Live data from Hacker News

Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

wsj.com

551–560 of 1001 posts

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

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries. If you’re going to tout France’s low homicide rate of 1.2, I’d invite you to observe that Japan’s homicide rate i…

>The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. Yeah, I'd add that France doesn't have a long, porous border with the developing world. Nor nearly as much heterogeneity in its population.

[deleted]

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

#552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Situations like China effectively exterminating populations they don’t like are why gun rights are so important. Order men to re-education camps and forcing their women to sleep in same bed as police/watchdogs gets a lot less appealing if the woman can shoot their government mandated rapist.

Mao used a policy of "rifle taxes" to disarm the rest of the country, and I shouldn't have to repeat his single most famous quote.

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

#553
post #535
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like a regrettable situation where your distrust of your fellow citizens is so strong that you are comforted by the ability to kill them with minimal effort. It's usually the opposite sentiment for gun owners- I trust my fellow citizens with arms. Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by many. They provide you with a reasonably effective defense. One way to significantly erode individual's/cit…

> Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by many. For context, can you clarify if the many you're referring to there are some fellow USA citizens? If so, I'll note that USA is > They provide you with a reasonably effective defense. Against what? Other people with guns, or other people with feebler weapons? If it's the former, then we're back to a basic escalation problem, and it's what most other western…

Yea I'm referring to fellow US citizens (I am also an Australian citizen, but the Aussie half of my family could care less about guns).

I grew up rural in US and now live in the city. It may as well be two different countries with respect to views on gun ownership, so nationwide polls won't capture any of the variation (also state to state is massive difference).

> Against what? Other people with guns, or other people with feebler weapons?

Any living threat, which could be a much much larger attacker or mob of attackers. Consider the rattlesnake, it's the same thing- a great deterrent. It's peace of mind, a last resort, something that's better to have and not need than to need and not have.

> who is it that you don't trust and that you need a weapon for 'effective defense'?

Have you ever read about the terrible things people do to eachothers? Or the barbarism of human history?

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

#554
post #43
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I never read news about "rapist shot dead by attacked woman". Are you positive that buying more firearms will make it happen? Because it definitely doesn't look we're there yet.

In most incidents where people use firearms to protect themselves no shots are fired, just brandishing the weapon is enough. Those incidents don't make the news. Buy if you're looking for an actual news story, here's one. https://www.wtol.com/article/news/local/resident-shoots-woul...

The article you linked says "The manner of Brackett's death is now ruled as a homicide."

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

#555
post #96

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…

[deleted]

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

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries. If you’re going to tout France’s low homicide rate of 1.2, I’d invite you to observe that Japan’s homicide rate i…

>The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. Yeah, I'd add that France doesn't have a long, porous border with the developing world. Nor nearly as much heterogeneity in its population.

France is quite heterogenous. The "homogeneous = less crime" argument is a bit xenophobic/racist at best, and not quite true.

Societies with an impoverished underclass is what causes higher crime rates, regardless of whether or not the underclass is mainly comprised of ethnic minorities. France (heterogenous) and Japan (homogenous) take better care of their poor than the US (heterogenous) and Guatemala (homogenous), which is what causes the disparity in murder rates.

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

#557
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that they're excellent examples when you consider the difference in terrain, infrastructure, the cultural and religious differences between the combatants and the status of one side as foreign occupying force.

That seems like just shushing them away by saying they aren’t the same, when in fact those factors don’t make a difference.

There's really no way of knowing for sure, because you can't deny that many of the Talibans fought so fearlessly because of the certainty of their faith and religion.

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

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. Those countries may be New World, but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. In other words, if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Reddit's running joke is that every gunfight happened in Brazil. In fact, I often wonder if most of the gunfigh…

Mexico is a big country. There are places in Mexico where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the US where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the Baltimore metro area where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised.

That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world. But different places have different statistical properties.

Look, my grandpa took me shooting when I was young. I remember doing target practice under a bridge when I was like 7, using a freakin' magnum revolver of all things. It was next to a very small river, and someone further downstream was trying to fish. I asked gramps "Do you think he heard us?" and he laughed "I don't think anybody didn't hear us."

That's the kind of culture I come from. I suspect in this thread there are at least three factions: the pro-guns, the anti-guns, and the undecideds.

As someone who was raised from an early age to be pro-gun, I do see the merits. But it's important that we acknowledge the downsides. If, statistically, America is so screwed up that you need to compare to Brazil and Mexico before the numbers start looking sort of reasonable, there may be a correlation with gun ownership the way that smoking may be correlated with cancer.

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

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience USA lot less corrupt than most other countries. Lobbying overall is a net good thing for a democratic society. You rightly mention lobbying and corruption together. But somehow you miss that they are on the same continuum. From my EU perspective lobbying in the US is corruption, as the lobbying comes with money and paid-for political promotion. The situation around guns itself is a clear example: a…

With regard to your gun control points, there is a bit of nuance you missed that people (like me, if I wasn’t trying to help you steelman your argument) will criticize. Specifically, there are already heavy restrictions on automatic weapons, which are basically never used in criminal acts. Every automatically gun in the US has to be registered with the federal government for $200 and a lot of paperwork. In effect it…

SKS rifles cost over US$600, a $200 licensing fee isn't infringing any rights compared to the right to a fair and speedy trial.

The term 'assault rifle' is used loosely by us, but in terms of law there are definitions: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1296...

Post reply on HN