Thinking the unthinkable • Hacker News Board

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#441

Post by clarky07 » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #436

thinkling wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big cultural divide. It's a big divide within the U.S.; it's even bigger with people outside the U.S. who haven't experienced the gun culture first hand, much less grown up with it. Just a factual side-note: "Outlaws" sometimes kill each other but they have yet to massacre kids in a school. _cough_ Just this past spring: A gunman has shot dead a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in the French ci…

He was neither an outlaw nor, stricly speaking «crazy». He was an ideologue, a fanatic and a terrorist. While it's good that there aren't too many guns around, the lack of weapons is not enough to deter terrorists. The only thing that works against terrorism is intelligence. This particular story was a big failure in this regard.

Ha! Guns are the problem for crazy people in the US, but in places without guns and lots of gun control, it's then a "terrorist" that finds a gun and kills people.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#442

Post by clarky07 » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #429

clarky07 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said there are background checks and if you have any history of mental health issues you can't get one. I'm not sure what "test" we could or should give for buying them. Accuracy and knowledge of the law doesn't really come into play in this scenario. We'd prefer mass killers to be less accurate, and I suspect they already know it's against the law to kill 26 people. >Close gun show loophole. There is no gun sho…

The easiest way to regulate private sales would require all sales from private parties to go to a licensed dealer or through a licensed intermediary. Either the dealer or the intermediary would be responsible for handling background checks and waiting periods. I can see local law enforcement being willing to act as intermediaries for private-to-private sales. There are reasonable adjustments we can make that can abso…

I could be ok with this, but there is a significant cost associated with it. You can already do this through an FFL, but it generally ends up costing $25-$35 and most people don't want to do that.

If you offer this as a service by the police, then it cost all taxpayers. I'd personally be ok with it, but I suspect that many people will balk at it. They'd be happy to pay for the "gun control" that consists of not allowing guns to be sold or simply taken away from people, but not as excited about paying to allow us to sell our guns to other people more safely.

Maybe this is something that could be solved by private industry, but someone would have to find a way to charge less to do it. FWIW, this intermediary service could be useful for more than just guns. People get robbed buying things like laptops on Craigslist all the time. Maybe you can help (i wanted to say solve, but i'll be realistic and say improve) 2 different areas at once.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#443

Post by clarky07 » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #431

clarky07 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have no intimate knowledge of guns and how they work, so why do you keep posting as if you do? That's a great animation, but I know how a .223 AR-15 works because I own one and have shot it many times. As it happens, I also know how a revolver works whereas you apparently haven't seen that animation. The revolver would not have put 11 rounds in each kid, but it doesn't need to. 1-2 works just fine. The ma…

1- While I'm certainly no expert in guns and «gun culture» (something I would take little pride in), I don't know nothing about guns. I can take apart a 1911 .45, in the dark, and put it back together (the top part with the barrel); my father in law use to own guns and took me shooting several times with his Magnum 357; my point is that I have used guns before (didn't enjoy it much though) 2- Much more importantly, t…

Also, regarding the «expertise» comment. I'm not saying you can't have an opinion, I'm just suggesting you can't fix the problem without more knowledge about the subject matter. You can say you want Wall Street regulated, but unless you have a huge amount of knowledge about the industry you have no idea what that entails or how to even go about it. Tell me, where would start and how exactly would that fix the problem?

It's the same with guns. You can say in few enough characters to fit in a tweet "get rid of automatic and semi-automatic guns", but it takes a deeper knowledge of the subject matter to know that that doesn't actually fix anything.

There are a lot more moving parts here. Just a few:

1.The WORST school massacre in US history did not use a gun. He used 3 bombs.

2. Mental health and it's treatments in the US. Many of the recent school shootings have been by people who were being medicated for mental health issues. Are these treatments helping? Are they actually hurting? Should we be doing more? Should some of them have been locked up?

3. School security. At this point, schools are target simply because of the other shootings. Different schools have different levels of security ranging from 0 to huge amounts. A few armed security officials sprinkled throughout schools could probably limit the damage somebody could do better than getting rid of semi-auto rifles.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#444

Post by mosselman » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:02 PM UTC

tylee78 wrote: post #361

mosselman wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. 'it is high' in Europe'? Playing it fast and loose with the word 'high' if you ask me. Of those mentioned in the list; 6 in the past 25 years are in Europe. 3 shootings, on this list alone, happened in the US in the past 6 months! Most European countries probably haven't had any of this type of thing happen in the past 25+ years.

no. just a "honor" murder each week. usually knives though, so does not count.

You are right, knives don't count in comparing the amount of shootings. Also, Europe is not a Turkish mountain village.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#445

Post by Joeri » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:13 PM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #244

Joeri wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, i'm sure any minute now you'll post the statistics on how countries with tighter gun laws have huge numbers of stadium fires... We don't need to talk hypotheticals here. There are many countries with tighter gun laws. Any "but regulation will make it worse" argument can be vetted based on real world observations.

