Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT • Hacker News Board

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#331

Post by bambax » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 10:00 PM UTC

BryanB55 wrote: post #298

bambax wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's a interesting video from a Sandy Hook father whose child was at Sandy Hook the day of the shooting No. This so-called Sandy Hook father IS NOT a Sandy Hook father, and his daughter WAS NOT at Sandy Hook the day of the shooting, as documented many times by himself, and described in more detail in this Slate article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/02/07/bill_steve... So maybe you should start by g…

Ok, so his daughter was at the school down the street. Does that really change anything? He's still a member of that community and should be able to protect his children to the best of his ability.

> his daughter was at the school down the street. Does that really change anything?

Yes it does. It shows that what you said about a verifiable fact wasn't true.

And his daughter was over a mile away -- a long street, even by US standards.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#332

Post by darkchasma » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 10:30 PM UTC

notdrunkatall wrote: post #327

darkchasma wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about getting rid of civillian arms, not the arms held by the military or even police officers. Every example you have given is a war between nations. If you want to play historian, give me an example where there was a better civil outcome when guns were used to overthrow tyranny, or tyrannical ideas. I'll start with the peaceful examples: Egypt, India, US Civil Rights, Women's Suffrage etc... Ideas cha…

>give me an example America. ... You people are dense to the point of complete idiocy. My point is that the current period of prosperous peace (relatively speaking) will certainly not last forever. Wars are a fact of life, and when they happen, regimes fall and power vacuums arise. Sometimes, those vacuums are filled not by the most capable (and rarely by the most benevolent) but by the most ambitious. Given the hist…

America? The war where the tyrannical overreaching government wanted to take away people's right to own other people and enforce more control over the states than the southern states wanted? Because the government; it won. (I'm pretty happy it did too!) :) So, yea... Great example.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#333

Post by RobAley » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #255

nitrogen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lack of fear is interesting, because Britain's violent crime rate is higher than the US. "Swann noted that in the UK, there are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people. By contrast, there are 466 violent crimes per 100,000 here in America." - http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/01/10/fox-af... (I couldn't find a list of countries on Wikipedia sorted by violent crime, only by intentional homicide, so…

I would be interested to see a breakdown. The received wisdom we have over here is that the UK is far safer in terms of violent crime than the US, but perhaps this perception is wrong.

As a former UK police officer, I can tell you that UK violent crime stats usually include any kind of crime that includes legally defined force, e.g.

- "common assault" (includes slapping, spitting at, pushing)

- threats of violence

- domestic/marital violence

- physical abuse

i.e. not just "stranger" violence and physical situations where people are not injured.

My guess, for the US statistics to be so low, they may not include similar crimes. Many countries only include so-called "serious" assaults in their stats.

Also, UK figures usually include all reported crimes, whether investigated and/or proven, or not.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#334

Post by bediger4000 » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 10:52 PM UTC

zaphar wrote: post #180

bediger4000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another American, I don't think that's quite it, as we (Americans) have essentially given up some of your other rights: we don't really have a right to be secure against arbitrary search and seizure any more, and we don't have much of a right to due process any more. We're shaving our freedom of speech thinner too. So: why is the 4th Amendment right to keep and bear arms defended so zealously, and interpreted so l…

Perhaps because the 2nd amendment is their last defense against the erosion of those other rights completely. See: American Revolutionary War

Right, but "last defense" shouldn't constitute our only defense. Shouldn't all freedom-loving Americans speak out and vote against shaving protections against arbitrary search and seizure paper thin? Shouldn't all freedom-loving Americans vote against politicians who support things like universal wiretapping, dragnet searches and presumption of guilt in airports and at borders?

In short, I don't believe that having a gun is any kind of last defense against loss of rights. I'll believe that when I see Waye LaPierre denouncing airport nude-a-trons, or when the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners actively join suit against the US DoJ for warrantless wiretapping.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#335

Post by rdouble » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 10:56 PM UTC

RobAley wrote: post #333

tome wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to see a breakdown. The received wisdom we have over here is that the UK is far safer in terms of violent crime than the US, but perhaps this perception is wrong.

As a former UK police officer, I can tell you that UK violent crime stats usually include any kind of crime that includes legally defined force, e.g. - "common assault" (includes slapping, spitting at, pushing) - threats of violence - domestic/marital violence - physical abuse i.e. not just "stranger" violence and physical situations where people are not injured. My guess, for the US statistics to be so low, they may…

Assault is broadly defined in the USA and is generally a misdemeanor. It could be the stats only include aggravated assault, which is a felony. That said, there isn't as much of a brawling culture in the USA as there is in other countries. It wouldn't be surprising if the stats for general non-gun violence were lower.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#336

Post by bmelton » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 11:23 PM UTC

rooshdi wrote: post #263

nitrogen wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Societies must make the decision whether the opportunities lost by the vast majority of law-abiding people are worth denying opportunities to the very few criminals. Is the cure more damaging than the poison? Is a gun-free society forcing its will on those who want to own guns better or worse than a society in which criminals have slightly easier access to guns by stealing them from law-abiding owners?

Yea, the pros of sem-automatic rifle regulation has to be weighed against the extent of tragedies they enable. Do the pros of another firearm really out-weigh the pain they enable?

There are a LOT of semi-automatic rifles that aren't AR15s. There are semi-automatic shotguns, and semi-automatic pistols as well. Speaking objectively, most firearms bought today are semi-automatic. A semi-automatic weapon is inherently no more or less dangerous than any other gun in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.

