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Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

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Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#231

Post by oblio »

briffle wrote: post #92
ryandvm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to lawfully defend themselves. So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of unlawful or unintentional killings.

is that so strange? In 40+ years, I have never needed a seatbelt. I do know of 2 people that were prevented from escaping their car because of their seatbelt, and died. yet every time I get in a car, I put one on.

You've probably used it when braking hard, you just didn't realize it at the time due to the adrenaline pumping through you.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#232

Post by jfengel »

chmod600 wrote: post #73

There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the…

Murders aren't the only issue, though. Just the possibility of a gun being present changes a lot of interactions in the US.

Every police encounter has to assume you have a gun. A lot of innocent deaths at the hands of police are treated as "I thought he had a gun", which makes everybody scared of the police -- especially minorities. School children go through metal detectors every single day, never turning up any guns. Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in case one has a gun.

And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced that they're about to be killed by one of those many, many guns, as seen right here in this HN thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161

All of those guns have a significant, negative effect on daily life in America. The actual murders are comparatively few, but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#233

Post by Glyptodon »

ryandvm wrote: post #69
sharklazer wrote: post #53

Everyone should own a gun, and most more than 1. If we were to maintain public education (which... just no, please) gun education should be standard.

Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to lawfully defend themselves. So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of unlawful or unintentional killings.

To begin with you're creating a premise that the only reason gun legality can be justified is self defense, particularly against other people.

I do not accept this premise. There are many other premises for gun legality.

That said, when I was very young my grandfather had to shoot a number of stray dogs out his car window while driving through a rough pasture because they'd killed a couple calves and were attacking his cows. Some tried to bite the vehicles tires after the first shots. Gun used was a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle. I didn't witness, but saw pictures, possibly originally taken for insurance purposes.

He was not, under a very strict definition, defending himself. But it still seems very unproblematic to me.

In many ways being adult enough to vote is synonymous with being adult enough to own a gun safely: the ballot box is as capable as any gun of unleashing horrors on the world.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#234

Post by Clubber »

carlob wrote: post #25
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In unequal power situations, guns are mighty useful. A world where no one needs firearms is a nice ideal, but unfortunately we don't live in that world. The police cannot be trusted to show up anywhere in time to defend you, and in fact might shoot you instead of whoever is attacking you anyway. Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal conseq…

Are you aware of the fact that there is a number of countries where the average police officer is unarmed as well?

The patrolmen are unarmed, police with rifles are just a radio call away though.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#235

Post by endymi0n »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #128
sofixa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really The US is at 4.96/100,000 for 2012. For reference, Angola is better at 4.85. Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest countries in the EU, are at 1.3. France is at 1.2. If by not remarkable you mean 3 as bad as other developed countries, sure. The numbers are only for intentional homicide, not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the…

3x a small number is still a small number. Your chances of getting struck by lightning increase if you live on a hill, but no one is basing home buying decisions on that. The real argument is that guns enable acts that, while rare, and while they affect few people, are so egregious that we as a society will go to great lengths to ensure they never happen (school shootings).

Note this is just murder, but murder is merely a small fraction of gun deaths.

The multiplier for all firearm-related deaths between the US and EU average for example is around 12X, more than an order of magnitude [1].

The elephant in the room however is that the main argument simply doesn't hold up. Owning a gun doesn't just make the owner slightly more likely to get shot, but also everyone around them [2]

Or, as they say: The only thing you need against a bad toddler with a gun is a good toddler with... nah, not going there. Too sad actually.

Statistic after statistic says clearly that a society with more guns is less safe for everyone (the Switzerland outlier is easily explained by banning of owning munition instead of guns in peace time).

I wish Americans could get a feeling of how different a society without a perpetual feeling of danger and paranoia feels like. Where children just go to school without security checks, amok drills and bulletproof safe rooms.

Seriously, that just rocks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-m...

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#236

Post by tick_tock_tick »

onethought wrote: post #11
rubyist5eva wrote: post #4

Guns are the great equalizer. Women don’t have equal rights until they are equally capable of defending themselves.

All the countries that have greater gender equality have strict control of firearms. (Sorry for the inconvenient facts down voters) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Inequality_Index

Gun's per capita seems to be very high on that list?

Top 3 (all per 100 persons)

1. Switzerland 26.3

2. Norway 28.8

3. Finland 32.4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#237

Post by comrh »

chmod600 wrote: post #73

There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the…

Murder rate isn't the whole story. Check out the suicide rate, how gun ownership affects a successful attempt and who is killing themselves in the US.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#238

Post by tablespoon »

yongjik wrote: post #228
tablespoon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. Eh, not so much. I believe the term is "defense in depth." There's also the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." If…

> For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself. That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen then you have already failed to defend your freedom." The US military is not a band of invaders, it's made of your fellow Americans. What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?

> What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?

You seem to be assuming that someone could have done something and been successful, which I think is assuming too much.

But like I said before: the key point is defense in depth. It's stupid to put all your eggs in one basket for something so important. Conventional democratic process and personal firearms are both baskets in the analogy.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#239

Post by KorematsuFredt »

sofixa wrote: post #96
chmod600 wrote: post #73

There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the…

> But the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable, really The US is at 4.96/100,000 for 2012. For reference, Angola is better at 4.85. Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest countries in the EU, are at 1.3. France is at 1.2. If by not remarkable you mean 3 as bad as other developed countries, sure. The numbers are only for intentional homicide, not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the…

PS: I am strong supporter of Gun rights and proud gun owner.

I fully agree with anti-gun crowd that having vast majority of guns in hands of citizens (legally or illegally) leads to more deaths. USA's comparison with Angola is actually more serious than the numbers tell you because you need to realize that USA has far better medical response and doctors trained to handle gunshot wounds. So to truly compare Angola and USA you might have to increase USA's number with those who are shot instead of dead.

Having said that I am totally for guns in the hands of citizens. Mostly because I think it acts as a bulwark against further restrictions. After 2nd ammendment you will be seeing "commons sense rules for free speech" like we have seen in UK, Canada and Australia.

Every constitutional right has its price. Anyone who fails to see this is not honest. Give police the power to search you without warrant and we almost certainly will solve more crimes. Force individual to testify against themselves and we will most certainly keep more child rapists in jail. But then as a society we need to figure out the trade-off and in my personal case I would rather keep my guns and face a 5/1000 chance of dying of gunshot wound than surrender my guns.

> Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights, blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for/against? Mask mandates?

In my experience USA lot less corrupt than most other countries. Lobbying overall is a net good thing for a democratic society. Representatives are incompetent everywhere. American abuse of power is nowhere close to what EU or AU does to its citizens. I am not sure wha erosion of human rights you are talking in USA.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#240

Post by throw123123123 »

igetspam wrote: post #111

My wife (and many women) has felt that the only way to effect change in our gun laws would be for white men to feel like targets. I used to do iss that idea somewhat but as I've paid more attention to things over th last few years, I no longer dismiss the notion. I don't wish many people dead but if women and minorities start buying up a lot of guns, maybe they'll start shooting back. Then we'll see how many times th…

Bojack run a skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eG0y_nb5IA

But I doubt it. Women with guns are actually a sexy cliche.

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