
| Anecdotes are just that, anecdotes.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Well, there was one friend of mine who I convinced to
| keep a fire extinguisher in her car, and a week later on
| her commute she was able to hand it to man who then saved
| his car from total destruction by engine fire.
|
| But I too also know more people who've been threatened
| with lethal force on the streets than have had reason to
| use fire extinguishers. Doesn't deter me from keeping a
| big fire extinguisher wherever I live.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I think there's going to be two major sources of
| differing experiences on this:
|
| 1. Where you live. If you live in the suburbs and drive
| everywhere, there are just very few opportunities for you
| to get "attacked on the street" as you are hardly ever
| _walking_ down the street.
|
| 2. Disagreement on what situations necessitate a gun. I
| know a _lot_ of people who think that e.g. robbery is
| insufficient reason to defend yourself with deadly force.
|
| Similarly I've seen people astonished that someone might
| choose to defend themselves from an unarmed man with a
| gun, even when that man is larger and is not allowing
| them to leave.
| jonp888 wrote:
| Not a great comparison.
|
| I've never heard of a toddler accidentally murdering
| someone with a fire extinguisher, yet that's an everyday
| occurrence with guns.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Is it, really? Are there any statistics to back this up?
| leephillips wrote:
| Really? Show us the link for yesterday's occurrence.
| kevincrane wrote:
| This took me 15 seconds to find, here's a 2-year old and
| a 4-year old shot yesterday because of a gun lying around
| at home.
|
| https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marietta-man-arrested-
| after...
| leephillips wrote:
| That happened on Monday. Today is Thursday. Also, it
| wasn't a "murder" (I'll take a killing, but the victim
| did not die.)
|
| EDIT: I can't help be curious about what's in the mind of
| someone who is so blatantly dishonest. Right at the top
| it says "Published 2 days ago", and in the second
| paragraph it says "Monday". Is the idea that you assume
| no one will actually take a look at the link?
| oblio wrote:
| Just because it happened slightly earlier doesn't
| diminish his point, which is that it's a common
| occurrence.
| kevincrane wrote:
| > I can't help be curious about what's in the mind of
| someone who is so blatantly dishonest.
|
| Mostly lies. My mind is just swimming in them, it's hard
| to think about anything else tbh
| aflag wrote:
| So your point is that it is not that bad because it
| really only happen once every couple days? I mean, let's
| say it happens once a month or once a year. Is it worth
| it? Are guns preventing more deaths than they are
| causing?
| leephillips wrote:
| No, neither that nor any of the other countless things
| that I did not say are not my point.
|
| My point is that the claim that a toddler kills someone
| with a gun every day is false.
| [deleted]
| kevincrane wrote:
| What's the appropriate frequency for a child to
| accidentally kill or maim someone before it becomes
| "okay"?
| leephillips wrote:
| It can never be okay. What an astonishingly absurd and
| gruesome notion.
| Zababa wrote:
| I personally don't need a car in my day to day life. We
| should just ban them. Do you see how many people get
| killed every year?
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Indeed. Given that a toddler isn't capable of "murder,"
| we're talking accidents. Of which there were 486 lethal
| ones in the US in 2019, the last year for which the CDC
| has collated the data. Pretty sure there were more than
| 121 lethal accidents caused by people older than
| toddlers.
|
| Hint: stop digging, admit you're wrong.
| leephillips wrote:
| The actual rate of gun deaths caused a toddler (age <= 3)
| firing a gun was 15 for 2015, in 13 of which the toddler
| shot himself.1 True, "murder" is not the right term, but
| I wasn't quibbling about that. I'm not sure "accident" is
| the right term, either, as in every case an adult
| committed a horrible crime in allowing the child access
| to the loaded weapon.
|
| [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14
| /peopl...
| asdff wrote:
| The odds of a fire in my kitchen, someone dinging my car,
| and even a tree falling on my home in a storm are all much
| higher than the odds of me needing to fire a bullet at
| another human being. In fact something similar to all three
| of those things have happened to me already at one point or
| another. On the other hand I've never needed or even heard
| of anyone who has needed to use a gun. What's wrong with a
| baseball bat for self defense? I have one in my closet and
| never had to draw it, but due to its lower lethality if I
| had to I would have zero qualms about taking a full swing
| and I think anyone on the receiving end would realize the
| same pretty quickly.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| And if you don't land a disabling blow, could well be
| lethal, and they step outside your extended reach and use
| their handgun, then...?
| mullingitover wrote:
| I'd rather reduce my chances of being shot, which is a thing
| you can do by simply declining to purchase a firearm[1]
|
| > Overall, Branas's study found that people who carried guns
| were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to
| get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked
| at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend
| themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.
|
| [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-
| gun-...
| hpoe wrote:
| But if you go to the beach 3 times your risk of getting shot
| by a dog with a handgun in its mouth is 50% higher.[1]
|
| [1] https://xkcd.com/1252/
| deelowe wrote:
| People who feel the need to carry a gun, are more likely to
| get into incidents that involve shootings? Huge surprise
| there...
|
| Did the researchers ever stop to question the reason why
| someone might be compelled to carry a firearm in the first
| place?
|
| What happens to these stats when high crime areas and
| suicides are removed?
| harshreality wrote:
| That study doesn't even say that. It doesn't propose
| causation, and looks at accessible firearms, not gun
| ownership. There's no way a gun kept in a safe or a
| nightstand reasonably affects your likelihood of getting
| shot, everything else being equal.
|
| > _We also did not account for the potential of reverse
| causation between gun possession and gun assault._
|
| The study's methodology looks terrible. It's a case-control
| population study of Philly over 3 years. Every case began as
| a notification about a shooting case investigated by police.
| The vast majority of shooting data comes from shooting
| _cases_ forwarded by police, not by sampling and then finding
| which of the sample were involved in shootings. As such, they
| excluded a valuable dataset of police-reported assaults that
| didn 't result in shootings, which could have corrected some
| biases in the data based on how the cases came to the
| researchers' attention.
|
| The 95% confidence intervals are wildly variable, and if you
| look at figure 3, any significant amount of lying by surveyed
| control subjects about having guns leads to insignificant
| results. If you call up some random gun-owner in Philly and
| ask them if they have a gun, how likely do you think it is
| that they'll lie? Those 4.x and 5.x odds ratios look
| impressive, but even after assuming 0% lying by case
| controls, they only barely clear the statistical significance
| bar.
|
| It's difficult to speculate all the ways a study like could
| be flawed without seeing the underlying data and putting a
| lot of effort into analyzing it and how they corrected for
| potential confounders, but I'm not at all surprised they
| found gun possession correlated with increased odds of
| getting shot.
|
| The causation determination really comes down to what kind of
| gun owner you are. There are a subset who own guns, carry
| guns, and do everything they can reasonably do to stay out of
| trouble, which often means avoiding friends or social
| environments that are generally "trouble". In that case, gun
| possession probably lowers your risk, because it makes you
| hyperaware of dangers and their avoidance. It's like a game
| you play every time you leave your home, of what can go wrong
| and what's the best way to handle it. Very quickly, that game
| becomes a habit and becomes uninteresting except when you do
| something or go somewhere unusual.
|
| Then there's the subset of people who own guns and carry them
| because they're likely to get into trouble, they go around
| looking for trouble, or they go around oblivious to trouble.
| For them, maybe there's mild causation, having a gun makes
| them more confident to take more risks, or maybe there's no
| causation, and it's just the higher rate of gun ownership
| among those types (which includes criminals) that leads to
| poorly designed studies finding a statistical correlation
| between gun possession and getting shot. And there's no way
| to run these studies I've ever seen that satisfies both
| sides. Someone always thinks some study disregards something
| important.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Even ignoring this study, there's the fact that _sometimes
| we get sad_ and having a simple suicide mechanism laying
| around your home makes you dramatically more likely to kill
| yourself[1].
|
| > Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die
| of gun suicides than men who don't own handguns, and women
| who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who
| don't.
|
| I don't understand why the pro-gun crowd flails around
| trying to justify it. Just say you like guns, it's okay.
| Nobody is coming to take them (unless the recent Texas 'one
| weird trick to defeat the Constitution with civil lawsuits'
| plays out to its logical conclusion and we get states
| allowing anyone to sue anyone involved in a firearm sale).
|
| [1] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-
| owner...
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _Just say you like guns, it 's okay. Nobody is coming to
| take them_
|
| Unlike you, we listen and pay attention to what
| politicians like Joe Biden say.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I've heard this stuff literally my entire life, and it
| has me pretty jaded. Democrats in office do nothing but
| increase firearms sales because a lot of gullible people
| still believe these chicken little stories.
| disneygibson wrote:
| Yeah, this is the problem with relying on statistics to
| determine your life choices. Real life isn't a series of
| probabilities, it's a series of events - for which you can
| prepare for and plan to protect yourself.
| rspeele wrote:
| While the study did control for factors like socioeconomic
| status, race, and job, I think it's inherently difficult to
| control for the idea that somebody is much more likely to
| carry a gun when they perceive their risk of being attacked
| as higher. For example, if they frequently interact with
| dangerous people in their personal lives.
|
| I would not be surprised to learn that, say, people who get
| restraining orders against their exes are more likely to be
| murdered by their exes than people who don't. Does that mean
| that getting a restraining order is dangerous? Or does it
| mean that people in dangerous situations tend to get
| restraining orders?
| standardUser wrote:
| The problem with more guns everywhere for everyone is that
| there will be more successful suicides, more lethal mass
| shootings and far more accidents with serious injuries.
|
| Plus, I don't want the same 10-15% of drivers on the freeway
| who speed and don't use signals to also be guaranteed to own a
| loaded gun they don't know how to use.
| pengaru wrote:
| Everyone should own a toothbrush.
| sinyug wrote:
| This is a good thing. No matter what the lunatic fringe on the
| left might believe, sexual dimorphism among humans is real and is
| visible in our physical characteristics. Guns help narrow that
| physical gap between men and women.
|
| The sanest view on this topic I ever saw out of Hollywood was in
| Season 2 of _True Detective_.
|
| Ray: What's with all the knives?
|
| Antigone: Could you do this job if everyone you encountered could
| physically overpower you? I mean, forget police work. No man
| could walk around like that without going nuts.
|
| Ray: So, they're equalizers. Makes sense.
|
| Antigone: No, I'd still wear them even if I wasn't on the job.
| Fundamental difference between the sexes is that one of them can
| kill the other with their bare hands. Man of any size lays hands
| on me, he's gonna bleed out in under a minute.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I believe it. In Seattle we've had a huge spike in crimes, as
| violent protesting, anti-police sentiment, and defunding have
| resulted in a mass exodus of police officers. Much of this crime
| isn't even tracked well, since a lot of it is unreported (things
| like fires started by vagrants, sewage dumping, public exposure,
| etc). There have also been increased shootings, armed robberies,
| and harassment on the street. It's gotten to the point where my
| neighborhood has flyers posted warning women to watch out for a
| known predator that the police can't do anything about for some
| reason. Female friends I know that would count themselves as
| staunch Democrats are all of a sudden discussing things like
| going to a beginner's gun class as a group, which I would have
| thought unthinkable just 1-2 years ago.
| chmod600 wrote:
| There's something admirable about the idea that a government
| would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not
| have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that
| people should not be entirely dependent on police for their
| defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women)
| can defend themselves against the strong.
|
| Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the
| effect of supplying a country with more guns than people -- some
| 300+ million -- you might guess that people would be dropping
| like flies. But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable,
| really. Murder is not a major concern outside of a handful of
| dangerous areas.
|
| And that's it, really. Guns _are_ a problem in these few areas.
| But people everywhere else don 't want to give up their guns
| because of a few areas where they are a problem. And they have a
| point: often in those dangerous places, existing laws against
| illegal gun sales or felon-in-possesseion aren't enforced very
| well.
|
| One thing is for sure: picking around the edges by outlawing
| certain kinds of rifles or making all kinds of other weird laws
| won't do anything. Rifles are used in something like 2% of
| murders. Either you outlaw and collect all handguns (including
| revolvers), or don't bother.
| garmaine wrote:
| > The idea that people should not have to give up all of their
| ability to fight.
|
| Fight...whom? How? A gun is a very blunt instrument. If you
| want to learn how to defend yourself, take a self-defense class
| and buy something non-lethal like mace.
|
| Why is a gun necessary for self-defense?
| qball wrote:
| Because "in case of emergency, press button" works when
| issued from the hands of a 5' 110-pound woman against a 7'
| 250-pound man in a way that the other options simply do not.
| secondaryacct wrote:
| If you want to fuck with an american, tie him down financially
| with a credit card, prevent him to run with a coke and big mac
| a day, and destroy his cognitive ability with a good old Bible.
|
| Then, tell him his guns make him free, because any sort of
| social conflict would be solved by violent murder. Shake well,
| exploit.
| majormajor wrote:
| > The idea that people should not have to give up all of their
| ability to fight.
|
| If you're pro-democracy/pro-republic/pro-anything-other-than-
| might-makes-right why is this admirable or desirable?
|
| Weapons are a force multiplier, and they can make a minority
| with extreme desire to fight very strong. A Taliban, a Castro,
| a Confederate States of America...
|
| It's naive to think that guns will only ever be used by
| defenders of freedom. Take a look around the world.
| xenocyon wrote:
| _> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable,
| really._
|
| The data appear to disagree with you:
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2010_homicide_rates_...
| otikik wrote:
| Who wrote this? A gun?
| yongjik wrote:
| I have trouble understanding how guns would defend an
| American's freedom. See, it's as if the US military trains
| soldiers how to hide in the Appalachian, raid local villages,
| and steal food and ammunition from trucks, because if a non-
| specified enemy conquers the US and its troops are marching
| down the streets from Sacramento to Boston you need these
| skills to hide and keep fighting.
|
| Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The
| whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it
| happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly
| bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills
| that make you win wars before it runs you over.
|
| If the government has turned your enemy and its troops are
| marching down the street ready to murder your family, you have
| already failed to defend your freedom. What _were_ you doing in
| the meantime?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The
| whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it
| happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly
| bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the
| skills that make you win wars before it runs you over.
|
| Eh, not so much. I believe the term is "defense in depth."
| There's also the saying "don't put all your eggs in one
| basket."
|
| If recent history has taught us anything, it's that a
| territory with a hostile armed population is extremely
| difficult for even the most advanced army in the world to
| hold. The US (or the Soviets) would have won in Afghanistan
| if all the Taliban was able to do was stage protest marches
| and write angry letters.
|
| Also, you have to understand that there are many different
| scenarios to consider. For instance: someday, the enemy may
| be _the US military itself_.
| yongjik wrote:
| > For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military
| itself.
|
| That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen
| then you have already failed to defend your freedom." The
| US military is not a band of invaders, it's made of your
| fellow Americans. What were you doing while it turned into
| your enemy?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?
|
| You seem to be assuming that someone could have done
| something and been successful, which I think is assuming
| too much.
