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Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

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Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#21

Post by stephenr »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #12
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Namely, law abiding citizens should be able to conceal-carry weapons. Although it couldn't stop all kinds of terrorist attacks, it could very well put a stop to most mass shootings. Here we go again... When I read this, in my head, this analogy comes to mind: "We could stop bombings by allowing all citizens to carry concealed bombs [to use in self-defense]." Now obviously that is an absurd analogy, but it mirrors a…

More than half of these mass killings occur in "gun free zones." Who follows the law? Concealed carry permit holders. Who doesn't? The crazies.

How many of the "crazies" use legally (by local laws) acquired guns?

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#22

Post by disabledalpha »

tvm wrote: post #18
yongjik wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: > According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms (excluding BB and pellet guns) were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3] 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent"[5] for a…

This can be somewhat misleading. eg.,: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-hom... Brazil, Italy etc. - significantly lower percentage of firearms between citizens (say compared to USA), yet there are percentually more homicides performed with firearm.

One has to be careful there. Yes, according to that data, in Italy 67% of homicides are by firearm while 11.9% of people have a firearm. Since the numbers for the US are 60% and 89% one is tempted to conclude that in Italy there are more firearm related homicides. However, this is false. If one looks at the fourth column it is clear that in Italy there are 0.71 homicides by firearm for each 100k peoples while in the US there are 2.97, more than 4 times as many.

Brasil on the other hand has indeed much more homicides per 100k people than the US, although having only an 8% of the population legally possessing a weapon.

TL;DR: In Italy there are four times less homicides by firearm per 100k people than in the US.

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#23

Post by mininao »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #12
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Namely, law abiding citizens should be able to conceal-carry weapons. Although it couldn't stop all kinds of terrorist attacks, it could very well put a stop to most mass shootings. Here we go again... When I read this, in my head, this analogy comes to mind: "We could stop bombings by allowing all citizens to carry concealed bombs [to use in self-defense]." Now obviously that is an absurd analogy, but it mirrors a…

More than half of these mass killings occur in "gun free zones." Who follows the law? Concealed carry permit holders. Who doesn't? The crazies.

Even if the ones perpetrating these crimes have no gun permits, the existence of gun permits itself makes gun ownership commonplace, allowing the "crazies" easier acquisition and possession of guns

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#24

Post by mininao »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #12
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Namely, law abiding citizens should be able to conceal-carry weapons. Although it couldn't stop all kinds of terrorist attacks, it could very well put a stop to most mass shootings. Here we go again... When I read this, in my head, this analogy comes to mind: "We could stop bombings by allowing all citizens to carry concealed bombs [to use in self-defense]." Now obviously that is an absurd analogy, but it mirrors a…

More than half of these mass killings occur in "gun free zones." Who follows the law? Concealed carry permit holders. Who doesn't? The crazies.

And if the killings occur in gun free zones, Concealed carry permit holders won't be able to defend themselves, right ?

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#26

Post by cJ0th »

lgieron wrote: post #25

The terrosist attacks are caused by political, cultural and economic factors, I don't think technology has an important role to play in an eventual solution...

In the grand scheme of things this is possibly the correct answer. However, what technology can do is bring some meaning to more peoples life. One reason people do things like those which happened in Paris is due to the fact that these people are not integrated into a friendly, peaceful society. Thus they feel a void and need to fill it with something that gives them a sense of power and belonging. Technology can be used to enable people to create meaning for themselves. For Instance, the advent of digital music production enabled people who couldn't play a "real" instruments in the olden days to express themselves musically now. I know a guy who used to get into fights at night clubs until the day I introduced Cubase to him!

And even if these individuals are not strong enough to do something productive technology could at least give them a glimpse of power and belonging in online communities. For example, a person who is busy playing WoW all day won't get to shooting someone in the streets.