It is not a matter of statistics. You can smugly measure water for 10 years and learn nothing about ice. No amount of data on Swiss shootings has any bearing on whether Joe Gun-Controlled will back a gasoline tanker up to a high school basketball stadium. To predict unknown unknowns, you have to do RAND Corporation-style operations research and hypothetical projections. This has been done, and it turns out that mass…

What matters is what is likely, and what is likely is largely what is observed. People don't blow up schools with tanker trucks. They could, and if they had the intent to kill they should, but they don't.

But that's not my point. My point is that the best source for wise decisions is hands-on experience. Many countries have a better handle on the gun situation than the U.S. What's wrong with learning from their experience?

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#446

Post by vandahm » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 1:04 AM UTC

sgentle wrote: post #174

dr_ wrote: post #79

I feel for the parent who has written the article, and whereas I agree we must do more to address the needs of kids with mental illness, I disagree with the stated premise of the article, that it's easy to talk about guns. It's actually not easy to talk about guns in this country, which has led to a lack of any serious gun control regulation. It borders on insanity when we look at the type of weaponry we allow our ci…

It's strange to watch the debates around gun control unfold in USA time and again. Here in Australia we did the same thing after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, one of the deadliest spree shootings in world history. After that, the government basically outlawed semi-automatic weapons and did a compulsory buyback. In the 12 years since we've only had one incident. In 2002, a member of a sport shooting club (one of t…

What worries me about a compulsory buyback here in the United States is the massive number of firearms for which the government would have to provide compensation. If the owners of each of the 300 million guns in the United States were compensated USD $750 -- which is probably pretty reasonable given current prices -- it comes to USD $225 billion, excluding the cost of administrative overheard. That's a staggering sum of money, even for the US government, and not something I think we're able to pay.

However infeasible, it's probably the only way that new gun control laws would be effective. Historically, gun bans in the US have applied only to newly manufactured guns, while older guns have been grandfathered in through various means. In fact, assault rifles like the Bushmaster used in the Connecticut shooting have already been banned in that state, which leads me to speculate that it was purchased before the ban and grandfathered in. Without addressing the vast supply of existing guns, it's hard to see how laws regulating new guns will achieve the impact their supporters desire.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#447

Post by Mz » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 1:21 AM UTC

sgentle wrote: post #174

dr_ wrote: post #79

I feel for the parent who has written the article, and whereas I agree we must do more to address the needs of kids with mental illness, I disagree with the stated premise of the article, that it's easy to talk about guns. It's actually not easy to talk about guns in this country, which has led to a lack of any serious gun control regulation. It borders on insanity when we look at the type of weaponry we allow our ci…

It's strange to watch the debates around gun control unfold in USA time and again. Here in Australia we did the same thing after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, one of the deadliest spree shootings in world history. After that, the government basically outlawed semi-automatic weapons and did a compulsory buyback. In the 12 years since we've only had one incident. In 2002, a member of a sport shooting club (one of t…

I think foreigners routinely miss the fact that the U.S. still has wolves, wildcats, bears, 2000 lb moose, etc. I know that Australia has some of the most venomous spiders in the world but you aren't likely to defend yourself from them with a gun. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any really sizable predators in Australia. Europe also lacks any remaining really large, dangerous wild animals, having hunted them to extinction long ago.

I did insist my ex husband get rid of his stupid hand gun or I would leave him over it, but I do not think gun control is as simple a question in the U.S. as it is in more "civilized" countries whose only remaining serious predator is humankind because the rest have essentially been hunted to extinction (which is not necessarily the most virtuous and wise thing to do since predators play an important role in the ecosystem).

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#448

Post by Crake » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 7:19 AM UTC

thefreeman wrote: post #191

polyfractal wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Here in the States (at least, where I grew up), handwriting is a real mixed bag. When you are learning how to write as a small child, it's a big deal to write clearly (for obvious reason). Then you are forced to learn cursive, and its a big deal to write cursive clearly. Then it doesn't matter anymore. Literally everyone stops caring as long as it is legible. It's a weird system. While you are learning t…

I actually find it physically difficult to hand write more then a few words these days. It's pretty sad.

Ha! I'm the same way. It's so damn slow compared to how much I can put down in the same time if I were on my mechanical keyboard instead.

I always hated high school in class essays because all I could think was that I'd be able to write 3x better/more efficiently/produce more content if I were doing it on a keyboard. Plus, it always gave me handcramps. :(

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#449

Post by Crake » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 7:23 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #7

Post like this terrify me. What if there isn't anything that can be done? It seems like there are some people that are just born broken or at some point they break. Men who experience schizophrenia it often stars in their late teens or early 20s, and late 20s/early 30s for women [1]. I had a friend in high school who was completely normal in every way. During his first year in college he literally just went crazy. It…

There are schizophrenia genes in my family. I can't wait until I'm past the typical time of onset, because thinking of losing my mind like your friend did is one of my deepest and most terrible fears.

Re: Thinking the unthinkable

#450

Post by Crake » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 7:25 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #159

onnn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My naive non-american mind Does this sentiment not exist where you are from?

Definitely not as much. In my experience, people in the US in their 20s (both during and post university) tend to be more in the mindset "I want a relationship" (and they're actively looking for one, using dating sites, personal networks, etc.) or "I don't want a relationship" (in which case they actively avoid it); whereas in France and European countries, people tend to be more neutral by default and then hop into…

That's really interesting.