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

United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 373 posts

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#191

Post by stevenicr »

hellisothers wrote: post #109
stevenicr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours. When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer... If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.

Twice now “grandma” has been employed as a reason assault rifles should be legal. Come on, this has nothing to do with a fictional grandmother with a scopes rifle. It’s like some talking point gone awry.

I mentioned large capacity magazines, forward grips, and a red dot sight. Not 'scopes' - which could mean many things, but I believe are more often referring to 4x,10, 16, etc magnified scopes that are more often used for long range hunting..

My point was that some of the 'assault rifle bans' are trying to stop simple things like a grip addon, a collapsible stock, an over 10rd magazine - any one of those things could make the whole thing illegal..

and I would want grandma to have access to those things, all of them. It would make her, and her neighbors safer.

This is not fictional in any way shape or form.

Not too long ago a grandma near me went to take the shooting class with a 38 revolver.. it hurt her wrists after a few shots and everyone quickly realized she would not be able to perform the amount of firing to do the practice and the test with one.

If she had been given a police issue SBR MP5 with muzzle break, forward grip, collapsible stock, laser and red dot - she would be able to plink accurately all day long.

These things they want to ban are actually safety features - but people can't see that.

I may have to make a few grandma videos to show this maybe.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#192

Post by joshuamorton »

surge wrote: post #181
tptacek wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really tired of this argument that people are irrationally afraid of black rifles and simply don't understand the machines they're purporting to regulate. These are devices that were designed to be field stripped by 18 year olds in a jungle. They're not that complicated. The Mini-14 (for example) has a wooden stock, and looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie, in part because it was brought to mar…

An AK-47 is a fully automatic rifle. People argue AR-15 are "fully semi-automatic rifles" which is an oxymoron or "assault style" or that AR stands for "assault rifle". This is the level of ignorance and misinformation in the debate I'm addressing. An Assault or Automatic rifle can fire multiple round bursts and an AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-automatic weapon (like a standard Glock pistol). You con…

Erm, the post your responding to distinguishes, correctly between an ar-15 and m-16. You're attempting to correct someone who, by all accounts, appears to know more about firearms than you do.

It's also simply false that the only differentiating factor of "danger" to a weapon is whether or not it is semi or fully automatic. If an ar-15 were no more dangerous than a Glock pistol, you wouldn't need an ar-15 to defend from the onslaught of wild hogs.

Or in other words: pick one, either at style rifles are superior for self defense, or they're non more dangerous than a pistol. You can't have it both ways.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#193

Post by jakeogh »

tptacek wrote: post #161
jakeogh wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, you are agruing for DRM. Note that the State Separtment is _still_ (after the court loss) trying to claim ITAR on firearm CAD's. Our ability to print guns will only improve. Hand waving it away as something you dont think matters wont change it.

Our ability to print everything will only improve. If you're an an-cap, there's a coherent argument to be made here, but if not, your argument proves too much.

You are arguing for two classes of people; those with access to general purpose computing, and those without.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#194

Post by Jamwinner »

baroffoos wrote: post #125
rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, support for banning hand guns has collapsed: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun... . In 1959, 60% of people favored a handgun ban, to 36% opposed. By 2011 that had flipped to 73% opposed and just 26% in favor. People focus on rifles, which are responsible for relatively few deaths, because banning handguns is wildly unpopular. (Heck Kamala Harris owns a handgun.)

Rifles have none of the legitimate uses that gun advocates go on about so its a low reward but 0 loss situation to ban them. Unless someone is proposing you need to defend your house against a zombie invasion.

Is this a super low effort troll?

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#195

Post by anon9001 »

everdev wrote: post #142
stevenicr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because it's easier to divide and conquer with 'big scary assault rifles meant for the battlefield' - it helps gather some people who are in the middle, and agree with Heller in that people should be able to defend themselves especially at home... if you say assault rifle bad - no one needs one to hunt with - you get some people nodding... so it's easier to pass and claim a victory lap. I saw a definitio…

> Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB'…

> Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves?

I don't think the way to reason about this is based on "serious fire power" vs some other kind of weapon that you feel is more acceptable. All guns can be lethal.

If grandma feels unsafe, she might get a gun. I can understand how older people might want firepower when they know they can't physically fend off an attacker.

If you accept grandma's right to be armed, would you rather she use a more or less dangerous gun?

Most gun controls make the weapon less safe. It's similar to how people think sharp knives are more dangerous, but they're actually much safer than dull knives.

The way to think about it is that the round is doing most of the work. The gun is just a delivery system for the round, and besides fully automatic weapons, every other weapon choice is about safety, accuracy, and reliability.

A "Short Barrel Rifle" or "Short Barrel Shotgun" is easier to operate, and therefore more safe than a non-NFA rifle. They were regulated to make people feel better, not to add safety. The velocity of NFA SBRs is actually lower than the velocity of a bullet leaving a non-NFA 16" barrel.