What I wrote above is, unfortunately, hugely idealistic. More realistically I see two options for this problem:

1. don't just bomb targets but level the ground. This is of course not something we actually want to do because it would kill many innocent people. Still from an unempathetic point of view: Is killing millions of people now worse than eventually allowing twice as many people to be killed over the comming decades? instead:

2. We have to fucking evolve and acknowledge that they found a bug in our system and "we are the best, democracy rules, those guys are in the wrong - why are they so mean?" as well as a couple of bombs simply don't cut it anymore. Instead, we should come off our high horses and work our ass off to address the (political, cultural, economical) domains OP mentions so that we can leave our current conception of the world behind us and progress to something that serves us better in the coming years. However, this is radical and it is hard to make a society move into this direction as all of us would have to question everything we do. Maybe finding time for teaching refugees your language for free is more important than working longer hours so that you contribute to pushing the GDP. Maybe moderate Muslims should do more to prevent those attacks even though it is neither their fault not their responsibility to do anything about it. Maybe the "average customer" should be more mindful when s/he goes shopping by making sure that s/he doesn't support supply chains which somehow benefit terror supporters. In short, every member of society has to work their ass of to bring some positive change about.

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#27

Post by stray »

sirrocco wrote: post #7
miguelrochefort wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent tweet by Newt Gingrich echoes precisely that: https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/665312487147896832 I understand that this is not the popular opinion around here, but I genuinely can't think of an alternative.

I call bullshit on that. Tell me one theater/school/whatever attack in the States that has been foiled by armed citizens.

According to the FBI (https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-...):

[In] 33 percent (17) of the cases that ended before the police arrived, the potential victims at the scene stopped the shooter themselves. Most commonly they physically subdued the attacker (14 cases), but 3 cases involved people at the scene shooting the perpetrator to end the attack.

So it appears that even the FBI says there were 3 over a span of 12 years that were foiled by armed citizens. And that fully one third of them were stopped by citizens without guns.

I would assume that if everybody were armed then, that more than 33 percent would be foiled by armed citizens.

That is of course, if you accept the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be a credible source

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#28

Post by stray »

asadlionpk wrote: post #16
stray wrote: post #3

It is impossible to prevent while only criminals/terrorists have the weapons. An armed citizenry is not so easily victimized.

Even if we don't count the side-effects of this. I don't think armed citizens stand a chance against highly trained militants with heavy weaponry.

Have any idea how many of us are even better trained ex-military?

In the US, about 13.4% of men are veterans. And 1.4% of women are veterans. So if you're in a theater with a hundred men and a hundred women -- fifteen of those people are competent in the responsible use if firearms AND have proven themselves willing to put their lives on the line for their countrymen.

I'd put money on an overweight, half-blind, ARMED, 60 year old US Marine up against 5 religious zealots with AK-47s any day of the week.

Hell, even those Air Force guys probably know what they're doing :-)

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#29

Post by stray »

kohanz wrote: post #8
miguelrochefort wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent tweet by Newt Gingrich echoes precisely that: https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/665312487147896832 I understand that this is not the popular opinion around here, but I genuinely can't think of an alternative.

Whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit that the timing of that politically-charged tweet was in incredibly poor taste.

Fully disagree.

It is precisely during tragic times like these that people need to be reminded that an unarmed citizenry is completely vulnerable to armed criminals/terrorists.

Gun control has zero effect on people who don't care about the law.

And many innocent people have just died as a result. Hundreds of families have just been forever changed because of it.

Re: Ask HN: What can we do against terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris?

#30

Post by stray »

sirrocco wrote: post #10
miguelrochefort wrote: post #6

The only true way to prevent these acts is to eliminate ideological conflicts altogether. Usually, this is done by letting the state pick a winning ideology and suppress those who don't adhere to it. This tends to ensure a level of homogeneity that makes violence obsolete. A more moderate solution is to allow conflicting ideologies to exist as long as they don't reach extremes. This is usually done through mass surve…

No, having guns won't help one bit. Just name one attack in the States that has been foiled by a citizen. What will happen unfortunately is that the surveillance measures will increase exponentially, normal citizens will throw privacy out the window, terror attacks will still happen. It's the world we live in.

I commented elsewhere in this thread with three.
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