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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

While I think that the notion of banning something on the potential for misuse is absurd, it is possible to suppress the shot-noise as well as suppress the muzzle flash somewhat to make it harder to locate.

It's still not going to be foolproof, especially as the range of a 338 lapua is going to put you in relative sight distance, vs a more traditional sniper rifle which has an effective range of a mile, mile and a half.

Also it's worth noting that the DC sniper used a very pedestrian AR15 for his sniping, and just hid himself in a trunk to keep things hidden, which would work well for pretty much any kind of gun (except if anybody was very near it and saw the muzzle blast).

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In Britain, we banned hand guns because people used them to shoot other people. Gun deaths went down.

But even though they may have gone down, they haven't been eliminated.

It's also worth noting that at least for the data I've seen, since the gun ban, assault crime has gone up, and as a result I am apparently 5 times more likely to be raped, beaten or mugged in the UK than I am in the United States.

I can't make any claims or assertions to your murder rates as you guys don't count a murder as a murder until and unless a conviction is made (and I can't speak to the effectiveness of your justice system with any degree of knowledge), but on the whole, Britain isn't objectively better because of the gun ban.

I'm also not saying that it is objectively worse, as it is a very hard issue to quantify on the whole, but one of the things that makes the United States special (at least at its formation) is that it specifically allows for an armed civilian population to keep its government honest. I don't know of (probably due to ignorance, because I haven't looked for) another country that has done the same.

is that it specifically allows for an armed civilian population to keep its government honest.

This is a canard - where have all the second amendment activists been for this century so far? They don't seem to be doing a very good job of it, and don't seem particularly interested in protecting any amendment other than the second.

Times have changed, and it's time to move on from the fantasy that 'guns in the hands of civilians keeps the US government honest'.

I'm also not saying that it is objectively worse, as it is a very hard issue to quantify on the whole

It's not a hard issue to quantify at all. The UK doesn't have a gun-carrying culture. A gun ban there doesn't really affect much in either direction; rises in crime are due to other things. It's not like criminals are out there mugging people because 'now we know they can't carry guns'. They never did.

We went through the same thing here in Australia when we brought in greater restrictions in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre. Despite ridicule and predictions of impending Wild West-ness by the US pro-gun lobby, life went on as usual - because we never really strongly identified with guns, and don't carry them around much. Crime went down, but again, not because of the gun ban - because we entered an economic boom, and when the public is in boom times, crime drops because people are more contented.

Finally, you have to be very careful when you compare non-murder violent crime between nations because of vastly different reporting defintions. The FBI doesn't even bother reporting regular assaults, it's aggravated assaults only. Whereas in Australia (and I believe the UK as well), you get a few charges for a fistfight, which inflates the stats. The prosecutor will bring in a scaled series of charges, they all get counted in the stats, but the defendent is sentenced on the severest one only. In short, unless you're being careful to note the reporting differences, it's apples and oranges. Murders are easier because there's not much in the way of subjective wiggle-room.

I fully recognize that systems of crime reporting are dramatically different, which I did (at least attempt to) clarify going into it early. I understand that it is a complicated mess, and there is no apples to apples comparison.

Regarding your other statement: This is a canard - where have all the second amendment activists been for this century so far? They don't seem to be doing a very good job of it, and don't seem particularly interested in protecting any amendment other than the second.

I have to confess that I take a certain amount of offense to that, though I'm not exactly sure what you're implying (I'm just vaguely offended at this point. ;-).

Are you trying to assert that people who care about the second amendment only care about the second amendment? Or are you trying to assert that people who care about the second amendment have been complacent for the past decade? Both? Some combination thereof?

At least personally, I've been politically active in a number of civil rights issues including those on the first and fourth amendments. I've testified before state Senate and my House of Representatives on civil liberties and the potential incursion of those liberties for some time now. (Thereby disproving that all gun nuts only care about the second amendment.)

As for the second, at least in Maryland, we've been fighting our 'May Issue' statutes here in Maryland, and I was personally a part of the case that got our state laws overturned (at least temporarily) to 'Shall Issue' status (though it's currently back in legal flux, but that should disprove that all second amendment advocates have been complacent).

Knowing that your statements weren't a Boolean, I'll wait for clarification as to what you actually meant, but I think that it's perhaps only as visible lately because the second amendment is in such peril. In the past decade though, there have been nearly a dozen high profile cases in defense of the second amendment in DC, Illinois, Chicago and Maryland at the least.

Also, oddly enough, the American Civil Liberties Union doesn't recognize that the right to bear arms is an individual right (and they believe that the ruling in DC v Heller, which specifically states that it is an individual right is wrong), so second amendment advocates tend to clump together into one of two groups, where you either are or aren't in support of the ACLU.