|
| But like I said before: the key point is _defense in
| depth_. It 's stupid to put all your eggs in one basket
| for something so important. Conventional democratic
| process and personal firearms are both baskets in the
| analogy.
| clairity wrote:
| > "What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?"
|
| netflix and facebook apparently. my whole lifetime has
| been a slow-motion monopolization of power and money, and
| we've yet to resist/deter/reroute any of it meaningfully.
| power has been slowly turning against the populace, and
| we're not paying any attention to it. rather, we're
| debating distracting culture topics like abortion,
| racism, and even covid mandates.
| majormajor wrote:
| This is the kind of mindset that, in a country with a lot
| of guns, could lead people to start taking up arms
| against a government that most of the population doesn't
| want to overthrow, a population that largely thinks here-
| and-now topics like abortion or the everyday effects of
| racism or the public health effects of COVID are _more
| important_ than ideological claims about how the country
| is now more "against the populace" than it supposedly
| was 50, 100, etc, years ago.
|
| This is not a good thing. Are you really suggesting you
| might use a gun to force your fellow citizens to care
| about the same aspects of government that you do, instead
| of the ones they're currently focused on? When convincing
| your fellow voters and elected officials fail, you
| believe you have a right to resort to violence?
| clairity wrote:
| well yes, just as humans have for our whole history. but
| you've framed it as a false dichotomy, that i mean we
| must revolt at any slight, but that's a disingenuous
| framing. it should be a last resort, just as our
| government should resort last to force, whether
| internally or externally.
| monoideism wrote:
| > See, it's as if the US military trains soldiers how to hide
| in the Appalachian, raid local villages, and steal food and
| ammunition from trucks,
|
| You should hang out near Fort Bragg sometime. The Special
| Forces train exactly as you describe.
|
| Also of note: most of them are very unhappy with the way
| things are going in the US. I disagree with them frequently,
| but they also have some good points.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| What are their complaints with "the way things are going in
| the US?"
| monoideism wrote:
| They are very upset with what they see as growing
| authoritarianism from the government -- particularly wrt
| many covid interventions. (for what it's worth, I mostly
| disagree but I do see signs of growing authoritarianism
| among many on both the left and right)
| jfengel wrote:
| Murders aren't the only issue, though. Just the possibility of
| a gun being present changes a lot of interactions in the US.
|
| Every police encounter has to assume you have a gun. A lot of
| innocent deaths at the hands of police are treated as "I
| thought he had a gun", which makes everybody scared of the
| police -- especially minorities. School children go through
| metal detectors every single day, never turning up any guns.
| Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in
| case one has a gun.
|
| And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced that
| they're about to be killed by one of those many, many guns, as
| seen right here in this HN thread:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161
|
| All of those guns have a significant, negative effect on daily
| life in America. The actual murders are comparatively few, but
| the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire
| country on edge, all the time.
| zepto wrote:
| > but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the
| entire country on edge, all the time.
|
| This is a fantasy. I've never been in a situation I'm the US
| where I thought a gun could appear at any time, and I don't
| even live in a particularly great neighborhood.
| jfengel wrote:
| Congratulations on never having encountered a police
| officer. If you do, you'll be very aware of the fact that
| they're treating you as if you were armed. I am aware of
| it, and I'm not even black -- and I've seen how much worse
| it is for black people.
|
| Congrats, also, on graduating school before school
| shootings became a big thing. Me, too. It was great not
| having to go through metal detectors on my way to class.
|
| I am sorry you don't ever fly, though. It's not a lot of
| fun, but there are a lot of great places to go, and it's
| usually worth the hassle of being checked for guns.
| zepto wrote:
| I'm not white and I've been stopped by police numerous
| times and have never been afraid of being shot. The
| chances of being involved in a school shooting are lower
| than the chance of being hit by lightning.
|
| I also have flown many times. Nobody has ever 'checked me
| for guns'. Generally they are checking for knives and
| explosives. You might be too young to remember, but much
| of today's airport security was brought in as a response
| to 9/11.
|
| If you really think a gun might appear at any moment, I
| recommend you do some research on how unlikely that
| actually is. It's a totally unrealistic fear, and one
| that can only result from being misinformed.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm not talking about you being afraid of being shot. I'm
| talking about them being afraid of being shot by you.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Wow, you really managed to paint a completely distorted and
| scary picture of daily life in America. Well done.
|
| Hopefully I don't get gunned down by a cop thinking I have a
| gun when I leave my house tonight, although I probably will.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| War of the anecdotes here.
|
| My office is between a gun store and a gun store with a
| shooting range attached. I live on the other side of a lake
| from the fabled free fire area that was the Capital Hill
| Autonomous Zone. I personally own a somewhat excessive number
| of firearms.
|
| I bike to work. I don't carry a gun, mostly because carry
| permits are annoyingly expensive in this county. I don't
| really feel the need to carry a gun, nor been in a situation
| where I urgently wished I was armed.
|
| It's a big country, people have all sorts of different
| experiences in it. We can guess that the average American
| does not in fact feel under constant threat, because the
| country continues to operate.
| qball wrote:
| >And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced
| that they're about to be killed by one of those many, many
| guns
|
| I suspect the reason is because a higher than average
| proportion of people who post here tend to live in cities
| (and be in their 20s), where crime is both naturally higher
| and vastly more visible than it is when not in a city; this
| is why city people tend to be a lot more authoritarian and
| risk-averse than people who live in regions with population
| densities with a more favorable ratio of People Who Destroy
| Society per mile.
|
| These people are people who, all else being equal, do things
| the average person would rather them not do, like property
| crime, pounding the apartment walls at 1 AM, shitting in the
| street, and the like. It's possible to build places where
| these things don't happen, but none of them are compatible
| with maintaining the political power of the risk averse as
| they currently exist today (even though, ironically, those
| places give even more power to the risk-averse).
|
| Case in point,
|
| >Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just
| in case one has a gun.
|
| which is only in effect in the places with most of the crime
| (read: inner city), and the occasional suburban district
| where irrational risk-aversity got a foothold. Everywhere
| else tends to be a little bit saner and would prefer to not
| constantly broadcast a message of "be constantly afraid of a
| thing that's vanishingly rare" (which is what the backpacks
| are meant to symbolize), at least until irrational risk-
| aversity starts paying political dividends in those areas as
| well (or it is forced upon them by the cities if the state
| isn't structured in a way to keep them in check).
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can
| defend themselves against the strong._
|
| > _Does this idea work? Surprisingly well._
|
| Does it?
|
| > _11. Self-defense gun use is rare and not more effective at
| preventing injury than other protective actions_
|
| > _Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and
| women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual
| assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no
| less likely to be injured after taking protective action than
| victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to
| other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization
| Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is
| uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or
| property loss._
|
| > _This article helps provide accurate information concerning
| self-defense gun use. It shows that many of the claims about
| the benefits of gun ownership are largely myths._
|
| > _Hemenway D, Solnick SJ. The epidemiology of self-defense gun
| use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys
| 2007-2011. Preventive Medicine. 2015; 79: 22-27._
|
| * https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-
| thr...
| tootie wrote:
| I think the simplest counterpoint is Britain. The US Second
| Amendment is a direct descendant of the British Common Law
| right to bear arm. And Britain is arguably our national parent
| with a similar culture and history and a modern pluralistic
| culture. They effectively ended their right to private gun
| ownership in the 20th century to the point that it's now
| extremely difficult to procure one and there are very few guns
| owned per capita. And their homicide rate is less than half of
| ours. Same goes for Australia and several other first world
| democracies. You can at the very least say that rate of gun
| ownership has no correlation with gun crime. And quite possibly
| that it correlates directly in that more guns leads to more gun
| deaths.
|
| So, personally (subjectively), I don't find it admirable at
| all. Freedom is a good default option, but I see America's gun
| culture as pretty sickening.
| zepto wrote:
| One reason their homicide rate is less than half ours is that
| their clearance rate for murders is >90% vs around 60% in
| better parts of the US. This was a result of the British
| police adopting a standard and very effective methodology for
| investigating murders in the 70's and 80's.
|
| There is a lot of criminological evidence that the deterrent
| effect of policing is proportional to the predictability of
| the crime being solved, rather than the harshness of the
| punishment.
|
| If we want less murders, we need to put more effort into
| catching murderers. That is where the cause and effect
| relationship lies. It is also something that the British know
| how to do, and which we could learn from.
| philwelch wrote:
| Britain also spent a long time transporting violent criminals
| and resettling much of the relatively violent "Scotch-
| Irish"/"Borderer" population to the American colonies. We
| also got a lot of their religious fanatics. This explains a
| lot about America.
| rpmisms wrote:
| This is an excellent point that I don't hear often.
| simonh wrote:
| I do not at all accept that guns empower the weak. We can see
| all over the world they are a massive force multiplier for
| criminals, the violent and the murderous. Guns are only potent
| in the hands of those willing and able to use violence. For
| those unwilling to do so, they are massively disenfranchising.
| They essentially tilt the balance of power in society
| decisively in favour of those most willing to kill, and most
| enthusiastic about preparing to do so.
|
| There is nothing admirable about normalising and promoting
| lethal violence in society. I'm very much aware of the
| sentiment that guns can have beneficial social effects,
| epitomised by the Heinlein quote that an armed society is a
| polite society. This is absurd. That sentiment is a direct
| attack on the principle of free speech, open discourse and
| equal right of expression for citizens. We should aspire to
| toleration of free expression, even if it's uncomfortable or
| offensive, not suppression of it. Is it really right to hand an
| implicit veto on opinion to the violent? Utterly shameful.
| bequanna wrote:
| > It hands an implicit veto on opinion to the violent.
| Utterly shameful.
|
| Except that isn't how it has worked in the US at all. Can
| weapons be used to intimidate and coerce? Of course. But
| we're civilized. We have freedoms and we are protected from
| unlawful force by lawful force.
|
| Speech is virtual limitless. Non violent protest has and will
| continue to be a fruitful avenue of change.
|
| Self reliance and individual empowerment are the core values
| of the United States. I can't think of many things more
| important than being able to protect my family and my
| property.
| wittycardio wrote:
| I have lived in developed and developing countries and have
| never felt that my family or property were at risk. The
| real question is why you think they are when we live in the
| safest time in human history.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _I have lived in developed and developing countries and
| have never felt that my family or property were at risk._
|
| "I have also failed to read or retain even a bit of 20th
| Century history."
| simonh wrote:
| My comment is not limited to political discourse. The rates
| of firearm use in domestic and personal disputes in the US
| are a disgrace. Half of women killed in domestic disputes
| are shot. But even then, it only shows those cases where
| guns were actually used. We can only guess how often the
| threat of such violence, either explicit or implicit is
| enough to coerce or intimidate. The attitude that the
| correct way to fix this is for women to also become killers
| is frankly vile. Promoting willingness to kill as a path to
| a voice or Liberty in personal relationships or society is
| utterly immoral. That is not the kind of society we should
| be aspiring to build.
| qball wrote:
| >Speech are only potent in the hands of those willing and
| able to say destabilizing things. For those unwilling to do
| so, they are massively disenfranchising. They essentially
| tilt the balance of power in society decisively in favour of
| those most willing to do this, and most enthusiastic about
| preparing to do so.
|
| It's really not that different; speech, much like guns, is
| capable of bringing an entire nation to its knees and setting
| neighbor against neighbor (every Western country is a blatant
| example of this, for obvious and recent reasons), to say
| nothing about its general life-ruining applications. Is it
| really right to hand an implicit veto on opinion to those
| that speak?
|
| >Is it really right to hand an implicit veto on opinion to
| the violent?
|
| Is it really right for the [pick your favorite minority] to
| do violence to the [member of society that is coming to do
| some nasty thing to them]?
|
| And if so, at what point does that change?
|
| Is it when they're about to seize your children and make sure
| any culture you gave them is beaten out of them? Is it
| they're about to bulldoze your ancient burial grounds to make
| room for a new golf course? Is it when the Grain Commissioner
| takes the food you needed to survive? Is it when your
| neighbors have come to kill you for wearing glasses, or
| [insert your favorite characteristic here]? How about just
| levying usurious taxes for the same crime, or enforcing the
| law unevenly against them, or a state-sanctioned "just let
| these two groups fight it out since we hate both of them
| anyway"? (and the list goes on)
|
| Once you take that implicit veto away, these abuses happen
| (of course, society has investigated itself and found that it
| has done nothing wrong). It's not a bulletproof defense, of
| course, and it's certainly less likely to work unless
| properly coordinated, but it doesn't hurt your chances. And
| unless you think society should get away with everything just
| because it's society (which is the majority view, so nobody
| will hold you accountable for it)...
| comrh wrote:
| Murder rate isn't the whole story. Check out the suicide rate,
| how gun ownership affects a successful attempt and who is
| killing themselves in the US.
| sofixa wrote:
| > But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really
|
| The US is at 4.96/100,000 for 2012. For reference, Angola is
| better at 4.85. Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest countries in
| the EU, are at 1.3. France is at 1.2.
|
| If by not remarkable you mean 3 as bad as other developed
| countries, sure. The numbers are only for intentional homicide,
| not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made
| worse by the high availability of guns for everyone. Not all
| that remarkable is a weird way of putting it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
|
| Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and
| misguided. Protests and revolutions in France have done more to
| guide government power than anything ever that happened in the
| US. Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent
| representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights,
| blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight
| against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight
| for/against? Mask mandates?
| staunch wrote:
| > _Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided._
|
| I find the historical and military ignorance of people who
| imply this even more _adorable_. Especially given the timing
| of the recent example, where the Taliban defeated a massive
| military force that was equipped with modern U.S. weaponry
| including tanks, helicopters, and armored vehicles.
|
| Not to mention the countless other examples of uprisings
| using small arms successfully against superior military
| forces. Add in the fact that the U.S. citizenry is made up of
| tens of millions of military veterans and is more well armed
| than any civilian population in the history of the planet. It
| would not take long for a revolutionary force to take control
| of many military bases and armories within the U.S.
|
| The idea that 50 or 100 million armed U.S. citizens couldn't
| defeat a few hundred thousand armed U.S. soldiers (most of
| whom would defect) is _adorable_ in its child-like ignorance.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I think it quite likely Angola's reporting is broken. Coming
| up with accurate numbers even for a developed country is
| challenging.
|
| >Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided.
|
| Afghanistan, a fractious nation mostly comprised of
| illiterate peasants, has been able to fight off not one but
| two superpowers using mostly small arms.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The Afghanistan thing is an easy narrative, but it isn't
| really an accurate one. More accurate:
|
| > Two superpowers found that Afghanistan, a fractious
| nation mostly comprised of illiterate peasants and devoid
| of exploitable industrial or natural resources, wasn't
| worth the price of occupying indefinitely.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Living in Romania, the thing I miss mostly when hiking in the
| mountains is a long rifle. This is for self defence against
| huge populations of bears and boars, not for anything else.
| Guns in the country side are also tools, not just weapons.
