Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 438 posts

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#141

Post by [deleted] »

jernfrost wrote: post #102
valine wrote: post #85

Gun ownership is less about protecting individuals from other individuals, and more about protecting our society from governments that want to oppress it. You could make the argument that no such power exists today, but that's besides the point. Powerful, oppressive, nations have existed before and they could exist again. An armed population is our last line of defense.

That is actually an extremely weak argument. Iraq had higher gun ownership than the US, and yet they were all under an oppressive dictator. There are actually several oppressive countries with high gun ownership. A bunch of armed citizens does not make an effective army. Untrained and uncoordinated citizens are no match against well trained soldiers. Very few armed resistance fights have succeeded in bringing democra…

[deleted]

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#142

Post by talmand »

Loque wrote: post #82
youngone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Data doesn't fit my pre-conceptions. Better ignore the data.

Come and try the UK for a bit. People do not have guns. If you like, take the time to go through the data and understand why it does not actually fit the reality of the situation here. Don't expect other people to disprove shit data.

Come and try the US for a bit. People have guns, most likely you won't have troubles with anything at all, and you'll have a great time.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#143

Post by throwaway21816 »

alistairSH wrote: post #83
neonhomer wrote: post #61

I always hate these kind of articles. As a US citizen there's only rule when it comes to firearms and that's the 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Until a new Amendment is passed to revoke this individual right, all arguments are invalid.

So, we should all be allowed to own bazookas and nukes and aircraft carriers? Because, if this is about securing the state (either against a tyrannical government, or a 3rd party), rifles and handguns aren't going to cut it. Or, are you limiting your interpretation to firearms in common use at the time of the Constitutional Convention? In which case, you can turn in your Glock and your AK. Point being, we already hav…

You can actually own a bazooka if you fill out the correct paperwork. It is a NFA item as regulated by the ATF and each round (aside from rounds containing no explosives) are their own NFA regulated item. Each bazooka and explosive round requires a long approval process, $200 fee, fingerprinting and passport photos. Each explosive round must be stored in a ammunition bunker built to strict ATF regulations and you must inform the ATF of each round fired.

Rifles and handguns sure are doing quite a number in the middle east and they worked in vietnam.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#144

Post by ta0967 »

lhnz wrote: post #2

This doesn't mean toddlers are more dangerous than terrorists. It means there are more toddlers. I don't think the internal logic of the argument works anyway. Do people react to terrorism solely because of the perception of present danger? I always thought terrorism was feared because it signalled that a group of people would prefer to dominate their host with violence than to assimilate into the predominant culture…

> I always thought terrorism was feared because it signalled that a group of people would prefer to dominate their host with violence than to assimilate into the predominant culture.

people fear terrorism because it's virtually nonexistent. we fear the thing we have no experience with more than those we do, because the lack of experience lets our lizard brain have a parade. the movie Alien works with this very well.

also... terrorism, aka politically-motivated violence is nothing new. it's just the framing by the mass media that seems to have changed a lot.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_No... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing :

In 2000, Magee spoke about the bombing in an interview with The Sunday Business Post. He told interviewer Tom McGurk that the British government's strategy at the time was to depict the IRA as mere criminals while containing The Troubles within Northern Ireland

(edited in a failed attempt to fix the list formatting)

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#145

Post by imgabe »

To play devil's advocate, which gun law would have prevented this person from getting shot by her toddler?

As a gun rights advocate, she presumably has been around guns for a long time and should have been well versed in how to handle them safely. I doubt there's any training that could be mandated that would exceed the experience she already had. Short of banning guns entirely, which would require a constitutional amendment, I don't see what the proposed solution is.

She should definitely be facing some harsh penalties for negligence and endangering a minor if she isn't already. In general, I think it makes more sense to have laws that punish people for bad things that actually happen, not for things that might, conceivably, possibly lead to something bad happening.

No amount of legislation is going to prevent idiots from being idiots.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#146

Post by trill1 »

dheera wrote: post #19

How exactly do we define "terrorist"? For example, why is the San Bernandino mass shooting NOT considered terrorism? Because more people were killed in that single incident than were shot by toddlers in all of 2015.

Wait, the San Bernandino shooting is constantly referred to as terrorism by the media and by politicians... When the perpetrator isn't Muslim though, the situation is different (e.g. Dylan Roof, Anders Brevik, James Holmes) and the same people instead are much more likely to frame the violence as a mental health issue.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#147

Post by Loque »

merpnderp wrote: post #97
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as I saw John Lott, I knew I was going to be dealing with one-sided data. But I'm having trouble replicating that graph from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... It did point out that I was wrong about no mass shootings (p57): "In 2010/11, the police provisionally recorded 642 offences of homicide, which includes the 12 people killed by Derrick Bird in June 2010. Homicide offences i…

But are homicides down overall? What's the purpose of banning firearms if they don't prevent murders? Because if we compared home invasion rates (and perhaps some other categories), I'm guessing they'd look drastically lopsided. In the US state where I live 80% of those convicted of home invasion said they carefully picked a house where they believed the owner was not armed. And the news often carries stories of peop…

This may be of interest to you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer)

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#148

Post by th0waway »

Loque wrote: post #101
greenisland wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one but scared liberals want "gun control". Freedom-loving Americans want elected officials to enforce the existing laws, not create new ones out of fear. Registration is the first step to disarmament. Look back no further than Janet Reno, thankfully no longer in her position, who famously said that the actual goal is disarmament of the population. A certain venomous Democrat presidential hopeful has also echoed t…

> Why on Earth would anyone vote for someone who wants to take away freedoms enshrined in the Constitution? Because it is adjusted as we develop and learn more about the world we live in, it has happened in the past, and I sincerely hope it continues to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution#Rat...

Ahh, the fallacy of not learning from history - as soon as a populace is disarmed they are helpless before their lord and master... I mean government.

The battle for freedom began in Lexington and Concord when a group of British soldiers attempted to disarm a group of Colonists.

You (and many people) are under the bad assumption that as we learn more our basic human nature changes, but it does not.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#149

Post by talmand »

notalaser wrote: post #78
jjoonathan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it worked out quite the way you said: http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-b... Obligatory un-zeroed-axis warning, but the point stands.

I'm not familiar with that institution so I might be committing a blunder here, but their reporting seems incredibly biased for a "research" institution, and I can't help but wonder what methodology they're using to classify their data. E.g. take this article: http://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-f... . They're mentioning: - 303 deaths in the EU. This is simply an incorrect result, it counts vic…

In my experience, all such research concerning guns, whether they be for or against, are full of shaky and questionable interpretations of data.

Re: Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do

#150

Post by agarden »

devit wrote: post #91
agarden wrote: post #76

What interests me about the gun debate (if one can call it that), is that there are ways of dying that are considered acceptable risks and ways of dying that are not. If you are driving your kids across town and get t-boned by a drunk driver and everyone dies, that is considered a tragedy. But no one will advocate giving up driving. Something really bad happened, everyone move on with your lives. Or when a relative d…

Cars are used everyday by a large part of the population and are very useful and often essential for transportation. Guns are only useful in rare cases for preventing or stopping crime, and most people don't have one or if they do they have never used it beyond practice.

Do you think that we are familiar with cars and driving, and so find the risks acceptable? Or is it that because most people want to drive, they rationalize the risk?

PS. I live in the country and have most of my life. A gun is a very useful tool if you live in an area with wild animals.

Post reply on HN