Hacker News Reader

Comment by JofArnold | Hacker News Reader

What are guns bringing to the table that makes them so precious? At the very least they don't seem to be capable of feeding people nor preventing attempted insurrections nor preventing innocent people being killed by the authorities. In the situations they are used for self-preservation they are only done so because the adversary has/may themselves have a gun. It defies logic; unless I'm missing something crucial is it purely a cultural thing?

View on HN

The US is an independent country (as opposed to a British colony) purely due to the fact that we had lots of individuals with guns who could be organized into a rebel army. (And the help of foreign arms.) I think that is why guns are so precious in the US psyche.

It’s also why guns are enshrined in the constitution. There’s disagreement on why the constitution left the arming of militias up to “the people”, but I’m of the opinion that it was meant to facilitate another American revolution (against our own government should it turn tyrannical).

it was meant to facilitate another American revolution (against our own government should it turn tyrannical).

"Was" is the key word now. People have become so indoctrinated and addicted to 24/7 news cycle that they'll more readily use them against their own neighbor than the real source of the problem (government/corporation collusion).

That I guess is a big thing I can't fully understand at a deep level, not growing up in USA. Seems like hanging on to something that made sense 240 years ago. Times change. I mean, slavery was legal then... Hopefully people don't want to hang onto that too even though it was "useful" at the time?

Furthermore, how in the modern world can people stand up to a government on a military level? An untrained population of gun owners with limited ammo doesn't stand a chance against the biggest and most heavily armed army in the history of the world, right?

>Furthermore, how in the modern world can people stand up to a government on a military level? An untrained population of gun owners with limited ammo doesn't stand a chance against the biggest and most heavily armed army in the history of the world, right?

Worked well enough for the people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc., didn't it?

> they don't seem to be capable of feeding people

There's many people in this country that use guns to hunt and feed their family every year.

Ranchers also use guns to protect livestock from coyote and such.

There are in the UK too, but much much less with time now since mass production of food is vastly more efficient and accessible. And to that point I grew up extremely poor in the 80s (thanks inflation!) and hunting with guns was crucial if we wanted to get by. I would say 90%+ of my meat came from us shooting or trapping it when we couldn't afford the bullets. Additionally we used guns to protect livestock from foxes etc. BUT... we all had gun licenses and extensive security and background checks. And we were in the extreme minority.

My point being; surely the vast majority of Americans consume what they do via an industrial food system... Having more guns than people makes zero sense unless every citizen is using AR15s in their back yards to hunt rabbits for dinner.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com