|
| Homicide rate is low in Romania because we don't have violent
| criminal gangs, almost at all. It is a small country with
| different policing system. But there are plenty of guns in
| the hands of criminals, having a very restrictive gun policy
| does not help the ordinary citizens, just the criminals.
| Opening up would be leveling the conditions.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> we don't have violent criminal gangs, almost at all._
|
| On the contrary, we have plenty of violent crime clans
| (mostly gypsy), they just don't use firearms but have no
| issue threatening you and your family or beating you into
| submission with melee weapons or bare hands/feet if you
| stand in the way of their (mostly) illegal activities while
| the local police, even when they're not on their payroll,
| are toothless thanks to the poorly defined laws and they
| can't, or simply can't be bothered to take much action
| against them unless they commit some extremely violent acts
| that get lots of media coverage for which higher levels of
| government are called for accountability.
|
| My $0.02
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| They are not so violent compared with US gangs.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| And the US gangs aren't so violent compared to the
| Brazilian gangs in the favelas or the Mexican drug cartel
| gangs; what does this have to do with it?
| easton_s wrote:
| Where does a gang end and a militia begin?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Agreed with all of the above, but it addition, isn't it
| obvious gun owners in the United States are much more likely
| to support any likely authoritarian government? They are
| mostly right wing, and the right wing in the US increasingly
| leans authoritarian.
| philwelch wrote:
| This is an oversimplification to some degree, but even if
| we take this for the sake of argument, isn't the obvious
| solution to stop treating gun ownership as a right wing
| issue?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Who should stop treating gun ownership as a right wing
| issue? Left wing people? Most left wing people think
| there should be fewer guns.
| philwelch wrote:
| Right; I don't think the center-left should voluntarily
| disarm itself. (Socialists are surprisingly pro-gun; they
| have a saying that if you go far enough to the left, you
| get your guns back.)
| rpmisms wrote:
| > isn't it obvious gun owners in the United States are much
| more likely to support any likely authoritarian government?
|
| That's hilarious. Sure, there's the Republican party, but
| also a massive Libertarian sentiment here, and Libertarians
| love guns.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Libertarians are not by any measure a massive segment of
| the population.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Libertarians aren't, but libertarians are.
| newfriend wrote:
| Which authoritarian policies are the right wing in the US
| increasingly leaning towards again?
|
| As far as I can tell, most "right wing" individuals mostly
| want liberty from government interfering in their lives.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Meaning they want single party rule and don't care for
| democracy
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| 3x a small number is still a small number. Your chances of
| getting struck by lightning increase if you live on a hill,
| but no one is basing home buying decisions on that.
|
| The real argument is that guns enable acts that, while rare,
| and while they affect few people, are so egregious that we as
| a society will go to great lengths to ensure they never
| happen (school shootings).
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah - I think that's the core, outlier events are
| extremely bad.
|
| I think there are real things that could be done short of a
| total ban, but the issue in the US it's a constitutional
| right so it's hard to restrict in any sensible way and it's
| politically impossible to amend.
|
| As it is, the policy question is accepting the tradeoff of
| the right to bear arms vs. rare, but extremely awful death
| of school children. I'm not really taking a strong
| position, I think that's just the reality of it.
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-
| deb...
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-
| demand...
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _outlier events are extremely bad_
|
| Don't forget the history of the 20th Century where such
| "outlier events" included 100 million previously disarmed
| people killed by Communists running their countries, and
| the Left likes to remind us of the small death tolls in
| right wing countries, although many of those were
| fighting communists. See also the WWI era Armenian
| Genocide which was so ignored by the rest of the world it
| convinced Hitler he could do as he pleased.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > go to great lengths to ensure they never happen (school
| shootings)
|
| To dig into the far past...the potential bodycount during
| Columbine dwarfs the actual body count because they _only_
| were able to kill victims with guns. Their explosives
| failed, and hundreds of lives were spared as a result.
| endymi0n wrote:
| Note this is just murder, but murder is merely a small
| fraction of gun deaths.
|
| The multiplier for all firearm-related deaths between the
| US and EU average for example is around 12X, more than an
| order of magnitude [1].
|
| The elephant in the room however is that the main argument
| simply doesn't hold up. Owning a gun doesn't just make the
| owner slightly more likely to get shot, but also everyone
| around them [2]
|
| Or, as they say: The only thing you need against a bad
| toddler with a gun is a good toddler with... nah, not going
| there. Too sad actually.
|
| Statistic after statistic says clearly that a society with
| more guns is less safe for everyone (the Switzerland
| outlier is easily explained by banning of owning munition
| instead of guns in peace time).
|
| I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a
| society without a perpetual feeling of danger and paranoia
| feels like. Where children just go to school without
| security checks, amok drills and bulletproof safe rooms.
|
| Seriously, that just rocks.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_fire
| arm-r... [2] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-
| news/do-guns-m...
| zepto wrote:
| > murder is merely a small fraction of gun deaths.
|
| You must mean the others are suicides. Why not say so?
|
| > The multiplier for all firearm-related deaths between
| the US and EU average for example is around 12X, more
| than an order of magnitude [1].
|
| Ah, because by not saying so you can make up this 12X
| figure, by comparing firearm suicides in Europe where in
| many cases there is marginal civilian gun ownership with
| firearm suicide in the US where there is widespread
| civilian gun ownership.
|
| Of course this is a flawed comparison, because Americans
| don't commit suicide at 12x the rate of Europeans, they
| just happen to use guns rather than other methods.
|
| The giveaway that your comparison is deliberately
| misleading is that you don't mention suicide. You
| intentionally hide how you get to this 12x figure.
|
| The Switzerland outlier is explained by a culture of safe
| handling.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a
| society without a perpetual feeling of danger and
| paranoia feels like.
|
| We don't perpetually feel like we're in danger or feel
| paranoid.
|
| >Where children just go to school without security
| checks, amok drills and bulletproof safe rooms.
|
| You are describing most of the US.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a
| society without a perpetual feeling of danger and
| paranoia feels like."
|
| I don't feel paranoia. Maybe most people are fine except
| people who consume too much fear-driven media?
|
| I mean, it's not like paranoid people are only paranoid
| about guns. They are paranoid about everything.
| qball wrote:
| >They are paranoid about everything.
|
| And once you (start paying the Dane-geld) give into that
| paranoia, that paranoia never goes away (get rid of the
| Dane); it just gets larger and larger.
|
| The end state for the nations that sacrifice themselves
| to paranoia is that other nations that have managed to
| control their paranoid impulses take over the ones that
| can't, but that takes a while and generally leaves those
| conquered worse off than before. That said, inactions
| have consequences.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a
| society without a perpetual feeling of danger and
| paranoia feels like.
|
| Me too, but that will never happen. Consider America's
| past: armed revolution, native genocide, violent [secret]
| coups with foreign governments, murder of its' own
| citizens by "peace officers", it goes on and on... It's
| not a peaceful place with a peaceful history, so I don't
| think your wish is too realistic. That said...you did say
| "wish", and I wish it also.
| nradov wrote:
| The vast majority of Americans do have a feeling of
| society without perpetual danger and violence. Gun
| violence is only a real concern in a handful of cities
| like Detroit and Baltimore. Now we should do more to
| improve safety in those cities, and our society has let
| those places down. But for everyone else those cities
| might as well be in another country. In my city most
| years the murder rate is literally zero.
|
| If you read the distorted stories in the news media
| you'll get a completely unrealistic impression of how
| most Americans actually live.
| mike00632 wrote:
| I live in San Diego and two people were just shot on the
| same block as my house. One of them died and he was
| exactly my age. It's where I do regular walks, next to a
| nearby Pokemon gym.
| jdkee wrote:
| Comparing the relatively densely populated, ethnically
| homogenous, lower income inequality E.U. states to the
| U.S. does not make for an equal comparison. Simply look
| at how the bulk of firearm homicides are restricted to
| perhaps a hundred or so ZIP codes nationwide to see the
| disparity. See Chicago for example. [0]
|
| [0] https://heyjackass.com/
| philwelch wrote:
| Of course a country with more firearms is going to have
| more firearm-related deaths. The same is true for
| automobiles or bridges or baseball bats. The relevant
| question is what the overall death rate is.
|
| For instance, Japan, per capita, has fewer firearms-
| related suicides than the US, but it has more suicides.
| I'd be willing to bet it has more train-related suicides
| than the US. Does this mean Japan's suicide rate would go
| down if they had fewer trains and more guns? No, it just
| means that suicidal Japanese use the tools that are
| available to them, as do suicidal Americans.
|
| Britain has very low rates of gun violence. But it has
| increasing rates of knife violence. Is this because Brits
| have too much access to knives? Or is it because violent
| people use the tools that are available to them? Britain
| is cracking down on knives, but even if they make it
| nigh-impossible to peacefully chop vegetables in your own
| kitchen, British criminals will just switch to
| screwdrivers or cricket bats or the Millwall Brick. But
| hey, at least you won't have any more British toddlers
| getting hurt by playing with kitchen knives.
|
| > I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a
| society without a perpetual feeling of danger and
| paranoia feels like. Where children just go to school
| without security checks, amok drills and bulletproof safe
| rooms.
|
| Americans a century ago were just as well armed as today
| (perhaps more so) and had none of that nonsense. It used
| to be that if you were an American teenager in a rural
| area, you could even drive to school with your hunting
| rifle still in your pickup and nobody would care.
| adamrezich wrote:
| >It used to be that if you were an American teenager in a
| rural area, you could even drive to school with your
| hunting rifle still in your pickup and nobody would care.
|
| my mom (born 1961) described her high school parking lot
| as exactly this. she described it as sort of a
| "clique"/social strata thing, like, guys I associate with
| wearing heavy Carhartt work coats to school every day and
| jeans with a clear indentation of a chew can (despite
| being under 18), would've been the kinds of guys who
| would proudly leave their sometimes multiple hunting
| firearms in gun racks in their pickup trucks in the high
| school parking lot, which nobody had any issue with at
| all.
|
| 1991, the year I was born, someone held up a class at the
| same high school with a sawed-off shotgun. nobody was
| hurt but he discharged a few shells into a wall. last I
| checked you could still see how rough the buckshot-
| riddled concrete wall still is, despite having been
| painted over. (interestingly, this story never made
| national news...)
|
| I went on to attend the same high school and sometime
| around 2008 we had a complete school lockdown one Monday
| because a kid had left a paintball gun in his car from
| over the weekend... in the parking lot of the _other_
| high school across town. pretty sure he was tried for a
| felony.
| mike00632 wrote:
| I went to school in the 90s and two kids shot up their
| high school. They murdered 12 students and one teacher.
| It was called the "Columbine massacre" after the name of
| the school, Columbine high school in Colorado.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I went on to attend the same high school and sometime
| around 2008 we had a complete school lockdown one Monday
| because a kid had left a paintball gun in his car from
| over the weekend... in the parking lot of the other high
| school across town. pretty sure he was tried for a
| felony.
|
| This is what you get when everyone at every level feels
| compelled to "do something".
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Yeah, when I was in highschool (mid 90's) the principal
| told us to bring our guns to the office and he'd hold on
| to them rather than leaving them in the truck. Then we'd
| pick them up at the end of the day and go hunting. No one
| even thought that was strange. Now I have to make sure I
| don't drive on school property when I have a gun in my
| car when I go pick my kids up. Park off campus and walk.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I'd actually argue that guns don't enable these egregious
| acts, they're just a popular tool. If someone wants to kill
| a bunch of people there are lots of ways of doing it. Guns
| are fixed in the imagination because we've evolved to be
| specifically good at modeling intentional, face-to-face
| interpersonal violence. See action movies.
| mike00632 wrote:
| Why doesn't the data back that up then? Do you really
| think that toddlers blow their own heads off because
| America has an iherently murderous identity and it has
| nothing to do with reckless access to guns?
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| Your comment is 100% spot on. It's not the unhinged
| criminals with handguns and a couple rifles I am worried
| about. It's the single pissed off vet who drives a moving
| truck to a federal building packed to the brim with
| fertilizer.
| disneygibson wrote:
| This only seems scary because analyzing crime data for a
| continent-sized country doesn't make much sense. The
| overwhelming majority of gun crime happens in a tiny
| percentage of counties.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Something that's important to keep in mind with murder rates
| is that they are tiny. That France's tiny number is more tiny
| than the US's tiny number is irrelevant. If you wanted to
| lower the frequency of unexpected deaths you'd spend all your
| time and money doing things that would encourage people to
| exercise more, or something like that.
|
| Another thing to keep in mind is that murders are not random,
| whereas the other ways people die early often are pretty
| random (like car accidents). Regular Americans living regular
| lives have an effectively zero change of being murdered. Just
| ignore it.
| [deleted]
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Also, how come we always only count murder, as opposed to gun
| violence? How many times is a gun pointed at somebody, or
| fired at somebody, or accidentally discharged, vs somebody
| actually dead?
|
| I don't only fear for my life; I fear for my limb and safety
| and all the other good stuff too :)
|
| _(mind you, FWIW, and hopefully lateral to above questions,
| I 'm not necessarily in the full "prohibit guns" camp, more
| of a "regulate&license", with thinking that since we regulate
| cars and airplanes and other potentially dangerous stuff
| that's even not explicitly made to harm we should regulate &
| license guns. But again, my questions above are from a more
| abstract perspective)_
| autoliteInline wrote:
| it's easier to count dead people. it's harder to obfuscate
| the numbers. One value is that you can see
| increases/trends/etc. and they are actually meaningful.
|
| Generally, you do find this:
|
| . Include suicide in stats...is against guns
|
| . Block suicide from stats...is for guns
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > Also, how come we always only count murder, as opposed to
| gun violence?
|
| Because other countries use different definitions for those
| things. The definition of a "firearm death" is consistent,
| someone was shot they're now deceased.
|
| The definition of "gun violence" could be a gun that wasn't
| even loaded or fired in some countries (e.g. pointing it
| menacingly), bullet-injury in others, pistol-whipping in
| yet others, for one example.
|
| Crime statistics are a complex topic, with politics,
| collection methods, and definitions playing a major part.
| For one example, richer countries often have higher "crime"
| because they're better at collecting and recording crime
| statistics, not because crime doesn't occur in poorer
| countries. Even richer countries like the US have a "crime
| gap" if you compare recorded crime with victim crime
| surveys (e.g. NCVS).
