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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

"Don't take guns away from people to protect the populace because if you try to do it nutters with guns will shoot people"?

That sounds like justification for taking people's guns from them.

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Every time I see this argument come up people always try to frame it like it will be ‘nutters’ shooting ‘some’ people. You are very wrong, and that is the attitude that will get a lot of innocent people killed. This country is filled with rational, professional, well organized people who will kill before being disarmed.

You don't think trying to murder policemen because your country enacted gun controls to protect schoolchildren would be "nutters trying to shoot people"?

"Oh but I need this 1000 round per minute gun for pest control in my apartment! I'll murder people to protect my right to have it."??

I'm not sure where you got 1000 rounds per minute from, even a fully automatic rifle generally cannot fire that quickly (it would probably need to be belt-fed or you would be changing magazines more than thirty times per minute).

A semi-automatic rifle like the AR-15 is unlikely to surpass 100 rounds per minute.

Oh, well that sounds _much_ safer and more reasonable then.

The 1000 rounds per minute was intended to show that the post was knowingly exaggerated, however in part it was inspired by a "girl fires minigun" post I saw on Reddit. I can't truly recall but I think it was an M134 and that it did maybe 3000 rounds per minute.

> well organized people who will kill before being disarmed.

The collective noun for people who will kill rather than obey the law is "terrorists".

One of the conditions for peace in Northern Ireland was that political groups had to disarm in order to enter politics, because you can't do politics with people who are threatening to murder you. That's not a democracy.

One of the founding principles of the US was the right of its citizenry to protect itself from the overreach of the government, which was enabled partly through the right for citizens to own firearms and other weapons. They're a means of self defense, but more importantly as a way to keep the gov in check. No government can control millions of armed citizens--which is exactly the point.

Killing in response to being disarmed is probably one of the most "American" things its citizens could do.

It would be nice if all these gun owners were interested in defending rights other than owning guns.

Gun ownership is a right in the US.

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