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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

#661

Post by Grakel »

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…

Ask the Taliban if small arms can fight the US military.

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

#662

Post by kelnos »

clairity wrote: post #255
greenie_beans wrote: post #160

i live in the american south, where everybody owns guns. i own a gun for hunting. but for self defense, i have pepper spray and bear spray instead of guns because i don't want to kill somebody regardless of their intentions. i'd be curious to see the stats of self-defense/firearms, because it seems like self-defense gun owners are LARPing over imagined intruder situations. they're definitely not about to take up arms…

it's interesting that you criticize owning guns for self-defense, but claim it as a (partial) reason for owning your own guns. perhaps you mean self-defense against wildlife rather than people, since you use pepper/bear spray to avoid chancing murder? but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense, where only the perpetrator is incapa…

> but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense

I'm pretty anti-gun as they come, but this seems like a pretty absurd assertion. I would certainly expect a non-trivial amount of self-defense situations involving firearms would result in disaster, but I would not expect that to be even close to "nearly all of them".

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

#663

Post by cmrdporcupine »

philwelch wrote: post #647
jollybean wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the US to lawless, poor countries doesn't help make your claim. The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. "Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of Japanese law, for instance, by readopting the death penalty? Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries?" Or mo…

> The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. Who could have imagined that British colonies who didn’t violently overthrow the British colonial government would end up being less violent overall? Also, who would have guessed that former British colonies that didn’t have millions of African slaves shipped in for…

The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two.

As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion.

The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.

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

#664

Post by NoPicklez »

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…

I agree with your post but in terms of the above commenters use of the word "murder rate" is that even the metric we should be using for comparison? How about combining that with manslaughter?

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

#665

Post by bdowling »

adamredwoods wrote: post #559
enchiridion wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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...

"Assault rifle" has a very specific meaning: an intermediate-caliber, magazine-fed military rifle capable of both semi-automatic and automatic fire. That common meaning has been more or less fixed since WWII when it was adopted from the German word Sturmgewehr.

"Assault weapon" is a legal term that is defined by law (e.g., California's assault weapons ban or the failed federal Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 that you cited). "Assault weapon" includes not only semi-automatic rifles, but also shotguns and pistols that have certain characteristics. The definitions are long and complicated because they attempt to ban only weapons having the visual and ergonomic features of military weapons, while ignoring weapons of similar caliber that do not have those features.

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

#666

Post by sho_hn »

betwixthewires wrote: post #656
sillysaurusx wrote: post #486

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…

> I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. What about Greenland? > ...anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. > ...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. Put it undiplomaticall…

> It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't.

No, it's really not. I spent a number of years living in Seoul, and you can have a 25 million people metro area with virtually no areas you wouldn't go to alone at night. They may exist, somewhere, but you really have to struggle to find them. That plus no loud and aggressive people on the streets, basically never having to feel guarded or adjusting your walking path to avoid that one sketchy person.

US cities can be such stressful, on-guard, subtly "stand your ground"/"toughen up" experiences in comparison sometimes. It's draining, really just wasted energy, and as a man, makes me behave in wasy I don't actually want to.

Culture really matters. Weapon laws really matter. And national pride in places and spaces that just simply don't shape up well is something to resist.

I have a feeling that the entire "arm the populace" mindset and everything that goes along with it (the lack of interest in consensus-building displayed by wanting to maintain an exit from it, etc.) is much more likely to generate the sort of politics and politicians that would ever require civilian I arms use.

States can certainly go bad in many ways. South Korea managed to impeach its most recent bad President through peaceful protest alone (search "Park Geun-Hye protests") with basically not even a punch thrown, however.

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

#667

Post by betwixthewires »

megablast wrote: post #635
KorematsuFredt wrote: post #239

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…

As a proud owner of a pair of pants, what are you so proud about?? You went and bought a gun??

As mentioned elsewhere, the pride usually stems from self reliance.

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

#668

Post by betwixthewires »

8note wrote: post #335
KorematsuFredt wrote: post #239

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…

In america, are you allowed to shoot a police officer who is violating your rights?

There are numerous examples of this happening, a couple mentioned in responses to you, but in Indiana I know that a law was passed a few hears ago (with quite a bit of protest from police unions) saying basically that you can treat a cop as an armed intruder if he forcibly enters your house without a warrant.

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

#669

Post by stefan_ »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #486
philwelch wrote: post #268

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…

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…

It's doubly ironic because of course a large swath of the guns in what is bordering on civil war in Mexico are supplied by the US, made possible through the (lack of) gun ownership regulation.

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

#670

Post by [deleted] »

Fogest wrote: post #394
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the friend may believe that being confident in one's ability to use guns safely and effectively is also a hedge against danger, independent of the utility of that specific gun. That specific gun may make training and becoming confident with guns possible. Playing it conservatively with storage and handling as a someone new to firearms seems like the reasonable path.

They also have kids so it sounds like that plays into why they would be extra cautious. Maybe they are willing to risk that extra time needed to have the gun out for protection if it means they don't have to worry about their kids getting ahold of their gun.

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