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Yeah, I can corroborate this. I've looked into the
| reporting details here and there, and reconciling even
| the U.S. and the U.K. is basically impossible.
|
| There's also politicization of reporting, at least in the
| U.S. I recall some states (Maryland?) have laws that
| mandate reporting of any injury related to a gun (could
| be a minor burn or a cut finger web that needed stitches)
| as a firearm-related injury. The intent, of course, being
| that people wrongly infer that these were injuries
| inflicted by bullets traveling at high rates of speed.
|
| Dead's dead, though. We don't lose track many of bodies
| in the developed world.
| monoideism wrote:
| > their theoretical ability to fight their government with
| small arms adorable and misguided
|
| Taliban? Vietcong?
| brodouevencode wrote:
| The whole argument that small arms are of no comparison to
| tanks and nuclear weapons are made by people who have no
| experience with firearms, fire fight and perimeter and
| assault tactics, or any type of military strategy. To even
| get to this point you would have to assume that the US
| would devolve into a civil war, in which you can also
| safely assume that many in the US military would be
| defectors (leaving a lot of empty tanks and airplanes, if
| not turned to the "other" side). You would also have to
| assume that you could safely identify gun owners that would
| be willing to combat - if there's anything the US attempts
| to avoid (and with good reason) it is attacking non-
| combatants (it would be very easy to blend in to the normal
| population as we've seen in the Middle East). The
| difference here and the Civil War of 1865 was that there
| were clear demarcations between the sides. You would also
| have to assume that whatever resources you employ to launch
| this war would not interfere with any other outside enemy
| that may use this time as an opportunity to launch their
| own assaults (i.e. it would be a great opportunity for
| another 9/11). Mostly, this is a lazy half-thought-out
| argument.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > To even get to this point you would have to assume that
| the US would devolve into a civil war, in which you can
| also safely assume that many in the US military would be
| defectors (leaving a lot of empty tanks and airplanes, if
| not turned to the "other" side).
|
| This is totally speculation on my part, but it could be
| important to have a armed civilian resistance to create a
| "permission structure" for military defection. My
| understanding is that military strongly inculcates
| loyalty and obedience to the organization. Those seem
| like they'd be hard feelings to overcome, especially in
| isolation when the defection would be solitary and likely
| pointless. I'd think that in a lot of cases people would
| just muddle along for lack of options. Having a group to
| join and take your equipment to seems like it would make
| the decision much easier.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Keep in mind that a lot of the military are your
| neighbors: reserves, national guard, and the like.
| bitwize wrote:
| > To even get to this point you would have to assume that
| the US would devolve into a civil war, in which you can
| also safely assume that many in the US military would be
| defectors (leaving a lot of empty tanks and airplanes, if
| not turned to the "other" side).
|
| I hear this a lot from the right, and I think it's
| hogwash. The Biden administration has already begun
| ideological screening of military personnel. If the
| government is forced to go to war against its own people,
| it will be mostly aging, out-of-shape fanatics on one
| side and highly-trained, highly-motivated, younger
| loyalists to the legitimate government on the other.
| It'll be a rout.
| cratermoon wrote:
| VC was supported by China. Taliban is supported by Pakistan
| and Russia. They don't have "small arms", they have the
| backing of major powers.
| oaktrout wrote:
| Presumably in a war where the US government fought its
| citizens there would be world powers that would support
| the citizens, whether they wanted to help the citizens or
| simply weaken the US government.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Did VC and Taliban have tanks, planes, or warships?
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| The VC were conveniently for the North used up in the Tet
| Offensive, after that it almost entirely the regular
| forces of the North. Who didn't need planes or warships
| for their second huge armored invasion after support US
| was withdrawn for the South.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Taliban never had the backing of Russia, what is this bs
| you're spreading?
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| The NY Times spread some misinformation that Russia had
| offered a bounty to the Taliban for killing American
| soldiers [1].
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
| security/remember-...
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Excellent examples that will undoubtedly be shushed away.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I disagree that they're excellent examples when you
| consider the difference in terrain, infrastructure, the
| cultural and religious differences between the combatants
| and the status of one side as foreign occupying force.
| zepto wrote:
| That seems like just shushing them away by saying they
| aren't the same, when in fact those factors don't make a
| difference.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| There's a very different record of homegrown dictators vs.
| foreign occupying powers in this regard.
| chokeartist wrote:
| > Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided.
|
| I'll chalk this up to someone who simultaneously A) doesn't
| own firearms and B) is not a student of history.
|
| Call me when a F-22 or RQ-1 can take a door in the middle of
| the night. Otherwise, it is fancy waiting game of finding out
| who the aerial operators are, and slaughtering their family.
| chmod600 wrote:
| A rational person compares risks on an absolute scale first.
| Out of all the things that could happen on a given day, is
| getting murdered a real concern? For people in the U.S., it's
| not really worth worrying about unless you have some other
| risk factors for murder, like criminal activity.
|
| If you are selling lion repellant that makes a lion attack
| 80% less likely, that's not something I'd be interested in.
|
| That being said, it's great that some countries have driven a
| small risk down to oblivion. Not sure that firearm laws have
| much to do with that, though. Probably more to do with
| policing structure.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Another person who doesn't have fire extinguishers in his
| home, car or place of work, doesn't buy any insurance
| unless it's mandated, etc.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| When the mobs came to a town next door last year, I knew
| the safety of my family hinged on which street they were
| going to choose to go down next, and my own ability to
| respond.
|
| I watched them smash windows and set fires with zero police
| response. Any doubts I may have had about my gun collection
| went out the window that night.
|
| The "guns as fire extinguisher" analogy is apt. It wasn't
| likely that a mob would threaten my neighborhood, just as
| it isn't likely any particular person's house will ever
| catch fire. But I will remain prepared.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > Probably more to do with policing structure.
|
| And culture.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Specifically, cultural homogeneity makes a nation much
| easier to run. Boring food, though.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Japan has pretty good food for being homogenous.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Boring food can be good, but maybe there are fewer types
| of restaurants per capita.
| teawrecks wrote:
| You said, "the U.S. murder rate is not all that
| remarkable". Someone pointed out that claim is demonstrably
| false. So your response is, "is getting murdered a real
| concern?" You established a metric, and when it was shown
| not to support your world view, you try to discredit your
| own metric. That's called moving the goal post. It is not
| something a "rational person" does.
|
| An irrational person uses irrelevant data as justification
| to ignore preventable deaths. We're not talking about how
| many car wrecks, or heart attacks, or rabid vending
| machines are out there, we're talking about gun-related
| homicide and suicide. Preventable deaths that we can
| prevent just like every other first world country does, but
| we just choose not to.
| neonbones wrote:
| The rate of shooting in the USA was always strange to me. I'm
| from Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe, the
| country that on hybrid "civil war" with Russia help for the
| militia.
|
| There are many ex-militaries from volunteers who go to
| volunteer battalions. And many of them return with guns. But
| even with a state like that, you probably won't hear any
| gunshots in cities in your life. The first time I heard one
| was where I took a trip to the USA, random "gang" shooting in
| NY, as I remember.
|
| From my perspective, as someone who is culturally not so
| integrated with the USA, I think the roots of this are how
| you see guns and feel around firearms at all. In my country,
| people are cautious about the idea of using a firearm against
| other people. Even if they have one, they probably do drunk
| shit with a knife, not with a gun.
|
| Anyway, I also can't understand how any gangs are still alive
| in the USA in our time. Even my shittiest country eliminated
| all of them in the 90s, so are Russia and other CIS
| countries. You can find many documentation films about that
| on youtube. There is almost nothing left except massive
| graveyards of dead criminals with funny grave tomb pictures
| like "sitting in my first Mercedes Benz with a gun, cool
| guy."
|
| I may be wrong somewhere. That's just my perspective as an
| outsider.
| jdkee wrote:
| "Anyway, I also can't understand how any gangs are still
| alive in the USA in our time. Even my shittiest country
| eliminated all of them in the 90s, so are Russia and other
| CIS countries. You can find many documentation films about
| that on youtube. There is almost nothing left except
| massive graveyards of dead criminals with funny grave tomb
| pictures like "sitting in my first Mercedes Benz with a
| gun, cool guy.""
|
| The U.S. has the rule of law, due process, innocent until
| proven guilty, etc.
| neonbones wrote:
| >The U.S. has the rule of law, due process, innocent
| until proven guilty, etc.
|
| It's the same here, and we use roman law, so there won't
| be any precedents what someone gets to the court. All
| cases are the exception and go through all the processes
| without looking back on the same cases.
|
| Why would you think that the USA is the only country that
| has it? We even got incredible labor laws. They are so
| good that we don't even need unions for protection
| against companies. I know, most people in the USA think
| that other countries are like poor villages without tech
| and law there.
|
| But even poor Ukraine is much more digitalized and
| advanced in tech. Still, even in the case of transparency
| of how the law works, where the budget goes (you can even
| vote with your mobile app where you want to spend budget
| money in your city), court cases, it's all digitalized,
| transparent, and easy to check by anyone.
|
| To be more precise, here are some links on typical
| bankings[1][2], government open source big data on all
| information that happened in the country[3], digitalized
| id and passport, with all the documents and request for
| any data or papers[4], transparent government tenders[5]
| and one of big media project that does all the corruption
| investigations with big politicians in it[6]. And no one
| from journalists even got arrested for that. With these
| links and information, I want to say that it's funny that
| people think that other countries got some shady
| government, there is no power of law, and all people are
| struggling without real freedom.
|
| Do you have LGBT raves to block entrance to the White
| House and annoy the president? Because we do[7]
| https://www.monobank.ua/?lang=en
| https://next.privat24.ua/ https://opendata.gov.ua/en/
| https://diia.gov.ua/ https://prozorro.gov.ua/
| https://bihus.info/
| https://strana.news/news/346451-muzykalnyj-prajd-na-
| bankovoj...
| [deleted]
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| > Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided.
|
| Didn't a couple of unarmed protestors take the capitol
| building on January 6th?
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > Didn't a couple of unarmed protestors take the capitol
| building on January 6th?
|
| Yes, you are correct.
| poopypoopington wrote:
| 1. Many of them were armed 2. That was because the Trump
| administration refused to send in the national guard for
| several hours after the terrorist attack on January 6th.
|
| If the government does not stand up to terrorists attacking
| the US Capitol, then yes, they can take the building quite
| easily.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| they were armed? do you have a source for that?
|
| The gun charges were dropped.
| kube-system wrote:
| A couple examples here, before, during, and after the
| attack:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/stun-guns-stinger-
| whips...
|
| If you pop their names into a search engine you can see
| the DOJ indictments with more info.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| How many of those weapons were discharged? And how many
| were "seized" is not as interesting as how many were
| being held illegally? The government can illegally seize
| all sorts of things from citizens, including cash, but
| the process of doing so doesn't make the original
| possession a crime
| kube-system wrote:
| I was answering the question about whether any were armed
| or not, of which, the answer is yes: some absolutely
| were.
|
| Getting a permit to carry in DC is extremely difficult to
| the point where there's no chance any of the protestors
| had one. That makes possession illegal. Also, a lack of
| proper licensing is mentioned several times in the
| article.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Lol, stun guns. The only weapons that you should take
| seriously in a situation like that are firearms.
| divbzero wrote:
| "Stun guns" are in the headline as an example but the
| article also describes conventional firearms like
| handguns and rifles.
| Clubber wrote:
| >terrorist attack on January 6th
|
| Are you seriously comparing what happened on January 6th
| to 9/11? How about the Oklahoma City bombing? Lockerbie
| bombing? Get some perspective dude.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Yes, whenever people storm the Capital, calling for the
| VP's head - that's totally not a big deal. Maybe in the
| 3rd world that's just another Wednesday, but in the U.S.
| it was a very big fucking deal.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| PS: I am strong supporter of Gun rights and proud gun owner.
|
| I fully agree with anti-gun crowd that having vast majority
| of guns in hands of citizens (legally or illegally) leads to
| more deaths. USA's comparison with Angola is actually more
| serious than the numbers tell you because you need to realize
| that USA has far better medical response and doctors trained
| to handle gunshot wounds. So to truly compare Angola and USA
| you might have to increase USA's number with those who are
| shot instead of dead.
|
| Having said that I am totally for guns in the hands of
| citizens. Mostly because I think it acts as a bulwark against
| further restrictions. After 2nd ammendment you will be seeing
| "commons sense rules for free speech" like we have seen in
| UK, Canada and Australia.
|
| Every constitutional right has its price. Anyone who fails to
| see this is not honest. Give police the power to search you
| without warrant and we almost certainly will solve more
| crimes. Force individual to testify against themselves and we
| will most certainly keep more child rapists in jail. But then
| as a society we need to figure out the trade-off and in my
| personal case I would rather keep my guns and face a 5/1000
| chance of dying of gunshot wound than surrender my guns.
|
| > Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent
| representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights,
| blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight
| against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight
| for/against? Mask mandates?
|
| In my experience USA lot less corrupt than most other
| countries. Lobbying overall is a net good thing for a
| democratic society. Representatives are incompetent
| everywhere. American abuse of power is nowhere close to what
| EU or AU does to its citizens. I am not sure wha erosion of
| human rights you are talking in USA.
| 8note wrote:
| In america, are you allowed to shoot a police officer who
| is violating your rights?
| mmmpop wrote:
| In America you can do anything you want because you're
| presumed innocent until proven guilty... in theory at
| least. Times are a changin'.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| It's always retrospective, of course, because whether you
| are "allowed" will be determined in court afterwards. The
| answer is sometimes yes. Usually you're only allowed to
| kill, or attempt to kill people when your or someone
| else's life is immediately at risk.
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| Yes!
|
| > In December, a jury in Corpus Christi, Tex., acquitted
| a 48-year-old man who spent 664 days in jail after being
| charged with attempted capital murder for wounding three
| SWAT officers during a no-knock raid that targeted his
| nephew. The jury concluded that the man, Ray Rosas, did
| not know whom he was firing at through a blinded window.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/18/us/forced-
| ent...
| armenarmen wrote:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/02/1
| 0/s...
