Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds • Hacker News Board

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

#721

Post by rayiner » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #677

tshaddox wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. > Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries? Huh? Are you implying that simply existing in the “New World” would cause the baseline expected murder rate to be higher for some reason?

Another way of looking at it is proximity to the United States, its massive supply of guns and "war on drugs", which somehow seems to be correlated to an increased homicide rate.

The homicide rate in Puerto Rico is super high, comparable to other news world countries, but it’s an island and has almost no guns.

Also, the US homicide rate was extremely high compared to Europe long before gun laws in other countries or the drug war. It was 10x higher than the UK at the turn of the 20th century.

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

#722

Post by jacobolus » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #643

sillysaurusx wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?" a…

> 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. Compared to Mexico and Brazil, the US numbers look fucking awesome. Compared to Greenland and Argentina, the US numbers look perfectly reasonable. Compared to France, maybe we l…

Basically your argument boils down to: The USA is substantially an undeveloped shithole full of corrupt/ineffectual law enforcement, barely functional or legitimate government, broke unemployed people incapable of solving problems peacefully with nothing to lose, and powerful thugs beyond the reach of the law, so we should feel great pride that we aren’t quite as violent and dangerous as places where the gangsters are the primary source of local force and the law enforcement / military are essentially gangsters themselves.

I guess....

But on the flip side, the USA is almost incomparably richer than those countries (in natural resources, infrastructure, human capital, ...), has a much better developed and more legitimate set of public institutions, has a tradition of settling disputes via political/legal processes instead of gang warfare, and in most ways looks much more like wealthy industrialized countries than new developing-country slums.

So, instead of giving up and patting ourselves on the back because it could always be worse, as an alternative we could, y'know, try to get the most desperate people access to basic essentials required for human flourishing, and aim to reduce the levels of violence and corruption over time, the way people have successfully done in many other countries around the world.

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

#723

Post by beerandt » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #435

splintercell wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note that automatic weapons are already banned from civilian possession. Regarding psychiatric patients and criminals, this has an exact opposite effect that you want. People are far more scared of seeking psychiatric help when they know that they’re going to lose their rights. This is an open secret in gun community to never mention to a doctor that you have guns, and this is an indirect message to not seek p…

As someone who both owns guns, has a concealed carry permit, and has been in therapy and takes anti-depressants, the pervasive fear about getting red flagged and having your firearms taken away seems like overblown fearmongering. Can someone point me towards some statistics or reports of such occurrences?

There's a reason that national, electronic, centralized medical records happened before we started hearing these pushes for red-flag laws.

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

#724

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #666

betwixthewires wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Idk why the downvotes for orangepurple, that is basically correct. Heterogeneous societies are much harder to govern. Different kinds of people living side-by-side fight. The calmest, most in-control societies around the world are homogeneous. SK, NK, and Japan are the most ethnically homogeneous countries on earth.

Oh, and SK is an oligarchy. Essentially everything is run by a handful of families (those who run the chaebol), everybody knows about it, and it's been the status quo for years. Not that that's necessarily bad, though it isn't ideal. SK has risen from destruction to dictatorship to mostly-rich-and-democratic.

I disagree that weapon laws really matter, they matter maybe a little. Most of the variance in murder rates is more productively explained by things like homogeneity, rich-poor divide, cultures of violence, etc.

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

#725

Post by throwawaylinux » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #164

AustinDev wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. The National Firearms Act would like to have a word it is unconstitutional on it's face despite what the Supreme Court says. 'Shall not be infringed' hasn't been the law of the land since the 1930'…

Genuine legal interpretation question: Why does everyone quote "Shall not be infringed" but ignore "Well-regulated"? If the goal is a "well regulated militia", and therefore gun rights "shall not be infringed", why do we interpret that as "everybody should have largely unfettered access to weapons" rather than "If part of a well-regulated armed force, access to weapons should be allowed during militia activities"? or…

> Why does everyone quote "Shall not be infringed" but ignore "Well-regulated"?

