Toddlers Kill More People in the USA (with guns) Than Terrorists Do • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by thinkcontext » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

agarden wrote: post #137

jernfrost wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So sick of replying to this sort of logic. Nobody says we should GIVE UP guns. We are talking about regulating. Just like the dam car you used in your retarded analogy. WHY is the car strictly regulated in the US like anywhere else, but NOT the gun!!!??? Are guns somehow way safer than cars? Pretty much anything which is dangerous is regulated. I mean McDonalds even has to put a sticker on your cup, stating it is hot…

Guns are regulated. You must be at least eighteen in most states in order to buy a gun. In many places (most?), there is a waiting period. You pay one day, you come back another to pick it up. Concealed carry is either illegal or requires taking a class, registering, and getting a permit. Open carry is legal in some places, illegal in others. It is harder to get a concealed carry permit than a driver's license, at le…

Cars require registration, insurance, and inspection. The government has spent considerable resources researching causes of injury/death and pushed over decades ever stricter safety standards and new technologies. This is a considerable amount of regulation that guns do not have and would probably make a big difference.

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

#252

Post by LyndsySimon » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

nmrm2 wrote: post #232

over wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter what you own, the government will win every time. You are guaranteed to lose. I think this isn't true if enough people decide to attack the government in concert, say 10% of the population, that's 30 million people. I'm not saying that will ever happen, but American police forces are already stretched to the limit and can be easily tied up. But probably, knives would suffice for that purpose. Or j…

> American police forces are already stretched to the limit and can be easily tied up Which is why state police and then the National Guard and then other branches of the military become involved in any serious unrest. E.g. Ferguson for an extremely recent example. > say 10% of the population Overwhlemingly dispersed throughout suburban and rural populations that are far more easily controlled than a large urban upri…

10% is absurdly high. That's beyond an insurgency, straight past an insurrection, and on into civil war.

> All the while, people who are in actually persecuted groups (poor, racial minorities who have double digit odds at incarceration) don't get involved in the gun debate because they know the "standing up to the man" fantasy is dangerous bullshit.

In my experience, racial minorities see firearms as a tool of a criminal and the oppressor, because they often grow up in a place where the only people they see with them are criminals and cops.

Meanwhile, I've personally introduced several individuals who are members of minority groups to firearms, and the message of self-reliance is something that really resonates with them. Consider that the motto of the Pink Pistols is "armed gays don't get bashed". It's not like it used to be, the gun community isn't just a bunch of old middle-class white dudes. Sure, I'm a member of the NRA - but I'm also a member of the Pink Pistols and the JPFO.

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

#253

Post by zeveb » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #125

TallGuyShort wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> police are not routinely armed I'm a gun owner and this is the key point for me. No politician is in a position to tell me I don't need my semi-automatic pistol if every day I see a patrol car go by my house with 2 fully automatic AR-15s locked between the front seats and my local police department owns an armoured vehicle. If you really think you have a plan for getting rid of guns for bad guys as well as me, pro…

I guess this amounts to a chicken-and-egg problem. In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances).

> In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances).

And yet when I've been in Europe I've seen plenty of police and/or paramilitary units carrying submachine guns, something I never saw here in the U.S. even after 11 September.

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

#254

Post by joesmo » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

Any discussions of guns in America that doesn't delve into the differences between states is bound to be uninformed just like this article. You want to see what gun control looks like in America? Go to New Jersey. We have gun control. You cannot leave your house in New Jersey with a gun. The laws and their enforcement are so draconian, you cannot safely even go to the gun range with your very legal gun. This is what gun control looks like in America. We have some of the worst ghettos and gun violence in America because we have gun control, because the only people stupid enough to have a gun on them in New Jersey are criminals. This isn't some hypothetical. This has been reality for decades here. So before some uninformed idiots make idiotic generalized statements about guns in America, I'd like to invite them to New Jersey and see how safe and wonderful their gun-controlled vision of America is.

No one could possibly make such arguments if they really considered the outcome of their actions, but most Americans are too stupid to do that generally and can only consider their own fantasies as reality. That's how we ended up in this situation of draconian drug and terrorism laws. Americans consider what they want to happen as what will and what is happening, despite a flood of evidence to the contrary. Then they write idiotic articles like this without even doing research and finding out what really happens when you have gun control in America.

When there's a researched, well-thought out article on gun control, maybe there'll be something to discuss. Until then, we're wasting words on both sides. Conversation my ass.