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| No...because no matter what the reality is, you will be
| painted as a criminal, and charged/convicted as such.
| It's more likely there is no charge/conviction step, and
| instead you will be murdered by another police officer
| under a false pretext of a "firefight". The story that we
| all hear will not reflect reality; you will take the
| truth to your grave.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Yes; it usually doesn't end well, and as NoImmatureAdHom
| notes the rights violation has to rise to the level at
| which lethal force is justified in self-defense, but it
| does happen and people get cleared of the inevitable
| charges, that's happened in my home town although the
| shooting did not kill the officer. And armenarmen's link
| doesn't include the case where black grandmother was
| killed in her dwelling, that didn't end well for the
| police.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Situations like China effectively exterminating populations
| they don't like are why gun rights are so important. Order
| men to re-education camps and forcing their women to sleep
| in same bed as police/watchdogs gets a lot less appealing
| if the woman can shoot their government mandated rapist.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yeah, I cannot fathom the carnage and full blown civil
| war in Northwestern China if Uighers had guns.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| > In my experience USA lot less corrupt than most other
| countries. Lobbying overall is a net good thing for a
| democratic society.
|
| You rightly mention lobbying and corruption together. But
| somehow you miss that they are on the same continuum. From
| my EU perspective lobbying in the US is corruption, as the
| lobbying comes with money and paid-for political promotion.
|
| The situation around guns itself is a clear example: as I
| understand it, a majority of US people is in favor of more
| limitations to gun rights (banning automatic weapons,
| screening psychiatric patients and criminals) but
| politicians are only expanding gun rights (open carry etc).
|
| If democracy would work as intended then "common sense"
| limitations would have been introduced long ago.
|
| Note that I am not talking about corruption in the criminal
| sense: US politics and supreme court have fully legalized
| and embraced it, conflating it with lobbying.
| splintercell wrote:
| Please note that automatic weapons are already banned
| from civilian possession. Regarding psychiatric patients
| and criminals, this has an exact opposite effect that you
| want. People are far more scared of seeking psychiatric
| help when they know that they're going to lose their
| rights. This is an open secret in gun community to never
| mention to a doctor that you have guns, and this is an
| indirect message to not seek psychiatric help unless you
| wanna lose your guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perve
| rse_incentive#The_origina...
| Arrath wrote:
| As someone who both owns guns, has a concealed carry
| permit, and has been in therapy and takes anti-
| depressants, the pervasive fear about getting red flagged
| and having your firearms taken away seems like overblown
| fearmongering.
|
| Can someone point me towards some statistics or reports
| of such occurrences?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| No stats, but I have been placed under a 72-hour
| involuntary hold and even I could still purchase guns in
| my state.
|
| Being committed by judicial order for having a mental
| illness/developmentally disabled, or being found not
| guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand
| trial are the three disqualifiers for gun ownership in my
| state. It is likely different in each state, so YMMV.
| enchiridion wrote:
| With regard to your gun control points, there is a bit of
| nuance you missed that people (like me, if I wasn't
| trying to help you steelman your argument) will
| criticize.
|
| Specifically, there are already heavy restrictions on
| automatic weapons, which are basically never used in
| criminal acts. Every automatically gun in the US has to
| be registered with the federal government for $200 and a
| lot of paperwork. In effect it means if you're wealthy
| you can own automatic guns, which is a violation of the
| 2nd in a lot of people's opinion.
|
| What I think you meant when you said automatic is
| "assault ", which is what most of the gun debate is
| currently center on, so called "assault rifles". The
| issue is that the term is not clearly defined, and under
| most proposed bans would include many rifles which were
| traditionally considered hunting tools. Even that is a
| bit of moot point, because the 2nd was not written with
| hunting in mind.
|
| Another hot point recently is "ghost guns", which like
| "assault rifle", sounds scary enough on the evening news
| to grab eyeballs. "Ghost guns" are being used to justify
| government overreach by banning the sharing of gun plans
| for DIY construction. The issue is that again, almost no
| DIY guns are used in crimes. What are used are stolen
| handguns that have had the serial number scratched off.
| The stolen guns are grouped in with DIY guns as "ghost
| guns".
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Automatic weapons were only ever rich people toys. Unless
| you've got a squad of buddies and one of them is laying
| down covering fire they're not very useful and they
| convert money into noise real fast.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _The situation around guns itself is a clear example: as
| I understand it, a majority of US people is in favor of
| more limitations to gun rights (banning automatic
| weapons, screening psychiatric patients and criminals)
| but politicians are only expanding gun rights (open carry
| etc)._
|
| Strange, isn't it, how polling organizations don't quite
| seem to capture what the people actually want and vote
| for.
|
| Actually, your list of "banning automatic weapons,
| screening psychiatric patients and criminals" is already
| in place, although the first is limited to a few hundred
| thousand in civilian hands. Two last time I checked had
| been used in crimes, the first incident a murder by a
| policeman.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| > From my EU perspective lobbying in the US is
| corruption, as the lobbying comes with money and paid-for
| political promotion.
|
| People with money and influence will always try to impact
| law. In EU it happens through actual bribes which is far
| worse. (Pretty much like India). In USA an immigrant like
| me can join hands with 10K immigrants and find enough
| support in congress openly by hiring lobbiest to advocate
| for the cause I care about. That is how democracy should
| work.
|
| It is easy to see lobbying as bad by taking examples you
| don't like but in reality it is a great example of how
| people can convince their representatives to pass right
| kind of laws, legally and with enough regulation. In most
| countries this happens to secret middleman and nights in
| shady hotels.
|
| > a majority of US people is in favor of more limitations
| to gun rights
|
| It is not clear if that is the case. Of course majority
| of people is irrelevant because this is not a mob rule.
| That is why we don't allow crowd in SF determine what
| people in Montana want. It is all fair game.
|
| Secondly, people like me who care about guns care about
| it lot more to actually form lobbies. On other hand folks
| who dislike guns only talk about it but will not lobby or
| donate for the anti-gun causes.
|
| I recommend this excellent video about why NRA despite
| with a shoe string budget is so much more influenced than
| many other lobbying groups.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdt6Jj64TVU
| pasabagi wrote:
| > shoe string budget
|
| > Revenue (2018) $412,233,508[0]
|
| I don't know what shoestrings you're buying, but I
| suggest shopping around.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association
| klyrs wrote:
| That's pre-embezzlement revenue. Perhaps the remainder is
| just a shoestring?
| AQuantized wrote:
| I think there are many rights violated as a result of
| lobbying. Access to basic healthcare is curtailed in the
| name of profit, largely as a result of the power of
| lobbyists. I think this has a very large functional effect
| on the freedom of everyday people. Even if they have
| reasonable means they may be essentially forced to continue
| working for an employer who provides health insurance or
| risk personal financial ruin if poor health befalls them.
|
| The power exerted by 3 letter agencies is greater than any
| other western nation in my opinion. They are massively
| bloated with excess capital and power, and it has allowed
| them to indefinitely extend their jurisdiction until it
| significantly overlaps with people's right to privacy.
|
| That said I doubt either of these issues would be much
| improved without guns. An armed population seems mostly
| incidental. One downside of focusing on armed resistance,
| however, is that you can easily delude yourself into
| thinking you're better protected from tyranny, when in
| actuality the war is already being lost in courtrooms and
| political backrooms without a shot being fired.
| nverno wrote:
| Yes, personally I would much rather put my trust in my
| neighboring citizens than the government. I trust myself
| and other citizens to stand up for our rights more than I
| trust the government to protect them. So, I'd rather
| citizens be armed than the government. IIRC Switzerland has
| an interesting citizen militia/gun ownership situation as
| well.
| csours wrote:
| So if more Texas liberal women were armed, they would still
| have the right to choose to get an abortion?
| trhway wrote:
| No. The point of trade-off is that you get some you lose
| some. They got guns rights and lost abortion rights. Or
| like back then with the Prohibition and women's suffrage
| https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-
| suffra...
|
| "It became clear to them that giving women the right to
| vote was only way they could ban alcohol."
| booleandilemma wrote:
| If they can shoot the men trying to rape them maybe they
| won't have to?
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Have you ever tried to pull a gun on someone attacking
| you? I think most people find it easier to fantasize
| these 'armed defense' reactions then to actually
| experience one.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| The USA is just as corrupt but the price is substantially
| higher. With the resources of a business you can almost
| certainly get away with many things.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > face a 5/1000 chance of dying of gunshot wound
|
| Isn't that a very high estimation?
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| It's very optimistic to say the least...maybe the OP was
| assuming the shooter is just a _really_ poor marksman, or
| using a BB gun?
|
| That said...I'd take being shot by a bullet any day
| compared to being shot by a modern bow/crossbow.
| Definitely a better chance of surviving the bullet.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The stat might reflect reality. But reality reality
| probably includes a lot of people shot in extremities and
| shrapnel bouncing back from steel targets.
|
| If someone is shooting to stop a threat they're probably
| gonna have better than 5/1000 odds of _permanently_
| stopping the threat.
| klyrs wrote:
| > After 2nd ammendment you will be seeing "commons sense
| rules for free speech" like we have seen in UK, Canada and
| Australia.
|
| This is extremely shaky reasoning. You've done nothing to
| prove that the 2nd amendment is actually protecting these
| rights, only mentioned the existence of two facts and
| asserted a causative relationship between them. Have there
| been attempts to introduce censorship in the US that have
| been defeated by armed activists? Were there violent
| uprisings against censorship in the UK, Canada, or
| Australia that failed due to a lack of access to arms? The
| 4th amendment was gutted into oblivion in pursuit of the
| War on Terror -- why didn't the armed citizenry protect our
| rights?
| slg wrote:
| What evidence do you have for suggesting that a citizenry
| with guns serves to protect other freedoms? The US
| generally isn't among the top countries on the various
| international freedom indexes[1] despite our prevalence of
| guns. We are usually behind Canada, New Zealand, the
| Scandinavian countries, and a few other European countries
| depending on the specific criteria being evaluated.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| I have a very simple litmus test. In how many countries
| can you openly (with lots of publicity) organize "Draw a
| Muhammad" or "Burn the bible" events.
| rkk3 wrote:
| Along that line of thinking it's now illegal to burn the
| US flag.
| nverno wrote:
| No, it is legal to burn the US flag assuming it's your
| flag (in the United States)
| modriano wrote:
| How often do you make use of your freedom to make
| meaningless antagonistic gestures to Muslims or
| Christians? Would you rank it as more or less important
| than the freedom to go for a run in public without being
| shot or harassed (which is not really afforded to Black
| Americans [0])?
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/sports/running-
| while-blac...
| slg wrote:
| That is a poor test in my opinion. I do not value
| symbolic personal liberties like bible burning or drawing
| Muhammad more than economic or press freedom which have a
| much larger cascading effect on our lives. And the fact
| that the US is lacking in those two latter categories
| compared to many of our peer nations calls into question
| whether our freedom regarding guns or speech actually
| protects our other freedoms.
| klyrs wrote:
| Interesting. Kids in many countries throughout the middle
| east and northern Africa have essentially unrestricted
| access to firearms, including shit you can't buy in most
| US states, but your "Draw a Muhammad" litmus test
| wouldn't fly. What does this indicate?
|
| Let's burn the American flag instead. How's that gonna go
| in rural counties of the US? Will it be safe, or will the
| response be armed?
| Jedd wrote:
| > PS: I am strong supporter of Gun rights and proud gun
| owner.
|
| I don't understand the pride bit.
|
| It seems like a regrettable situation where your distrust
| of your fellow citizens is so strong that you are comforted
| by the ability to kill them with minimal effort.
|
| (I'm in Australia, where we have some truly horrendous
| legislation, but I totally agree with our gun ownership
| laws here, and echo other people's observations that gun
| ownership does not seem to equate to, or ineluctably lead
| to, better laws / more freedoms outside the right 'to own
| lethal weapons' itself.)
|
| Perhaps I could interest you in some Iain M Banks (taken
| from Excession) :
|
| "It could see that - by some criteria - a warship, just by
| the perfectly articulated purity of its purpose, was the
| most beautiful single artifact the Culture was capable of
| producing, and at the same time understand the paucity of
| moral vision such a judgement implied. To fully appreciate
| the beauty of a weapon was to admit to a kind of
| shortsightedness close to blindness, to confess to a sort
| of stupidity. The weapon was not itself; nothing was solely
| itself. The weapon, like anything else, could only finally
| be judged by the effect it had on others, by the
| consequences it produced in some outside context, by its
| place in the rest of the universe. By this measure the
| love, or just the appreciation of weapons was a kind of
| tragedy."
| nverno wrote:
| > It seems like a regrettable situation where your
| distrust of your fellow citizens is so strong that you
| are comforted by the ability to kill them with minimal
| effort.
|
| It's usually the opposite sentiment for gun owners- I
| trust my fellow citizens with arms.
|
| Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by
| many. They provide you with a reasonably effective
| defense. One way to significantly erode
| individual's/citizen's power, and in turn give power to
| government, is take away their ability to defend
| themselves. People worry that as government becomes more
| powerful and citizens more reliant there is greater
| likelihood of oppressive government, in other words
| disarming populace is step down a slippery slope
| Jedd wrote:
| > Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by
| many.
|
| For context, can you clarify if the many you're referring
| to there are some fellow USA citizens?
|
| If so, I'll note that USA is < 5% of global population,
| and also note a very fresh Pew paper[0] which indicated
| more than half of that population was keen on stricter
| gun controls. So 'many' has some caveats around it.
|
| > They provide you with a reasonably effective defense.
|
| Against what? Other people with guns, or other people
| with feebler weapons?
|
| If it's the former, then we're back to a basic escalation
| problem, and it's what most other western nation states
| have avoided falling prey to by, simply, not playing that
| game.
|
| If you trust your fellow citizens _with arms_ - who is it
| that you don 't trust and that you need a weapon for
| 'effective defense'?
|
| As to:
|
| > ... in other words disarming populace is step down a
| slippery slope.
|
| I really can't speak to what it looks like from _within_
| the borders of the USA, but from outside, it feels that
| the USA is well down that slippery slope (of eroded
| freedoms, and citizenry exploitation) compared to many
| other democratic nations - so guns in the hands of
| private citizens don 't appear to be a panacea.
|
| [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-
| facts-a...
| d12345m wrote:
| Welp, I guess it's time to finally give the Culture
| series a go.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > I don't understand the pride bit.
|
| I can't speak to the parent, but I take pride in self-
| reliance, and taking responsibility for securing and
| defending the well-being of myself, my family, neighbors,
| and community.
|
| I also am a volunteer, state-certified structure
| firefighter, and take pride in that for the exact same
| reason.
|
| You might find it interesting that, as part of our
| classroom instruction, my structure firefighting class
| was asked how many of us owned guns -- _all_ of us raised
| a hand.
|
| This mirrors my experience in the broader fire service.
|
| > Perhaps I could interest you in some Iain M Banks
| (taken from Excession).
|
| I love Iain M Banks' Culture series, but they live within
| a utopian, post-scarcity benevolent dictatorship managed
| by AIs with powers verging on that of a demigod.
|
| We most certainly do not.
|
| As for the quote? _Any_ tool can only be fully
| appreciated within the context of its intended purpose,
| and the effects that it can produce in the world around
| us.
|
| The value of a gun as a tool is a tragedy, but the
| tragedy isn't the gun, but the necessity for one, and
| it's a tragedy inherent in our mortal existence.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I don't even care about the tyranny aspect- I own guns
| because I like owning guns and it's my right. I don't need
| to justify it to anybody.
| [deleted]
| xmprt wrote:
| The US government probably seems less corrupt than the EU
| because of its laid back approach to a lot of policies.
| However, that's exactly the type of corruption that a lot
| of people are talking about.
|
| The country needs a lot of change to tackle big problems
| like climate change and increasing wealth inequality
| however the government is sitting back doing nothing
| because many representatives are lobbied by big interests
| to let the big interests continue doing what they're doing.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided.
|
| As an American, so do I. A citizen revolution vs US Military
| under the thumb of a dictator would be hilariously
| asymmetrical. There are no consumer predator drones.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| When was the last time a country successfully attacked its
| logistics base? How long would those drones continue to
| operate? Where would their operators and formal logistics
| tail have to live and sleep when they aren't on duty?
| GiorgioG wrote:
| The murder rate varies widely by state/area. Chicago's murder
| rate is significantly higher than its suburbs.
|
| The murder rate in the town (37k residents) I live in (in the
| south) is effectively zero. I wouldn't doubt that all of my
| neighbors around me (most of us are originally from a
| northern state) have guns and we've managed not to kill each
| other.
