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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

The US has 400 million guns. Good luck with that, they'll take you away before you take them away.

It's a liberal voter delusion that the 2% of US guns in the hands of the military and police can be used to take away the 98% of guns owned by people who want to keep them. And it is a voter delusion, because the Democratic party wouldn't even be able to get the votes within its own party if there were a chance in hell of it passing, and they know it. It's just a wedge issue. It's effective because the upper-middle class liberal base can imagine themselves being affected by a mass shooting, so they care about it.

Mass shootings are a media boon, because they know that they don't have to do any work for the next week, just dust off all of the timeless partisan nonsense that they published during the last one. Right now a bunch of right-wing outlets are doing the same thing, and gun sales are about to go up.

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I find it strange when it's said in the US that universal healthcare is impossible when other countries have developed it. It's like if Russia had said after WWII that nuclear weapons are impossible and then proceeded to deny their existence.

What takes the boggle to the next level is suggesting that greater gun control measures in the US are impossible when they actually were the law within my lifetime.

I'd go out on a limb and suggest that way less than 98% of Americans support the government do nothing w.r.t. gun rights, even among those who actually own guns.

The biggest issue/question that never comes up on this topic... do you really think the police and military are amenable to taking the weapons? These are people too. Some, possibly many in my experience, would be totally against doing that to the point of it turning into a coup.

The thing is, even in Australia we didn't try to take the guns. We just said, "give us your guns, and we will give you above market rate money. Oh and btw it is illegal to own a gun that isn't registered."

If your buy back program offers a higher rate than the market (black or otherwise). Then the buyback program will suck up the guns.

Yeah, I was replying about the confiscation comment.

Aren't there still a lot of unregistered guns in the rural areas? I had a friend who lived over there and said that was fairly common.

Yeah there are some unregistered guns particularly in rural areas. But they don't really enter the market, they are kept as prized possessions by their owners. There isn't a black market for these weapons that is easily accessible. Maybe if you're in one of the biker gangs you might have enough rep to get access but the mentally unstable 18 year old certainly can not.

Unless they know where to steal it from (like at Newtown). Or if one of those existing owners snaps.

Sure all possibilities. But the point about policies and laws is to effect change in aggregate. We have all kinds of laws that try to prevent bad stuff from happening, but it still happens. Just because we can't stop all, doesn't mean we shouldn't stop some.

What this logic does do, is give opponents a reason to bring up the slippery slope. If the laws don't stop it, then there will be more laws to try - ever increasing regulation with marginal impact.

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