A silencer is not silent, it's just hearing protection, but also requires an NFA tax stamp. They don't sound like they do in the movies, and there's no mistaking it's a gunshot.

Expandable stocks and foregrips are scary looking, but the whole point of them is to gain accuracy, which makes the gun safer. These are usually legal, but there are silly regulations around these too.

Larger magazines allow you to focus on your threat instead of counting your bullets. For now, these are legal, but banning magazines with large capacity is a common talking point.

The reason all of these items look scary is because we see military with them. But even in the military, they're not to make the guns more lethal. The whole point is operational safety.

If you don't think anyone should be allowed to have a gun, that's actually a more defensible position. If people are allowed to have guns, they should be allowed to have any gun and any gun attachment that improves their safety.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#197

Post by joshuamorton »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #182
tomlockwood wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither rope nor pills are as easy to use, fast, or as lethal as death by gun. Pills particularly are a really bad example. People mess it up all the time. Pills and rope have the added bonus of not being as lethal in other situations either. Pills and rope: 1, guns: 0

Unless pills and rope are never fatal, that doesn't really matter, because we still need to solve it for the times that they are. And if we do then it doesn't matter how fatal the method is because there is no longer an attempt.

That's not a particularly compelling argument. It suggests we should never attempt to solve any problem, because other smaller problems will continue to exist and we need to solve them to.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#198

Post by Jamwinner »

tomlockwood wrote: post #170
jMyles wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) As best I can tell, owning a gun doesn't increase the risk of becoming a victim of violence. 2) Many decisions in life come with risks: the decision to own a car or swimming pool puts you much closer to the most frequent causes of death for people under the age of 35. But people make rational decisions to do these things anyway and then mitigate the risks in ways that they see fit.

Neither of these undermine the point that liberty and self-defence are actually lowered by gun ownership.

Care to prove that point?

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#199

Post by tomlockwood »

pnako wrote: post #183
tomlockwood wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your government is run by dangerous criminals ready to take you and your freedom by brute force. Even more interesting to me is the idea that the American government has such a hold over the patriots in the military that they could be commanded to enforce tyranny. Or, that owning an assault rifle is some antidote against the best funded military in the world, which has been fighting armed insurgencies for years.

You mean losing to insurgencies for years?

Are you talking about the wars where for example maybe conservatively 100000 Iraqis have died while about 5000 coalition troops have? Is that how you see winning going down for american gun owners, too?

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#200

Post by surge »

joshuamorton wrote: post #192
surge wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AK-47 is a fully automatic rifle. People argue AR-15 are "fully semi-automatic rifles" which is an oxymoron or "assault style" or that AR stands for "assault rifle". This is the level of ignorance and misinformation in the debate I'm addressing. An Assault or Automatic rifle can fire multiple round bursts and an AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-automatic weapon (like a standard Glock pistol). You con…

Erm, the post your responding to distinguishes, correctly between an ar-15 and m-16. You're attempting to correct someone who, by all accounts, appears to know more about firearms than you do. It's also simply false that the only differentiating factor of "danger" to a weapon is whether or not it is semi or fully automatic. If an ar-15 were no more dangerous than a Glock pistol, you wouldn't need an ar-15 to defend f…

He doesn't tho, he compares an AR-15 to an AK-47 and says an AR-15 is designed to broken down in the jungle (that's the M-16, which was what was used in Vietnam, they conflated the two, trying to disingenuously frame AR-15's as a war weapon used by the military).

Rifles are superior for self defense at a distance. So in the "wild hog" scenario, best to pick them off from a tree, or before they get close. In a more realistic case, shooting someone coming at you from across your yard (especially if you have a large yard or live close to wilderness). But if wild hogs aren't your concern, but assailants coming across your yard that are armed: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/homeowner-shoots-kills-men-...

Any closer than that you're probably better off with a shot gun for home defense, unless...you're defense needs are different or you're concerned about multiple assailants, which case a pistol might be better.

Pistols are more apt for shooting and more easily handled in a close quarter environment, where accuracy isn't difficult to achieve and you need to move the gun quickly, so an assailant that is close to you. They're also easier to conceal and carry with you. That's when you'd want a Glock, with hollow points which would do far more that 5.56 ammo since the caliber on even a 9mm much less a 45 is significantly larger. The tip of a 5.56 bullet isn't much larger than a .22 so to say its more dangerous, unless you count velocity, but unless you're wearing body armor, a 9mm or .45 pistol would be worse. It's why police generally carry pistols, and honestly, if you're worried about the "active shooter" in a building, pistols are just as much and have been as much of a threat, to say nothing of what most gun homicides are caused by.

Post reply on HN