|
| Do you think the French revolution didn't require violence?
| watwut wrote:
| I think the person meant contemporary France.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| How many revolutions has France had in contemporary
| times?
| ben_w wrote:
| The same number as the USA, for any reasonable definition
| of "contemporary".
| nsonha wrote:
| Make a point for fuck's sake, the US had what revolution
| recently?
| philwelch wrote:
| They had a military coup in 1958.
| jxramos wrote:
| wow, so all these fourth fifth republics etc, were they
| all from a coup essentially?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1958_crisis_in_France
| philwelch wrote:
| France is on its fifth republic. Their first republic
| started slightly after the US Constitution went into
| effect. Between those five republics they've had a couple
| of monarchies and military dictatorships. Though to be
| fair, a lot of those transitions resulted from France
| losing wars.
| ben_w wrote:
| TIL, however I don't think that's important in the
| context of the effectiveness of armed _civilians_ being
| able to have much influence.
|
| If anything, rumours to the effect that Republican
| senators/representatives are only still publicly
| supporting Trump because they fear armed Trump
| supporters, could (iff true) be a relevant example.
| philwelch wrote:
| It's actually a counterexample--the 1958 coup overthrew
| the democratically elected government.
|
| Then Charles De Gaulle came out of retirement and
| promised to write a new constitution, and since he was
| widely respected by both the military and the general
| public, everything settled down. Of course, this
| technique only works if you have Charles De Gaulle.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| They fear Trump voters that will vote however he tells
| them to, but I do not think they fear them because they
| are armed.
| pchristensen wrote:
| Republicans who have opposed Trump routinely receive
| death threats, and those are a lot more credible coming
| from people known to be armed.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| We've reduced the barrier to making a death threat to the
| point that "X routinely receive death threats" is
| probably true where X is any public figure.
| grecy wrote:
| > _The murder rate varies widely by state /area_
|
| Everytime I see this line of reasoning I'm utterly shocked
| at the lack of understanding.
|
| What you said applies equally across any other country too.
| So France's 1.2 is an _average_ of the entire country.
|
| Yes, half of any country is below the average!
| oh_sigh wrote:
| There are also fairly basic lifestyle choices that
| drastically increase your odds of being murdered. If you
| aren't part of a gang, and you don't have a male partner
| with violent tendencies, your odds of being killed are much
| lower than the national average.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the murder rate of my town of
| 100k people is about on par with a British or German town
| of 100k people, since we don't have any gang presence here.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > The murder rate varies widely by state/area.
|
| One fact about murders that has exceptionally low variance
| is the likelihood of personally knowing the person that
| murders you. This is 90%, in almost all circumstances and
| areas.
|
| Means, the gun, is only one part of the equation and has
| been noted generally the smallest. Motive is far more
| important when attempting to put murder rates into context.
| mike00632 wrote:
| Ok, so we can either enact gun reform like most of the
| entire world has done or we can completely alienate
| ourselves from other people in hopes they don't shoot us.
| Do you see why gun-ownership is an anti-social trait?
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical
| ability to fight their government with small arms adorable
| and misguided._
|
| So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight
| against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the
| people's guns upon capturing Kabul.
|
| _not even counting accidents and suicides which are also
| made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone_
|
| The suicide statistics from some countries with effective
| total bans on civilian gun ownership do not support your
| claim for those, and for accidents we're at 500/year out of a
| population of 330 million people. There were years when more
| very young kids were accidentally drowning themselves by
| getting stuck upside down in 5 gallon (19 L) plastic buckets
| that are are ubiquitous here.
|
| _If Americans didn 't fight against the Patriot act, wars,
| torture, what will they fight for? Mask mandates?_
|
| Are any of these, the middle ones not directly affecting us,
| worth starting a civil war that would take hundreds of
| thousands to millions of lives?
|
| (I might argue yes for the wars, but it's not the sort of
| thing I suspect has ever happened in human history.)
| watwut wrote:
| Comparing Taliban to individual gun owners is next level
| absurd.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| why? The taliban is not like a nation state army, more
| like a bunch or militias and tribes, each of which is a
| "bunch of local guys with guns". As the war has
| progressed, I imagine they have got more professional,
| but I'm guessing around 80-90% of their strength are non
| ideological tribal militias who are very good at figuring
| out which way the wind is blowing and changing sides.
| That worked in the US favor in 2001-2 when the northern
| alliance was winning, and against US interests now,
| that's why resistance collapsed so quickly back in 2001
| and now.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Supported by military arms from Pakistan, UAE, Saudi
| Arabia, and Russia.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| And now $85 billion worth of American military arms as
| well.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Who do you think Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia by the
| arms from?
| watwut wrote:
| They are not local guys with guns. They were not local
| guys with guns years before last war. The region fighters
| started, long time ago, by being trained by army
| (American) and were sponsored by multiple governments
| over years.
|
| They are trained, funded disciplined. They are also local
| guys and local guys join them often. But then become part
| of something bigger.
| tengbretson wrote:
| Our F-150 driving rednecks would never be caught dead in
| those Toyota Hiluxs the taliban uses
| rpmisms wrote:
| That's true, the F-150 is significantly more capable.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'd encourage the fanboys who are inevitably triggered by
| this assertion to just compare dimensions and shipping
| weights on key components. The F150 is a much heavier
| vehicle all around.
| sofixa wrote:
| > So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight
| against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the
| people's guns upon capturing Kabul
|
| I sincerely doubt the average first world person has what
| it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go live in
| caves to resist a tyrannical occupation. And there's no
| need for them to do that, realistically.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > I sincerely doubt the average first world person has
| what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go
| live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation.
|
| I think the people seizing those weapons should be less
| concerned about "average" gun owners, and more worried
| about fringe citizens willing to die to detonate a high
| yield explosive in the centers of power.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The crazies are always the first off the porch. They're a
| canary.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I sincerely doubt the average first world person has
| what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go
| live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation.
|
| Why are you talking about the "average first world
| person"? IIRC, Afghanistan is a country of ~30 _million_
| people, and the most recent estimates I saw said the
| Taliban only had ~75 _thousand_ fighters. That 's 0.25%.
| So not even the _average Afghan_ did that.
|
| Also, guerilla warfare isn't so much about living in
| caves as melting into the population.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| >melting into the population.
|
| Or, as in Afghanistan, actively supported by the
| population who hated both the occupiers and the VICE
| (Vertically Integrated Criminal Enterprise) known as the
| government.
| clon wrote:
| Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching
| tyranny is the government cracking down on guns. So if
| nothing else, it serves as a great canary in the mine.
| watwut wrote:
| That is not actually true historically. That is popular
| talking point.
|
| On the other hand, quite a few authoritarian tyrannical
| movements started by arming themselves and taking it on
| themselves to get power. Both nazi and communists started
| as private citizens arming themselves and causing fights
| in the streets or robbing people.
| jdkee wrote:
| Partially true.
|
| "On Nov. 11, 1938, the German minister of the interior
| issued "Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons."
| Not only were Jews forbidden to own guns and ammunition,
| they couldn't own "truncheons or stabbing weapons."
|
| In addition to the restrictions, Ellerbrock said the
| Nazis had already been raiding Jewish homes and seizing
| weapons.
|
| "The gun policy of the Nazis can hardly be compared to
| the democratic procedures of gun regulations by law,"
| Ellerbrock told us. "It was a kind of special
| administrative practice (Sonderrecht), which treated
| people in different ways according to their political
| opinion or according to 'racial identity' in Nazi
| terms.""[0].
|
| [0]
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/oct/26/ben-
| carson...
| clon wrote:
| One example close from home, Belarus and Russian
| governments have gone to lengths in order to limit gun
| ownership. It is actually very difficult, at least
| legally. Perhaps when you are trying to stir a revolution
| you might speak to the nation arming itself. Once you
| have taken power, peacefully or otherwise, your next
| steps regarding gun control are still highly
| illuminating.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Australia doesn't seem that tyrannical to me.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Haven't really been paying attention to the news out of
| Australia over the past year and a half, have you?
| sofixa wrote:
| > Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching
| tyranny is the government cracking down on guns
|
| In a dictatorship, yes.
| beerandt wrote:
| Australia?
| ctdonath wrote:
| I sincerely doubt the average first world government has
| what it takes to sacrifice its comfortable bureaucracy
| and inspire even a tiny fraction of 330,000,000 citizens
| to fight back against tyranny.
|
| That's why federal legislators freaked out when a few
| thousand pissed off voters simply walked into the Capitol
| without permission - and without weapons. Every one of
| those mostly peaceful demonstrators represented a
| thousand equally angry, and well-armed, citizens not
| visible on security cameras.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Sure, it won't happen if everyone's life is still
| comfortable, that's the point. It's a safeguard against
| life becoming so extremely uncomfortable that the people
| started fighting.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Blaming the Afghanistan War on the "Deep State" is a very
| odd choice to me. Does the Deep State ratify authorizations
| for the use of military force and approve military spending
| budgets?
| tablespoon wrote:
| >>> Furthermore, i find US fascination with their
| theoretical ability to fight their government with small
| arms adorable and misguided.
|
| >> So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight
| against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the
| people's guns upon capturing Kabul.
|
| > Blaming the Afghanistan War on the "Deep State" is a
| very odd choice to me. Does the Deep State ratify
| authorizations for the use of military force and approve
| military spending budgets?
|
| You missed the point, which was the kind of thinking that
| says armed civilians stand no chance against a modern
| military also says the US should have prevailed in
| Afghanistan.
|
| I believe "deep state" here is a tendentious term that
| refers to the permanent, unelected parts of the executive
| branch. Their expert analysis said the US was just about
| to "turn the corner" for 20 years. It's not about the
| decision to go in the first place.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _I believe "deep state" here is a tendentious term that
| refers to the permanent, unelected parts of the executive
| branch. Their expert analysis said the US was just about
| to "turn the corner" for 20 years._
|
| Exactly. See but the most recent controversy about Gen.
| Mark Milley, a complete abrogation of the principle of
| civilian control over the military, something that goes
| back to George Washington and one of the reasons we have
| so many places named after Cincinnatus https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus
| philwelch wrote:
| The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries.
| From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina
| at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa
| Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still
| has less homicide than even relatively nice New World
| countries.
|
| If you're going to tout France's low homicide rate of 1.2,
| I'd invite you to observe that Japan's homicide rate is 0.26.
| Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of
| Japanese law, for instance, by readopting the death penalty?
| Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different
| countries?
|
| In fact, I would posit that the arrow of causation can point
| the other way. If you live in a country with higher rates of
| homicide and violent crime, you will be more interested in
| defending yourself.
|
| > Protests and revolutions in France have done more to guide
| government power than anything ever that happened in the US.
|
| This seems like a bizarre and dubious oversimplification.
| France had an outright military coup in 1958 when the
| democratically elected government didn't want to hold onto
| Algeria. While both democracy and Algerian independence
| worked out in the long run, the mere possibility of a
| military coup--something that French military officers will
| occasionally make threats to repeat--seems to be a major
| distinction that is not in France's favor here.
|
| Meanwhile, popular protests in the US led to the Civil Rights
| Act of 1964 and ultimately even withdrawal from Vietnam. It's
| not like the American public is politically powerless
| compared to that of any other democracy.
| [deleted]
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| >The US is not that bad compared to other New World
| countries.
|
| Yeah, I'd add that France doesn't have a long, porous
| border with the developing world. Nor nearly as much
| heterogeneity in its population.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Pretty sure that in total far more guns are moving south
| from the US than north into it
| mattcwilson wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted. These are facts
| about France vs. the U.S. Maybe "developing" is a
| /little/ strong for Mexico, but I take your point to be
| more about Central America generally.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Because it's nonsense. Until the 60's, Algeria was
| literally part of France. It's an extremely diverse
| country.
| philwelch wrote:
| I'm not actually sure how accurate that is. France has an
| ethnically and religiously heterogeneous population, high
| levels of immigration from Africa, and open borders with
| the rest of the EU.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and
| Mexico. Those countries may be New World, but anybody who's
| visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone.
|
| In other words, if Brazil and Mexico are our points of
| comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in,
| to put it diplomatically. Reddit's running joke is that
| every gunfight happened in Brazil. In fact, I often wonder
| if most of the gunfight videos actually do come from
| Brazil.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Mexico is a big country. There are places in Mexico where
| you can go random places alone, and places that it would
| be ill-advised.
|
| There are places in the US where you can go random places
| alone, and places that it would be ill-advised.
|
| There are places in the Baltimore metro area where you
| can go random places alone, and places that it would be
| ill-advised.
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| > The US is not that bad compared to other New World
| countries.
|
| > Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are
| different countries?
|
| Huh? Are you implying that simply existing in the "New
| World" would cause the baseline expected murder rate to be
| higher for some reason?
| beerandt wrote:
| It means different countries have different cultures that
| value life and violence in different ways.
|
| And that your immediate neighbors will have more of an
| influence on that than a country on the other side of the
| world, especially if there's a substantial amount of
| immigration.
|
| In the case of the US, I'd say it's more-so, because so
| much of the violence south of our border is directly
| related to moving things and people over it.
| macrowhat wrote:
| Well we're not a bunch of pussies and shit
| truffdog wrote:
| The US murder rate isn't normally distributed. It's highly
| concentrated in a few hotspots, with most of the country
| living in areas with European murder rates.
|
| The news is national though, so you wind up in this weird
| situation with suburbanites buying guns and worried about
| urban Chicago a thousand miles away.
| enriquto wrote:
| > For reference, Angola is better at 4.85. Bulgaria and
| Romania, the poorest countries in the EU, are at 1.3. France
| is at 1.2.
|
| I don't know about Angola, but in most european countries
| it's really easy to buy guns (for hunting, sharp-shooting,
| etc.). When my dad retired he joined a shooting club with his
| friends, the gun permit being slightly harder to obtain than
| a fishing permit. There are gun shops everywhere where you
| can buy guns and ammunition if you show your permit. There
| are of course regulations for carrying your gun, I don't
| remember exactly, but you have to carry ammunition and gun
| separately or something like that.
|
| I guess the problem is not about the easy availability of
| guns, but that the american society is more violent.
| fh973 wrote:
| Actually getting a fishing permit in Germany is quite an
| undertaking. The theoretical exam is based on a catalog of
| several hundred questions.
| enriquto wrote:
| Like a driving license, then. This means that anybody can
| get it, if they are moderately inrerested. It could be
| even a bit harder, and still be alright.
| mettamage wrote:
| > 4.96/100,000 for 2012
|
| So...
|
| 5 * 20 years = 100
|
| So living in the US for 20 year means that the people
| murdered by guns are very roughly estimated at 1 person per
| 1000.
|
| That's about as twice as high of a chance as dying from the
| flu [1].
