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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

In my day we held nuclear attack drills. Not sure what is more terrifying/depressing tbh.

How many people do you know who have been injured or killed from gun violence? How many do you know who have been victims of nuclear violence? I know for me personally I've witnessed gun violence, and know people who've been injured because of it. For me at least gun violence is much more personal, and thus more depressing and terrifying.

Gun violence frequently kills a small number of people.

USA/USSR nuclear war is an extremely rare event (to the point where it never actually happened; but any reasonable reading of history recognizes that it could have happened), that kills a large number of people. Lets estimate between 70 and 160 million immediate deaths in the US. [0]. This would be between 35 and 80% of the population. Lets round this estimate to a flat 100 million.

In 2013, there was about 100,000 firearm injuries (~34,000 of which were fatal. and 21,000 were suicide) [1]

These two number are not directly comparable, because of population growth, and my considering non-fatal gun injuries but only immediately fatal nuclear injuries. However, both of these facts serve to make gun violence look relatively worse than nuclear violence.

Even with these simplifications, our gun violence is equivalent to a nuclear war every 100 years. Readings of history may vary, but I doubt we could survive 100 years of cold war without starting a nuclear war.

For simplicity, lets ignore population growth and just focus on the absolute numbers (which will make shootings look even worse, because the total population has increased).

[0] http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/129966

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

> How many people do you know who have been injured or killed from gun violence?

Um, none?

Exactly. The chance of this affecting your kid is tiny, compared to choking, being hit by car, etc. bought it does serve to terrorize the kids.

In 8 years i live in usa i did not witness any gun-related violence. Nor nuclear-related.

Perhaps it is taboo to say this but it seems like a catch-22 to me: that in an effort to prevent mass murder with firearms, many US citizens would turn to the same government which has prepared to commit the greatest indiscriminant mass murder in history with their nuclear weapons.

Considering school shooters actually happen, and quite often at that, I'd say it's a bit more scary than a nuclear drill.

Nuclear drills don't really do anything anyway, if a nuke is coming you're going to be dead regardless of you hiding under your desk.

That depends on how far away you are. There is a radius within which you simply die, and a radius beyond which you will be fine regardless. Between those two radii, you can absolutely reduce your risk of death.

...if a nuke is coming you're going to be dead regardless of you hiding under your desk.

Ridiculous as it may seem, I remember some information in the late 1970's about 'what to do in the event of a nuclear attack' and 'underneath a table' was one of the places they advised as a good place to hide.

This is actually quite good advice. If you're close enough, you're dead regardless, but even miles away from an impact you still need to protect yourself against things like flying glass and falling debris.

Kind of like the Israeli standard warning to get into a concrete stairwell if you hear a missile alarm and don't have a real bomb shelter available. In a direct hit you're dead anyway, but mild defensive measures can vastly reduce the lethal radius of an attack.

EDIT: Here's a vintage poster on the subject. Fairly factually correct, but awful for morale: https://i.redd.it/fw2xx579qw401.jpg

The instant death zone of nukes will kill, I believe, significantly less than half the victims. Many more people will die of fairly "pedestrian" causes like building collapses or even fire. In other words, a nuclear explosion at medium distance is pretty similar to a chemical bomb hitting somewhere close. So hiding under your desk isn't actually that useless.

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