Comment by PurpleBoxDragon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PurpleBoxDragon | Hacker News Reader

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PurpleBoxDragon

More than agreeing or not with this line of thinking, I find the bigger problem is how selectively it is applied. People will point out that if we ban guns, we wouldn't have to worry about school shootings. Even if we ignored the logistics of such a challenge and agreed on the conclusion, why is the same logic not applied to things like alcohol and all the harms that results (drunk driving, alcoholics ruining their lives, etc). And some people do that (I think MADD would be one case, especially for the subset of their members wanting to ban all alcohol); yet even in that case those people selectively apply the same reasoning about something else.

Look at those who ignore the harm of buying drugs from unverified sources, where you may be paying money to a supply chain ran by the cartel. People are tortured and killed to get the drugs delivered, and if one doesn't verify (or if one insufficiently verifies) then they are funding such activities, but many are willing to ignore that. But change from drugs to escorting and you'll find some of the same people now saying that it should be banned because without sufficient verification it is possible to paying people who are coerced or forced into doing it. The overall argument has valid points and problem points, but the discrepancy of when it is applies makes discussing the validity harder when it seems people aren't being transparent about their motivations to begin with.

> Even if we ignored the logistics of such a challenge and agreed on the conclusion, why is the same logic not applied to things like alcohol and all the harms that results (drunk driving, alcoholics ruining their lives, etc).

Indeed, and we already tried that, and it led to the rise of organized crime. But I think it's important not to get sucked into "slippery slope" style reasoning. There can be good reasons why banning alcohol would be problematic, but banning guns would not. It depends on the surrounding culture. For instance, if enjoying a drink a few times a week was universal, but almost no one owned a gun.

> The overall argument has valid points and problem points, but the discrepancy of when it is applies makes discussing the validity harder when it seems people aren't being transparent about their motivations to begin with.

I think it's largely because people see symptoms, and look backwards in the causal chain to something they think they understand and can blame as "the" problem. People are pretty weak with nuance on tough and emotionally charged issues.

The thing is, you don’t really need to theorise about how to stop school shootings. It’s been done. It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby.

(I’m from a country where owning a gun is legal, but controlled, and has no school shootings. We used to have less control, and school shootings happened.)

>The thing is, you don’t really need to theorise about how to stop school shootings. It’s been done.

It's still theorizing because there are no comparable countries to the US that have done it when it comes to the number of guns already out there (300+ million) and the importance of the 2nd amendment to many of the citizens.

>It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby.

If you see it as a "minority hobby" rather than a right, this makes complete sense. Would you also suggest banning protests in response to violence and death at protests because it's even more of a "minority hobby" than gun ownership?

> Would you also suggest banning protests in response to violence and death at protests because it's even more of a "minority hobby" than gun ownership?

He didn't suggested banning, he suggested controlling them which is extremely different.

I don't know for your country (but I'm pretty sure it's the same), but in mine protest are controlled too. You need to give your plan well in advance and it need to be approved first. You never seen a protest becoming illegal and people getting arrested for it?

>He didn't suggested banning, he suggested controlling them which is extremely different.

And which is the next step for someone who does want to ban it. At least in the US the discussion has reached the point where one side no longer trusts the intentions of the other side, so anything that could eventually help a ban (such as a registry) is seem as being for the purpose of eventually helping a ban. This isn't without reason either, given that many past compromises are now seen as not enough and begun being presented as errors in previous laws that need to be fixed.

1st point:

It’s been done for hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of millions of guns, and it’s regulation not removing all guns, which is already done in the US, you can’t get a rocket launcher, so why am assault rifle?

No banned guns, just licenses, gun safes, regulation on types, reasonable ownership limits (all farmers I know in Aus have 5+ guns) - that’s all it takes to stop mass shootings.

If it’s a hobby that’s fine, that’s a valid application reason for example, you just have to prove you like guns and go to a range or subscribe to a gun magazine and you can buy them. That 30 minute hurdle provides a barrier to enough people.

Civilians can't buy assault rifles in the US. What civilians buy is a hunting rifle that looks like an assault rifle.

I love guns and have no wish to see them further restricted but this is a terrible argument. The features that are used to define a civilian 'assault rifle' unquestionably make them more dangerous than a hunting rifle.

The military didn't decide to start having pistol grips on their rifles because it looks cool, vertical foregrips originated in the military and it wasn't because they look cool. I own a .308 rifle with a pistol grip, folding stock, foregrip, bayonet lug, threaded barrel and a 20 round magazine and none of these features are needed for hunting but they are damned convenient for killing people.

You can try to tell me that it's no more deadly than a hunting rifle but there are reasons that the seal team 6 don't go in with hunting rifles and full auto fire isn't the only reason.

I think it's important to recognize that these rifles are more than just hunting rifles and also that we should still be allowed to have them because the second amendment is NOT about hunting.

I agree that the 2nd amendment is not about hunting, but I also think it's important to point out that "assault weapons" are a political target because they look like military assault rifles, not because of their features. People who know nothing about guns are judging them by their superficial appearance.

The features you mentioned:

A 20 round magazine is unrelated to "assault weapons". Those are available for handguns and for hunting rifles without pistol grips as well.