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127799/influenza-us-
| mor...
| redstripe wrote:
| What's admirable about it? This is just a fiction that you
| Americans tell yourselves about the next revolution.
|
| Name one, just one way, that ease of gun ownership has
| protected Americans from their government in a way that
| citizens of other western democracies have suffered?
|
| There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any
| country defeats their government. Your gun will keep you safe
| about as well as your password protected Word document keeps
| you safe from the NSA snooping.
| hpoe wrote:
| And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would
| things have been like if every Security operative, when he
| went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain
| whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his
| family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example
| in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire
| city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling
| with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every
| step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing
| left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an
| ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
| whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly
| have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and,
| notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine
| would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom
| enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real
| situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that
| happened afterward.'' -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The
| Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956"
| newfriend wrote:
| > Name one, just one way, that ease of gun ownership has
| protected Americans from their government in a way that
| citizens of other western democracies have suffered?
|
| 1776
|
| > There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any
| country defeats their government. Your gun will keep you safe
| about as well as your password protected Word document keeps
| you safe from the NSA snooping.
|
| Good thing it's not just one citizen then. Is the government
| going to nuke/drone all its citizens? If not, then they have
| to have some presence on the ground. At which point I'll take
| having arms vs nothing.
| jdkee wrote:
| "There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any
| country defeats their government."
|
| In case you haven't seen the news, ~75,000 militants with
| AK-47s just conquered a country of 30,000,000 persons in a
| matter of weeks.
| mmmpop wrote:
| If you were an officer of the law pressed to go door-to-door
| to say, purely hypothetically, take the oldest child by force
| to inscribe them in some dystopian military program, you'd
| probably be a lot more hesitant if you knew that there was a
| chance you'd get shot in the process right?
|
| I believe that's the security that _us Americans_ (I imagine
| your sneer with that) feel by being armed.
|
| Isn't it that the Swiss are all armed as well? They seem to
| have fared rather well in a 20th century Europe fraught with
| conflict. Tell me that's a coincidence with absolutely no
| correlation to their pro-gun culture.
| ahtihn wrote:
| Swiss gun culture has nothing to do with American gun
| culture. Guns are for hunting and sport that's it.
|
| Essentially no one even thinks of getting a gun for self
| defence. There also has never been an idea that guns are
| for defending yourself against your own government here.
| mike00632 wrote:
| There is a reason why you have to resort to "pure
| hypotheticals" and you should dwell on that.
| [deleted]
| cltby wrote:
| > There is no scenario in which any citizen with a gun in any
| country defeats their government
|
| Imagine writing this not one month after the Taliban wins its
| war against the US.
| redstripe wrote:
| Fine. Perhaps I shouldn't have said any nation, but
| Afghanistan is not a modern nation state. It's a time warp
| back to some era 1000 years ago with poorly run government
| theater that only existed to keep the kleptocrats stealing
| from their wealthy benefactor.
|
| Do you imagine some well armed coalition of militias in
| Idaho or wherever is going to be rampaging through the
| American countryside and declaring a new nation? I wonder
| if these guys hugged their rifles in their last moments:
| https://youtu.be/t9K0fhMCTGk?t=102 NSFW
| wittycardio wrote:
| There is nothing admirable about it . If the military actually
| turns against its civilians then the civilians stand no chance
| despite whatever guns they own. All it does is increase the
| total violence in American society and all the neighbouring
| countries
| seneca wrote:
| I agree with most of your post. One small quibble though:
|
| > There's something admirable about the idea that a government
| would not take away all the guns.
|
| The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns,
| not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed
| government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government
| is supposed to exist to safe guard them.
|
| I think that's an important philosophical point that a lot of
| people, especially the anti-gun type, lose sight of. Not
| suggesting you're in that camp, but I think the distinction is
| important.
| tantalor wrote:
| Semantics
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Or the single most important point to understand when it
| comes to government.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| The US Constitution _can_ be changed, never forget that.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| The Bill of Rights cannot be. This is the fundamental
| difference between the US and other Western democracies.
| Consent to be governed rests upon said government
| respecting those inalienable rights that we have. Those
| rights are not granted us by the government, they are the
| rights that we created a government to preserve. Any
| government violating those rights no longer has the consent
| of the governed and should be abolished.
| caymanjim wrote:
| There are no inalienable rights. It's a marketing slogan.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The Bill of Rights cannot be.
|
| Sure it can. The "Bill of Rights" is just a term for the
| first ten amendments. The 21st Amendment reads:
|
| "Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the
| Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."
|
| Nothing in the Constitution forbids doing the same to the
| First, Second, or any other, should enough Americans
| agree on the point.
|
| The 28th Amendment could read "The President shall be
| selected by the Prime Minister of Canada, and all
| redheads shall be put to death" and it'd not only be the
| law of the land once ratified, but there'd be no legal
| recourse except another amendment. Even more fun; include
| a "The Constitution may no longer be amended" as an
| additional provision.
|
| (Of course, you have to get that through the amendment
| process, which is fairly obviously unlikely.)
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| That's absurd. The Bill of Rights is literally a list of
| changes to the constitution. Any one of them can be
| changed at any time by a majority of states.
|
| You're essentially saying that if the majority of the
| country votes to change one of the rights, then what?
| You'll no longer recognize the government as real?
| dirtyoldmick wrote:
| Good luck getting a majority of states to agree on
| something....anything really.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Take that argument to an extreme. If the majority of the
| country votes to suspend democracy, would you stick
| around? If not, then doesn't that imply that there exists
| a set of underlying principles that you believe are
| fundamental to a government? That's exactly what the Bill
| of Rights is, an enumeration of what were viewed as the
| fundamental rights for which the point of government is
| to preserve.
|
| The mistake so many people make is thinking that
| government is the lowest level. It is not, government is
| downstream of culture and is a reflection of that
| cultures values. Without a unified culture that agrees on
| certain prerequisits of government, for example from this
| case elected representation, there can be no functional
| government.
| jmeister wrote:
| Hayek's "cosmos" and "taxis" dichotomy captures this
| well.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If the majority of the country votes to suspend
| democracy, would you stick around?
|
| I mean, the South tried exactly that sort of approach
| over slavery, which their secession declarations deemed
| fundamental.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _That 's absurd. The Bill of Rights is literally a list
| of changes to the constitution._
|
| Which were the price the Antifederalists demanded to
| accept the Constitution as a whole.
|
| _Any one of them can be changed at any time by a
| majority of states._
|
| Supermajority, and only after a supermajority of the
| Congress starts the process or a supermajority of states
| calls for a constitutional convention. Even then,
| abrogating any of the _Bill of Rights_ also abrogates the
| original deal, making the rest of the Constitution and
| its additional amendments null and void.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Can you justify or defend your argument in your last
| sentence? Because I think it's not only wrong, but
| clearly wrong.
|
| In particular, other amendments have changed part of the
| text of the original Constitution. How does that not also
| "abrogate the original deal, making the Constitution null
| and void"? That argument should apply even more if we're
| talking about the body rather than the first 10
| amendments, shouldn't it? Why do you single out the Bill
| of Rights as being unchangeable?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Ah, well, you've gone down a philosophical path on the
| role of government.
|
| Strictly mechanically speaking, the constitution can be
| amended by a certain majority of voting in a national
| campaign, and those amendments can override any other
| amendment as the voters see fit.
| [deleted]
| AustinDev wrote:
| >The whole point is that the government Can Not take away
| guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed
| government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the
| government is supposed to exist to safe guard them.
|
| The National Firearms Act would like to have a word it is
| unconstitutional on it's face despite what the Supreme Court
| says. 'Shall not be infringed' hasn't been the law of the
| land since the 1930's.
|
| Maybe we'll get lucky and this conservative supreme court
| will do one big thing right and declare all federal firearms
| regulations null and void thus ending this culture war and
| forcing the politicians to fix actual problems. However, that
| is highly unlikely.
| packetlost wrote:
| > thus ending this culture war and forcing the politicians
| to fix actual problems
|
| You think guns are the core of the culture war? Even if the
| SCOTUS did make such a ruling, the culture war almost
| certainly would not end.
| AustinDev wrote:
| It's been shown that many people would side with
| democrats on the majority of social issues and vote for
| them if not for their stance on firearms. If the
| democrats lost their ability to use that as part of their
| culture war platform they'd likely gain a ton of people
| who don't vote or vote R simply to retain their rights.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| This is silly, because Gun laws are a central part of the
| platform and can't be abandoned.
|
| This is like saying if Republicans just dropped anti-
| immigration from their platform they'd gain a ton of
| people who don't vote for them because they're Mexican.
|
| Any move like this fundamentally alienates the base.
| oaktrout wrote:
| What keeps a party's platform from changing? Would former
| republicans vote democrat if the republican party dropped
| its anti-immigration stance? Surely not, as there is
| still abortion, taxes, guns, etc.
| zepto wrote:
| It seems highly unlikely to me that many people would
| switch from D to R if the democrats stopped pursuing gun
| control.
|
| On the other hand I know many people who will hold their
| nose and vote R only because they don't want to lose
| their gun rights.
| ctrlp wrote:
| You can't reduce the culture war to gun ownership. The
| Dems are doing just about everything they can to alienate
| traditionalists in the U.S., including gun owners. It's
| not even the most important wedge issue anymore. Rather,
| gun owners are concerned about defending themselves in a
| country organized by Democratic party policy. They'll
| need the guns when the police are defunded, or when the
| social workers come for their children.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I'm asking genuinely, is this a real fear: "...when the
| social workers come for their children".
| ctrlp wrote:
| Well, I can't say they will actually take up arms against
| social workers but it is a fear. Many parents fear the
| current trends from parental authority over children to
| state authority over children. If you don't see that
| trend, you're not paying attention. There are many
| parents who feel they have reason to fear home-schooling
| will be outlawed. There are parents who fear that
| children are being given instruction or choices at school
| that parents are not privy to and that would
| traditionally have required parental consent and might be
| considered brainwashing by some parents. Some parents
| fear that the this is the tip of the spear and believe
| they would do anything to protect their children from
| being harmed as they conceive of harm.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " There are parents who fear that children are being
| given instruction or choices at school that parents are
| not privy to and that would traditionally have required
| parental consent"
|
| Are you referring to sex ed. here?
| ctrlp wrote:
| Among other things
| starbase wrote:
| I don't know about fear, though it's certainly a concern.
| I have had police and social workers come to my home, and
| to my child's school, because I let her walk to the park
| alone. The park was less than 100 meters from my home.
|
| In my own childhood--an objectively more dangerous time--
| I explored an area of over 100 square kilometers,
| unsupervised and with no means of phoning home, yet
| suffered no problems more serious than a skinned knee.
| qball wrote:
| Real enough that Utah passed a law to deal with it (i.e.
| "no, the state is not going to be used to abduct your
| children while they're walking home from the park, no
| matter how many times Karen calls us about uNsUpErViSeD
| cHiLdReN").
|
| Is it that far-fetched to be wary of concern trolls given
| that the state allows itself to be used as their weapon?
| majormajor wrote:
| When the Supreme Court "ended the culture war" about
| abortion with Roe did it result in the right wing giving up
| and deciding to get other things done? Or did it get turned
| into a core issue for recruiting generations of Republicans
| to _overturn it_?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Genuine legal interpretation question: Why does everyone
| quote "Shall not be infringed" but ignore "Well-regulated"?
|
| If the goal is a "well regulated militia", and therefore
| gun rights "shall not be infringed", why do we interpret
| that as "everybody should have largely unfettered access to
| weapons" rather than "If part of a well-regulated armed
| force, access to weapons should be allowed during militia
| activities"? or something similar.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Well-regulate here means well armed. So, theoretically,
| this means that the right of the people to keep and bear
| arms should include all weapons useful to a militia. So
| machine guns, mines, grenades, rocket launchers, tanks,
| helicopters, etc.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The US Supreme Court held "The Amendment's prefatory
| clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand
| the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The
| operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it
| connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms."[1]
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Perfect answer. Thanks!
| beerandt wrote:
| Separately, "regulate" didn't mean the same thing then as
| it does today.
|
| Think about the phrase "well-regulated". When has modern
| regulation ever been described as "well"? And what would
| that even mean?
|
| The meaning was intended to be somewhere between well-
| supplied and well-prepared.
|
| Similar to how "regulate interstate commerce" was
| intended as to encourage and provide-for, not to limit or
| restrict.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Well regulated as in a steam engine, which wasn't far on
| the horizon.
| beerandt wrote:
| I'd argue that's a result of the historic usage that has
| persisted, partly because it's compatible, but only in
| context.
|
| A steam regulator _supplies_ steam from the boiler to the
| piston /traction, at the desired controlled rate.
|
| It does it via a restrictive valve, but even that's a
| stretch for it to be considered primarily a retarding
| device, and not an enabling/ accelerating one.
|
| We don't call a cars gas pedal a deccelerator or fuel-
| regulator, we call it the gas, or accelerator.
|
| The consistent usage is as a definition of supply.
| majormajor wrote:
| A 5-4 decision in 2008 that was along predictable lines.
| Let's not pretend it's a long-settled or non-
| controversial interpretation.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| The two relevant decisions changed no facts on the ground
| outside of D.C. and Illinois. Reversal won't change
| anything except _maybe_ the facts on the ground in
| Illinois, and will further inflame the divisions in the
| country.
|
| Although you should double check your assertions, some of
| the details of the decisions were not 5-4.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not
| granted by it._
|
| That's a nice ideal, but in reality governments can do and
| take away whatever they want, and a guarantee that they won't
| take away your "inalienable" rights is only as good as the
| system built around that government, and the willingness of
| its people to fight (physically or legally) for their rights.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Well, if the new Texas anti-abortion law is declared legal
| and constitutional in the courts, there's going to be a lot
| more laws that deny people their constitutional rights via
| similar "bounty hunter" systems. And the fact that it wasn't
| declared unconstitutional right off the bat makes the "can
| not" part not apply that well since Texas can currently very
| much take away constitutional rights from its citizens.
|
| Also, the "inalienable rights" in 1776 were not really
| inalienable since life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
| were afforded to a pretty select group of people.
| foofoo4u wrote:
| There are graphics like
| [this](https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-
| newsom-...) that make it easy to tell how statistics weigh in
| various constituencies. Does anyone here know of a similar
| graph, but for homicides by firearms? If the majority of
| firearm violence is indeed caused by specific hotspots across
| the country, then I would love to see a graphic that shows
| where they are and how they weigh in proportion to the rest.
| mlboss wrote:
| Every time I read the story of gun violence in American school
| it send chills down my spine. As a parent you don't want to
| worry about shootouts at your kid's school. And this is totally
| preventable if Government bans guns.
|
| I understand the idea that citizens need protection from
| government. But if fight really breaks out between government
| and citizens then there are weapons far powerful then guns that
| citizens don't have.
|
| The whole gun debate is only happening because there are strong
| gun lobbyist in Washington. Gun manufactures makes sure that
| they can sell guns and make profit.
| bootsz wrote:
| Jesus H Christ, this comment section. What has happened to HN? I
| think I'm done for good this time. Peace.