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

#255

Post by marrs » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

adwf wrote: post #77

marrs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just google "gun crime rates in the UK". All the stats I've seen, and what I've been lead to believe in the news, is that gun crime rates have dramatically increased since the handgun ban (and illegal gun ownership has also increased). That's not to imply cause and effect, but I don't see any evidence that the handgun ban did anything to curb gun crime. Licensing rules were already very stringent at the time - you ju…

Nope, quite the opposite, gun deaths of all sorts are down substantially. Less than half what they used to be. And Dunblane wasn't a freak incident here's one from 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre Here's some data. Very clear downward trends since 1997. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_a... http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_g... Here's the Aust…

Uhm, that graph shows the gun crime rate going up directly after the handgun ban, not down. That doesn't say to me that banning handguns reduced gun crime.

Here's another graph showing the same thing, and another one below showing a correlation in the reduction of gun crime to an increase of policing resources.

http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-b...

    Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition...

This is irrelevant. All licence holders were required to hand their weapons in to the police directly after the ban and the guns were counted in.

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

#256

Post by talmand » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:16 PM UTC

jernfrost wrote: post #109

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…

So sick of replying to this sort of logic. Nobody says we should GIVE UP guns. We are talking about regulating. Just like the dam car you used in your retarded analogy. WHY is the car strictly regulated in the US like anywhere else, but NOT the gun!!!??? Are guns somehow way safer than cars? Pretty much anything which is dangerous is regulated. I mean McDonalds even has to put a sticker on your cup, stating it is hot…

No, there are quite a number of people saying everyone should give up their guns. Quite a few on this page in fact.

Guns are regulated quite heavily in the US, you should read up on the subject before making the claim they are not. But to get to your car regulated part, it's different because cars are not covered in the Constitution. Plus, there's nothing preventing you from buying and driving a car at your leisure regardless of government regulations. You just can't do it on the government roads. You can drive your car all you like on your own property. Finally, depending on the year's totals, cars are often a greater cause of death than guns in the US. In most years you are more likely to be killed by your doctor than a gun, but that depends on how you interpret the data.

You coffee is more regulated than guns example is simply the most idiotic thing I've read on this site in quite a while. This provides why exactly it is difficult to have a proper discussion over such things because people who obviously have no idea what they are speaking of wish to claim an equal representation at the table.

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

#257

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:16 PM UTC

geggam wrote: post #126

Loque wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is subjective, I personally do not think it will happen in the UK. I would also rather take that risk than allow everyone to own guns just for this unknown eventuality... If it assures you in anyway, my grandfather who was in the war, handed in his 1911.

All that tells me is you forget the lessons others have learned the hard way. Experience is a dear teacher but fools will learn no other way.

Again, we actually had an armed insurrection in the UK in Northern Ireland, including civilians being shot dead by the military, and it offends me to see people fantasising about political violence as some kind of first resort. It went on for decades, killing and immiserating a large number of people.

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

#258

Post by LyndsySimon » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #243

psychometry wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh...good guys with guns, again? Right. Your good guy with a gun is only that up until the moment he decides to go on a mass shooting spree. Is he still a good guy with a gun then?

That's why we should stop thinking that government employees are always good guys too. I've been through more background checks than most cops, and through about as much training as most young cops - but that doesn't make a difference in most gun control schemes that get discussed in the US.

Hear, hear!

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

#259

Post by lhnz » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #239

lhnz wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> depends on terrorism killing enough people to destroy our way of life Demographic and therefore cultural shifts do not only occur when a majority population has a high number of killings. They can also occur when immigrant populations are more fertile than the majority population. Terrorism is a signal of clashing ideologies but this in itself isn't a problem for a majority culture unless they believe themselves to…

I don't see much fear of being out-bred. Maybe in some fringe, but the mainstream seems to fear foreign terrorists coming here to kill people. For example, look at the debate over Syrian refugees. The "against" side is not talking about refusing them because they'll start breeding here and their ideologies will clash, at least not that I've seen. Their reasoning is that terrorists will hide among the legitimate refug…

You are right about what you see in the mainstream but I have a different perspective.

It is my opinion that media scapegoating is a symptom of people with poor economic opportunity and declining institutions giving attention to anybody that can point at an enemy. Decline, opportunism and imperfect psychologies are the root causes.

I'm hopeful that elites will attempt to lessen the underlying causes which would make it more difficult for demagogues to capitalise. However, so far I've only seem attempts to demonise whole peoples - a mirror image of itself.

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

#260

Post by TallGuyShort » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #253

amelius wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this amounts to a chicken-and-egg problem. In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances).

> In many European countries, police officers are only minimally armed (just a handgun, used only in rare circumstances). And yet when I've been in Europe I've seen plenty of police and/or paramilitary units carrying submachine guns, something I never saw here in the U.S. even after 11 September.

Curious, as I haven't been to Europe - were these at border posts? Public transit hubs? Anything else?