Just for clarity, and I don't mean to assume that you don't know, but as most people I've spoken with have it entirely wrong, a semi-automatic firearm means that when you pull the trigger, a bullet is fired. There is no 'burst' or 'spray' mode, and there's no tangible difference between an AR15 and, say, a Browning BAR (http://www.chuckhawks.com/browning_BAR.jpg), and "assault weapons bans", in my opinion, penalize a gun for looking like military weapons, when in reality they function nothing like military weapons (as they don't have burst, spray or fully automatic fire modes).

If they're famous for causing havoc recently, it almost certainly speaks more to their popularity than anything else. If the most popular car in the America were the Ford Taurus, it would likely be involved in more accidents than other cars, based on sheer math. The AR15 is the most popular rifle sold in America today. The reasons for its popularity are because of its modular design, not its lethality. With an AR15, I can replace the upper assembly without need of a gunsmith. This means I can have one "gun" for both long and short range shooting. I can 'bolt on' attachments like a scope, night lights, laser sights, bipods, etc., without having to pay somebody else to do it for me. It's popular today for the same reasons Linux is popular with nerds -- because you can tinker with it.

As for its lethality, it fires a small caliber, low-weight round (.223). In its generally short-barreled configuration (though again, that is moduler) it is considered a 'varmint' gun, used to kill raccoons, coyotes, wolves and the like from a ranch, or what have you. If people were choosing their killing weapons based on lethality, they would have chosen an AR10 (.308 round) or something like a Saiga 12, which is a magazine-fed shotgun.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#337

Post by bmelton » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 11:29 PM UTC

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #215

BryanB55 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in hearing your thought on this in more detail. Can you explain how the police in the UK are able to get to your house fast enough in the middle of the night when someone breaks in? It takes hardly even 30 seconds to kick in a door or break a window and enter a home. Are you really capable of calling the police, having them respond, enter and clear your own home before that person does harm to you and…

I'm always really interested in the straw man 'home invasion' fantasy that the pro-gun lobby brings out. Why would someone invade your home with a weapon? For financial gain? Just for jollies[1]? The thing about giving everyone a gun is that it makes every crime that much more likely to be fatal. In Canada, for example, if I break into your house for your TV and you catch me, we're sort of at an impasse. Maybe I have…

Are you suggesting that home invasions don't actually happen?

To add at least one anecdotal data point, my home was burgled a couple of weeks before Christmas by a group of armed burglars.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#338

Post by bmelton » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 11:37 PM UTC

tomkin wrote: post #330

giardini wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... the staggering evidence that guns in citizen's hands are unnecessary at the least and dangerous at the worst." Not true. US citizens are more effective than police in handling firearms: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-t... http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml scroll down to "Armed Citizens Make Fewer Mistakes Than Police"

This doesn't prove guns solve problems. It just makes it clear that police can be incompetent. This is the most bizarre argument. You're argument is that police do a poor job, so average people should do the job? Here's an idea: spend some more money on creating a more competent police force. So silly! Let's see, my employee isn't doing his job well, so I'll just call in another developer to bring competency. Talk ab…

That ignores the geographic disparity of our nation. It would be relatively easy to create a rapidly mobile police force in somewhere like New York City, but nearly impossible to create an efficient police force in Glendo, Wyoming. Houses are, at the closest, acres apart from each other. Going grocery shopping can be a half hour trip each way from a nearby farm.

Police cannot be readily available in places like this (or in New York really, but for entirely different reasons).

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#339

Post by suresk » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #336

rooshdi wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the pros of sem-automatic rifle regulation has to be weighed against the extent of tragedies they enable. Do the pros of another firearm really out-weigh the pain they enable?

There are a LOT of semi-automatic rifles that aren't AR15s. There are semi-automatic shotguns, and semi-automatic pistols as well. Speaking objectively, most firearms bought today are semi-automatic. A semi-automatic weapon is inherently no more or less dangerous than any other gun in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Just for clarity, and I don't mean to assume that you don't know, but as most people I'v…

I agree that it is disconcerting to see guns like an AR-15 being targeted merely because they look scary or military-like, but they do have a number of attributes that make them ideal for mass-shootings, which tend to occur at short-to-medium ranges.

They are smaller and lighter than many of the other guns you mentioned, they have minimal recoil, and while .223/5.56 rounds are small, they are still quite lethal at the ranges involved in mass shootings. The lighter rounds also mean that you can carry far more of them and it is easier to use extended magazines with them.

Compared to a handgun: Better range, more capacity, higher velocity.

Compared to a shotgun: Better range, more capacity.

Compared to an AR10/M14: More capacity, less recoil.

Also, compared to a lot of other guns, ARs in general have less general utility - they are poor for home/personal defense and you generally don't use them for hunting (other than various pests, usually). I will grant you that they are enjoyable guns to own and shoot, though.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#340

Post by bmelton » Sat, Feb 23, 2013, 11:42 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #287

notdrunkatall wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoops, I missed the line at the bottom of that page which says that this quote has not been found in any of Jefferson's writings. They should really make it more prominent. How about a substitute? "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure." And: "The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."

And yet another Jefferson quote: "Happy for us, that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions."

I should note that while the right to repeal the second amendment is one available to Congress and the President, they do not have the right to just trample its provisions because they aren't able to get a quorum on repeal.