| [deleted]
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i live in the american south, where everybody owns guns. i own a
| gun for hunting. but for self defense, i have pepper spray and
| bear spray instead of guns because i don't want to kill somebody
| regardless of their intentions. i'd be curious to see the stats
| of self-defense/firearms, because it seems like self-defense gun
| owners are LARPing over imagined intruder situations. they're
| definitely not about to take up arms against the state, and if
| they think they would do that, then they're certainly LARPing and
| live in a fantasy world.
|
| exceptions to this rule, especially in the american south, are
| civil rights leaders and similar political activists. Martin
| Luther King preached non-violent protest but owned guns for
| protecting his home against the very real threat of violent
| racists. (there's some interesting writing about this if you look
| it up. google something like "martin luther king guns malcolm x")
|
| the bigger risk is accidentally killing somebody with a gun, like
| an "intruder" that is actually somebody you know. or a kid
| accidentally firing the gun and killing themselves or somebody
| else, or somebody intentionally killing themselves.
|
| edit: added "but" in front of dependent clause "for self defense"
| Fogest wrote:
| It sounds like lower estimates indicate about 55 000 - 80 000
| uses of self defense with a gun per year:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
|
| But it sounds like it really varies source to source. The
| problem is that a lot of the time it is just an estimate. Not
| all self-defense uses of a gun are reported as often someone
| doing a criminal action is not going to self-report it. And the
| person with the gun may not want to report it either for fear
| of getting in trouble. Additionally it doesn't seem like there
| is really a national database that can properly catalogue and
| account for self-defense actions with a gun. So it seems a lot
| of it is based on estimates from what data they do have.
|
| Either way that low-end estimate still seems to be quite a
| large number. It does make you think how many violent crimes
| may have been avoided because of brandishing a firearm in self-
| defense. It's unfortunate that it is hard to get accurate data
| on this.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Either way that low-end estimate still seems to be quite a
| large number. It does make you think how many violent crimes
| may have been avoided because of brandishing a firearm in
| self-defense. It 's unfortunate that it is hard to get
| accurate data on this._
|
| What are the trade offs though?
|
| > _5. Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in
| self-defense_
|
| > _Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone
| survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury
| Control Center, we examined the extent and nature of
| offensive gun use. We found that firearms are used far more
| often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-
| defense. All reported cases of criminal gun use, as well as
| many of the so-called self-defense gun uses, appear to be
| socially undesirable._
|
| > _Hemenway, David; Azrael, Deborah. The relative frequency
| of offensive and defensive gun use: Results of a national
| survey. Violence and Victims. 2000; 15:257-272._
|
| * https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-
| thr...
| clairity wrote:
| it's interesting that you criticize owning guns for self-
| defense, but claim it as a (partial) reason for owning your own
| guns. perhaps you mean self-defense against wildlife rather
| than people, since you use pepper/bear spray to avoid chancing
| murder?
|
| but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun
| defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful
| self-defense, where only the perpetrator is incapacitated and
| not the defender or bystanders, primarily because of a complete
| lack of (extreme duress) experience and (usually) genuine
| lethal intent. and the mere act of brandishing a weapon in such
| circumstances tends to escalate them uncontrollably, and to the
| defender's disadvantage.
|
| we can discourage gun ownership for self-defense and still
| support them for their (symbolic) value against governmental
| tyranny, as well their general usefulness in hunting and rural
| life. regardless, we should work on reducing gun death and
| injury: over 100K/yr are injured/killed by guns in the US.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| maybe i'm sleep deprived today, but i'm missing where i
| claimed owning guns for self-defense? i own for hunting, so i
| can hunt wildlife. not for self-defense, but for food.
| clairity wrote:
| apologies, i must have misread that the first time around.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| no worries! it's partially my fault for unclear writing.
| flyingfences wrote:
| > there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively
| in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense
|
| The evidence that I've seen does not support such a bold
| claim at all.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun
| defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful
| self-defense
|
| I and the dozen other people I've met who have all done so,
| me without firing a single shot, would all disagree with that
| bold and ignorant claim.
| staunch wrote:
| > _...i don 't want to kill somebody regardless of their
| intentions..._
|
| This is where each person's specific ethics are really
| important. I would really hate to ever kill anyone. Full stop.
| _But_ I would definitely prefer to kill a criminal that was
| attempting to murder me or someone else.
|
| If you would rather be murdered by a criminal rather than kill
| them, that is a respectable position to hold. Although I do
| tend to doubt the conviction of _most_ people who claim this
| position.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i agree, but i've come to believe that there are other ways
| to prevent this without a gun. hence my believe in mace as a
| form of self-defense. i've never been in this situation and
| hopefully never will be in this situation. so we'll let this
| hacker news comment act as a historical note for my personal
| decree.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Very few sane people will consider taking up arms against the
| government until it becomes a necessity.
| gorwell wrote:
| "they're definitely not about to take up arms against the
| state, and if they think they would do that, then they're
| certainly LARPing and live in a fantasy world."
|
| Didn't the Taliban prove otherwise? That would suggest an armed
| citizenship can be a counter to tyranny.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| good point, but i'm speaking from a US-centric point of view.
| and so is this article. so i don't think the your taliban
| argument is a strong counterpoint to my claim.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| The Taliban was fighting against the US though, with all
| their high-tech drones and such, which are usually cited as
| the reason that guns are futile against the state.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i don't know enough about the military strategy that
| allowed the taliban to seize control, so i can't argue
| with you there. but i do want to point out how your
| argument could be interpreted as advocating for guns so a
| tyrannical regime like the taliban can take over a
| government.
| seneca wrote:
| This mirrors what I've seen personally. I shoot quite a bit, and
| had a lot of friends reach out about advice on buying a first
| gun.
|
| Fears were largely around the general civil unrest and BLM
| rioting last summer. I've heard several women say they don't feel
| safe being out alone anymore, and felt the need to protect
| themselves. I've heard a few mothers voice concerns about
| protecting children as well.
|
| I always coach people to take a gun safety course before bringing
| a firearm into their home. It worried me seeing so much buying
| based on fear. I think an armed person is better off, but having
| a firearm you don't understand, and bought on a knee jerk fear
| reaction, can be dangerous. I think the best thing I, and other
| gun enthusiasts, can do is get out there and educate all these
| new owners so that they're comfortable and safer.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I'm not quite following, but are you saying that women are
| afraid for their children because of Black Lives Matter?
|
| Have there been any documented cases of BLM indiscriminately
| attacking women or children? This seems weird to me.
|
| I've taken gun safety courses run by local police, and every
| time they told us that it's ideal to not have a gun in your
| house at all because they see more accidental shootings than
| thwarted break-ins. This is of course, anecdotal, and I'm sure
| they prefer fewer citizens to have guns... so it might be BS.
| tootie wrote:
| Not OP, but he may be right. And not because it's true, but
| because people are irrational. The same people buying guns
| because they are afraid of BLM/Antifa are also avoiding
| vaccines while hoarding ivermectin. Irrational.
| hunter21athrow wrote:
| > Have there been any documented cases of BLM
| indiscriminately attacking women or children? This seems
| weird to me.
|
| Well, there was widespread rioting across more or less the
| entire nation. Also, while not direct violence by BLM agents,
| many metropolitan police forces have either introduced
| "reform" in direct support of BLM policy or have otherwise
| changed tactics to avoid getting bad press and riots in their
| own town. There is also the issue of officers getting fed up
| with these changes and leaving for more supportive locales.
|
| In my city, I've had two different hood-rat road rage
| incidents this year, having only had one other incident 10+
| years ago. In both cases drivers made high-speed dangerous
| maneuvers and then attempted to run me off the road and stick
| their firearms out the window. One yesterday morning, the
| other in February. In the former case, I provided a full
| description of the driver, vehicle, and plate number to 911
| and they never even touched the case. I'm still waiting to
| hear back some 6 months later. I never bothered calling in
| the second incident.
|
| Actions have consequences, and a less safe city is a result.
| Criminals, particularly Black criminals, are emboldened by
| these changes and the zeitgeist that will back them up no
| matter how much wrongdoing occurs. It's only natural for
| folks to look after themselves in the face of a faltering
| police force.
| Fredvk wrote:
| Huh, so miss solane did end up accepting that job after all
| chmod600 wrote:
| I've only known one person to use a gun in self defense.
|
| She didn't fire it.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Anecdotal as well, but I stopped an attempted home invasion
| with a 1911. I walked out with it in my hand, pointed at the
| ground, and they left. Fast. That was it.
| jboggan wrote:
| I didn't fire the one time I had to draw in self defense, and
| neither did my father the one time he needed it, and neither
| did my mother the one time she needed it.
|
| For context I grew up around Atlanta.
| 2AThrowaway wrote:
| throwaway for the obvious reasons... take this as you wish.
|
| I am a person who has drawn their licensed handgun in self-
| defense, twice, separated by ~25 years and hundreds of miles.
| One an attempted robbery or interrupted break-in in a rear
| parking lot by two men who probably thought I had access to the
| building, the second by a group of three that split and
| approached quickly from two sides on a city street. In neither
| case did I need to fire. I had situational awareness that these
| people were coming toward me to do some kind of harm and the
| fact that I was absolutely prepared to kill in my own self-
| defense caused these would be criminals to stop and run away.
| salex89 wrote:
| From what you are saying, it looks like you also practice
| drills, at least semi-regularly. I think that is key, no
| matter the caliber. Hell, even using pepper spray should be
| exercised once or twice a year.
| SnowProblem wrote:
| A wonderful book that covers the history of the 2nd amendment
| along with its modern interpretations is The Second Amendment
| Primer: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Amendment-Primer-
| Authorities-C.... It has useful and interesting information
| regardless of where you stand.
| igetspam wrote:
| My wife (and many women) has felt that the only way to effect
| change in our gun laws would be for white men to feel like
| targets. I used to do iss that idea somewhat but as I've paid
| more attention to things over th last few years, I no longer
| dismiss the notion. I don't wish many people dead but if women
| and minorities start buying up a lot of guns, maybe they'll start
| shooting back. Then we'll see how many times the same people
| who've thumped their chests about dying to protect the 2nd
| amendment in the face of regular mass shootings feel. Having a
| fun pointed at you tends to shift your priorities, as I've
| unfortunately had the opportunity to to learn.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > My wife (and many women) has felt that the only way to effect
| change in our gun laws would be for white men to feel like
| targets.
|
| That's literally a joke. I heard it on a Dave Chappelle
| special.
|
| IIRC, actual gun rights groups like the NRA _want_ black people
| and women to buy guns, because they 're about gun rights and
| realize they're better secured if their constituency is larger.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > IIRC, gun rights groups like the NRA want black people and
| women to buy guns.
|
| Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| If the best you can come up with is a ten years prior to
| the Cincinnati Revolt five decades old law, you've got
| _nothing._
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
|
| So? That was in _1967_. Do you think nothing has changed
| since then? IIRC, I don 't even think the NRA was even much
| of a gun rights organization until later.
|
| You need to work on your gotcha skills.
|
| Look at this:
|
| Here's the featured video on the (now defunct) NRATV
| youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84A_fRQfTAE
|
| tl;dr: black guy criticizing Biden for gun control and
| stuff like his previous opposition to school busing.
|
| An for completeness, this looks like a channel they had for
| women: https://www.youtube.com/user/nrawomen
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| _That was in 1967, do you think nothing has changed since
| then? IIRC, I don 't even think the NRA was even much of
| a gun rights organization until later._
|
| They were fighting it then, I've read many membership
| magazine issues from the 1960s, but lost so
| comprehensively starting in the next year with the Gun
| Control Act of 1968 and through the high point of gun
| control in the 1970s that the leadership decided to
| surrender this issue and retreat to hunting and target
| shooting and move their headquarters from D.C. to
| Colorado.
|
| In the 1977 annual meeting in Cincinnati this leadership
| was ousted and people with a focus that included even
| having the right to hunt and target shoot with guns
| replaced them. Fast forward another ten years and the
| nationwide sweep of "shall issue" and better concealed
| carry regimes started in Florida with help from the NRA.
| Now 42 states and ~75% of the population, for all but
| Illinois done legislatively.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Wrong. They are about gun _ownership_. Any rights are simply
| to enable more purchasing. Buying more guns makes the
| manufacturers happy.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Wrong. They are about gun ownership. Any rights are
| simply to enable more purchasing. Buying more guns makes
| the manufacturers happy.
|
| Oh, come on. Don't be so lazy to assume the rights advocacy
| you don't (seem to) like is just some bad faith conspiracy
| to sell shit and make money.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| You're confusing the NRA with the NSSF.
| igetspam wrote:
| You must not live in a place with many NRA stickers. Look
| closely, they also have that fancy thin blue line sticker
| too.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| You've payed _no_ attention whatsoever to US gun culture 2.0,
| we welcome women and minorities with open arms, and women were
| always welcome, every heard of Annie Oakley?? Seen the NRA
| celebrating on the front page of their membership magazine
| women who won all gender national championships?
|
| You _completely_ misunderstand our motivations for keeping and
| bearing arms, and thus your hope is doomed to not come true.
| igetspam wrote:
| As an unfortunate life member of the NRA, I get the
| magazines. I also don't agree with you. I think the NRA is
| what's wrong with gun culture. There are much more sane
| organizations in the US who support both gym ownership AND
| common sense gun laws. The NRA is a lobbying group and
| they're soulless. They fight against any reasonable change
| that isn't purely for show (and they fight the useless laws
| too that try and band forearms for looking scary because
| they're too stupid to see how useless laws would further
| their agenda).
| Clubber wrote:
| >They fight against any reasonable change that isn't purely
| for show
|
| Like what?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Hi there, I'm a member of leadership for a group called
| AAPIGO. The GO is Gun Owners. I'm one of the ally members,
| helping bridge the gap between Asian gun owners and your more
| traditional NRA member stereotype. This is the future.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| Bojack run a skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eG0y_nb5IA
|
| But I doubt it. Women with guns are actually a sexy cliche.
| exporectomy wrote:
| White men? These discussions about guns in America are always
| full of people completely ignorant of the fact that black and
| Hispanic men account for the majority of shootings. It's really
| a black and Hispanic men problem as both shooter and victim.
|
| Minorities aren't safe. But it's themselves that they're not
| safe from, not white men. People almost exclusively shoot
| members of their own race. White people are safe because other
| white people aren't very violent.
| a_conservative wrote:
| Making people feel like targets will persuade them to give up
| self-defense?
| igetspam wrote:
| No, which is an interesting take. No major political party is
| trying to abolish the 2nd amendment. None. Reasonable limits
| on firearms and access to firearms is not going to take away
| your right to self defense. It could keep more guns out of
| the hands of felons by requiring federal background checks on
| private sales. Buy that's crazy, right? I should be able to
| sell my Super Redhawk to the drunk across the street without
| anyone knowing about it! Sure, I've seen him hit his wife but
| he was angry and drunk. He's normally a cool guy.
|
| (For the readers: that's a 40 cal revolver that suuuuuucks to
| shoot and the drunk across the street is a real person, with
| a bunch of guns, who would like to buy it from me)
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.md/6qh7F
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