The deadliest war in history, WW2, was fought with rifles without pistol grips (only a few thousand were produced near the end). Not having pistol grips didn't stop soldiers from killing unprecedented numbers of people.

And how many mass killers actually used bayonets or a folding stock?

The backwards thing about the second amendment is that the USA is easily the closest western country I’ve been to to a police state. Contrast the militarisation of the police in the USA with a far more “free” country like New Zealand (with significant gun regulation).

Just like the 2nd amendment militia arming would have been useless against the German government (like the BEF which had many tanks and planes and heavy weapons) it’s useless today against heavily armed state and modern military equipment (drones, tanks).

> it’s useless today against heavily armed state and modern military equipment (drones, tanks).

Tell that to the Afghans.

Seems like you can, in fact, buy a rocket launcher. A quick google search showed that there are a number of sites on which to obtain one.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-rocket-launcher-gu...

The argument generalises to Abrams tanks, Minuteman missiles and nuclear bombs.

It's not a hobby to everyone, some people survive by subsistence hunting.

I think they should have clarified in urban environments, people outside of cities use guns is basically every country, even japan.

We've already tried to ban guns in (many) cities while allowing them outside those cities. Criminals just leave the city to buy guns.

Now people in cities want to solve that by forbidding people outside the cities from owning guns.

Nobody in any sane country has or city has banned guns. It’s just regulation like cars or planes or doing electrical work or cutting up fugu

At least for cars there is no regulation. Using them on public property (public roads) has certain regulations, but not for use on private property.

How shall we define banned? Obviously no government anywhere has completely banned guns - they all arm at least some portion of their police and most allow bodyguards to carry guns to protect the wealthy and powerful.

I used the word banned meaning "made impossible for a large number of people to own legally". Governments that theoretically allow permits but rarely grant those permits in practice have effectively banned guns.

Which is why he said controlled not banned.

>For instance, if enjoying a drink a few times a week was universal, but almost no one owned a gun.

1 in 3 own a gun in the US. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/one-three-americans-own...

1 in 2 had a drink in the last month: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co...

From that same source, 88,000 people die annually from alcohol-related diseases, making it the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.

Culturally, guns and drinking are the same order of magnitude in the US. From a death count though, alcohol dominates.

The concentration of gun ownership varies markedly across regions though. Not sure that's true of drinking, which I expect would be pretty universal.

In any case, at worst your data suggests that banning guns in the US would be just as impossible as banning alcohol turned out to be, which very well could be true.

I have another take (I have an alcoholic relative and know quite a few people who don't drink at all) on this.

An alcoholic has many chances to turn his or her life around. It's a long, slow story. It's not inevitable. With the right support, it's possible to stop drinking and lead a healthy and fulfilling life.

Contrast this to the kind of events that result in deaths from guns in the US. The recent school shooting of course springs to mind. A bunch of kids were shot and killed. They had no chance. None.

It's not just the end statistics but the method at which we arrive at them.

> A bunch of kids were shot and killed. They had no chance. None.

Why did you compare an alcoholic that harms none but themselves with people who were shot? Wouldn't a drunk driver killing people be a more apt comparison?

A gun if fundamentally designed to kill. That's the only reason it exists. Yes you can use it to eat cereal, I guess, or you can dip the nozzle in paint and create wonderful art, or maybe you can load an AR-15 with 30 rounds and shoot at a giant wall of cheese to make hipster Swiss cheese, but most people realize why guns exist - to end life. Human life, or animal life, but some form of life.

I hear various arguments how somehow a bunch of rednecks armed to the teeth are the reason why the Government hasn't yet come and locked me away in a FEMA Death Camp, but I don't buy it.

Alcohol does not exist to end life. It can be used to end life, yes, either through abuse, or by someone driving intoxicated - but that's not why it exists. It can, and is, used safely, by millions of adults world-wide.

I can go into a room and see someone "brandishing" a shot of whiskey and not be concerned for my safety. If I walk into a room and see a bunch of nutters brandishing guns, I'm getting the fuck out. At best, they're a bunch of insecure-in-their-masculinity macho-wanna-be's - at best. No normal person looks at someone obsessed with firearms and thinks "that's just a normal person with a normal hobby like my aunt Tilly who collects stamps" - nobody.

This is why this whole argument how guns are awesome and we shouldn't be afraid of them but should encourage them and, hell, let's arm teachers and doctors and soccer moms and even the kids' lacrosse teams, why not, it's just like giving them a glass of wine - is starting to sound more and more hollow.

It was, after all, a lunatic with a gun who killed a bunch of people at that Vegas concert, not a guy with a beer keg and some Jaeger bombs. Unless I'm not quite remembering the facts.....nah, pretty sure it wasn't Jaeger bombs.

> A gun if fundamentally designed to kill. That's the only reason it exists.

That's the reason it was invented, that's not the only reason it still exists. According to stats cited above, 1 in 3 Americans have a gun. Why aren't two thirds of you dead if guns only exist to kill?

The truth is, people have fun shooting guns. Just like they have fun in archery contests, despite the fact that bows and arrows were also invented only to kill.

> A gun if fundamentally designed to kill. That's the only reason it exists.

Yes, and people need to kill other people sometimes to defend their lives and the lives of their loved ones. You may not like this reason, but that's the truth.

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