You've got to admit though, that it is uncommon to testify before state (or federal) government at all. But it goes along with what I'm saying: you're trying to sway your government by using words and politics, not by joining a militia and violently opposing it. Whether you're armed or not has zero effect on speaking on the record. You're not trying to keep your government honest by virtue of your firearm, you're trying to keep it honest by virtue of your words. The government as an entity is more scared of your vote than your firearm.

Some things aren't relevant anymore, such as the whole third amendment. And one of those things is the slogan that it's firearms in the hands of the citizens that keeps a government honest - because it's clearly not. The US government is not more honest than its unarmed-citizen contemporaries.

Edit: To be clearer, in reference to 'not doing a good job of it', I mean that there hasn't been a lot of change brought about by threatening the government with force of arms, despite the last decade containing a lot of incursions to civil rights or things like gerrymandering.

The point isn't that we should take up arms and champion our causes with bullets over every perceived slight. The point is that when all those other recourses fail us, the right to bear arms is the last defense against tyranny. As for joining a militia, I need not bother... I am the militia. All able-bodied men in the United States are (and arguably women too), as defined by US Code.

Still though, there have been cases where guns were brandished to prevent tyranny. The Battle of Athens, in 1946 (admittedly not this decade, but thank god for that too) was such a case where state officials were committing voter fraud against the populace, so that they could continue committing civil rights violations against them -- apparently their pay was tied to numbers of arrests, citations, etc., so they were literally just arresting and citing people without cause. They would pull over tour buses passing through the area and cite bus riders for drunkenness, however ridiculous.

The result was an armed march on the courthouse where the ballots were being cast, a brief 'war' where custody of the ballots was fought for, and recovered, a fair election was had, and political change was enacted.

Saying it isn't relevant any more is, I suspect, short sighted. Too many acts of tyranny have been committed after disarming the population for me to blindly concede that the right is no longer 'relevant'. While I agree that there are portions of the Constitution that may not be relevant in the United States right now, that doesn't discount the possibility that they would ever be necessary again. We have a hard enough time defending our rights for the first, fourth and other amendments that are arguably more relevant than ever, while the state wishes to further strip us of those rights.

It's easy to conclude that some rights are irrelevant because it is unlikely that any foreign attackers would dare take on the US on American soil. But that's only true for now. What if the dollar collapses? What if we default on debt? What if our military forces are pared back to a hundredth of what they are now? What if these things happen in the next 50 to 100 years? Countries rise and fall over time, and historically, rights that are once restricted are never restored.

The concept that 'everyone is in the militia' is not the intent of the second amendment. 'everyone is in the militia' is legislation from 1903, a hundred years after the second amendment was framed.

The Battle of Athens could easily have played out without firearms. Angry mobs marching on courthouses have been around forever. Firearms just makes the process shorter if you start using them.

and historically, rights that are once restricted are never restored.

Like the end of Prohibition? Smoking marijuana? Women's vote? Equal rights for minorities? Gay marriage?

(have to be brief... running late for work as usual...)

"The concept that 'everyone is in the militia' is not the intent of the second amendment."

I didn't actually suggest that it was. My statement is that the second amendment is an individual right, not confined to the members of a militia, but that even if it were, you needn't be currently involved in a militia to be eligible.

"The Battle of Athens could easily have played out without firearms. Angry mobs marching on courthouses have been around forever. Firearms just makes the process shorter if you start using them."

Maybe. They could have petitioned the state legislature and, assuming they weren't complicit, would have gotten action in as little as a couple of months, during which time the ballots would have been destroyed and the damage done, and the illegal elections may or may not have been ultimately overturned.

"Like the end of Prohibition? Smoking marijuana? Women's vote? Equal rights for minorities? Gay marriage?"

Very good points actually, and it is generally why I believe so strongly in our political system, even when it sometimes fails us. I should amend my statement to "seldom" restored, for greater accuracy.

Not only did other crime go up but a quick google search proves that your statement is false.

"After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime had doubled." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732377720457819...

Wow, that's a biased article. "Two cautionary tales", one being that of Australia. Note the conclusion: Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven't made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres.

I'd like to know what all these massacres in Australia are, because it's been nearly 20 years since the gun buyback, and there's been no massacres that grab headlines and make people fearful. There was one mass murder by arson, but it's not like that's a common event here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_mass_murders

In reference to her other points, assault has indeed been on the rise recently in Australia, but it's due to some complex factors independent of guns, and sexual assault is up largely because of improved reporting.

It is a bit sad that the article is dated Dec 26 2012, yet the author can't find a more recent peer-reviewed study than 2003 for one of her "Two cautionary tales".

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