Because the former is pretty clear and unambiguous, and it is the part that actually describes the limitation of the power of the government.

You can quibble over the meaning of well regulated militia and whether or not it is necessary for the security of a free state then or now, but that is clearly separate from the prohibition on infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.

It does not state if a militia is necessary then people the right to bear arms. It does not state that people who are members of a militia have the right to keep and bear arms. It says all people have that right.

Here's something to think about -- Why do people think hunting or personal protection have anything to do with the second amendment?

EDIT: I'll give my answer to my own question, because it might be too ambiguous or obscure. It's actually not that I believe the second amendment has nothing to do with hunting or personal protection, actually the opposite. Those were such obvious things for people to use guns for that back then they did not even have to be listed. That obviousness is why those things still come up today in discussion about the second amendment despite being enumerated nowhere. It would have been utterly absurd when the document was written that people should not use their guns for hunting or self defense. Clearly statement about the militia in there had no intention of the restriction of the right to have and use guns.

I also believe the security of a free state begins (and more or less ends) with the security of the free man so I think guns are a very important tool for self sufficiency, but that's another story.

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

#726

Post by rayiner » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #663

philwelch wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

Yeah both of these points are revisionist bullshit. Go read the primary sources. The gun fetish comes from our origin story being successfully overthrowing the British with civilian firearms.

As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.

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

#727

Post by throwawaylinux » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

PhineasRex wrote: post #640

pseudalopex wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Supreme Court held "The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms."[1] [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html

"I'm out of town this weekend, you can use my apartment" does not grant somebody unlimited permission to use your apartment. The supreme court is working backwards from their conclusion here.

"Guns are good for hunting. All citizens have the right to own and use guns." does not mean only hunters have permission to have guns, nor that people may guns for hunting.

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

#728

Post by betwixthewires » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #666

betwixthewires wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Culture really matters

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The cultures of SK and the US are very, very different. Particularly, south Koreans are all united by being under the constant threat of devastating war as long as almost any of them have been alive.

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

#729

Post by jasonladuke0311 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #657

gorwell wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they're definitely not about to take up arms against the state, and if they think they would do that, then they're certainly LARPing and live in a fantasy world." Didn't the Taliban prove otherwise? That would suggest an armed citizenship can be a counter to tyranny.

I think these are two pretty different situations. If civilian gun owners in the US tried to overthrow the US government, the US military would crush them in a heartbeat. Hell, with the level of militarization of many local police departments in the US, it might not even take the US military. You can't really compare that to a reluctant, unpopular war fought in someone else's territory. The US was never going to comm…

> If civilian gun owners in the US tried to overthrow the US government, the US military would crush them in a heartbeat.

This is such a reductionist argument. Many of those civilians used to be those military, and many of those military would no longer be military if this situation arose.

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

#730

Post by onemiketwelve » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

KorematsuFredt wrote: post #239

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…

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…

Let me start off by saying I love playing with guns, and really frankly anything gun related. I don't know why it is but I've just been fascinated with them since I was a kid.

Ok that said, I don't understand how guns protect us from the government. I think the biggest threats area slow and mundane. Ie erosion of rights or increasing power of some portion of the government over decades. There's no one cataclysmic event that overnight would make sane people take up arms and start popping off.

Likewise, let's say the government went all evil-like. Like in a movie. And you somehow got a huge citizen resistance trying to fight the government forces, unlike in real life where apparently the country would be split and half would join the government forces. The government has armor, air support, artillery, surveillance, and logistics. This isn't the 1700s. Just access to small arms is meaningless unless the 2nd amendment is broadened to include all weapons. And even then, machine guns, manpads, tanks and heat are just tools and a tiny, inconsequential part of warfare.

You always see gun people plinking away at stationary targets. Arguing about mlok vs picatinny. Maybe practicing their tacticool speed reloads. You rarely see people practicing force on force cqb, urban fighting, how to fight as a team.