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

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

#821

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:40 AM UTC

thebooktocome wrote: post #224

natmaka wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't 'strict control' imply that few legally detain guns? Gender Inequality Index: #1 (best nation) is Switzerland. This country is shock-full of firearms, there is an assault rifle in many (most?) homes (a weird way to 'control', in my opinion). #2 is Norway, where 9% of the population legally owns 1.3 million guns (population: 5.4 million) #3 Finland. 12% of Finns legally detain a firearm

Switzerland's famous assault rifles are not kept with ammunition, and are mostly useless. (I suppose you could bludgeon a home invader with one.) Firearms are more heavily regulated there than in most of Europe. "He shakes out the gun holster. "And we don't get bullets any more," he adds. "The Army doesn't give ammunition now - it's all kept in a central arsenal." This measure was introduced by Switzerland's Federal…

I think you're wrong.

https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzer... is a good discussion of Swiss law.

TL,DR: Swiss law is different than U.S. law, and it's hard to generalize as each is more or less permissive given different areas (and the U.S. is really 51 or 52 little countries in most senses, as Switzerland is divided into Cantons).

Concerning ammo specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/ques...

TL,DR: One can buy ammo freely at ranges and with minimal permitting to take home. It sounds like maybe the Army wanted ammo stored centrally such that it would be in controlled environmental conditions, and not lost or accidentally used up at a Schützenfest.

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

#822

Post by mardifoufs » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:40 AM UTC

spyder wrote: post #614

comrh wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder rate isn't the whole story. Check out the suicide rate, how gun ownership affects a successful attempt and who is killing themselves in the US.

Yep, that's so crazy and sad: "Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t." https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner... :-( Also: "Sixty percent of deaths from firearms in the U.S. are suicides." So if somebody dies from a firearm in the US it's more likely to be s…

Yet US Suicide rates are comparable to those of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada. A big higher but very very close. So I don't see how guns matter in that case. If they did matter to the actual decision of killing yourself or not, you'd see an actual correlation worldwide. Also, I'm not sure if the stats account for people buying guns just to kill themselves. Like is it only including long time owners? Otherwise I again don't see the difference between buying a gun to commit suicide vs doing it via hanging.

The message it sends is that having a gun in your house makes it more likely for you to commit suicide. But causation can just as easily be reversed, i.e. if you are suicidal you're probably more a lot more likely to acquire a gun. Would it be surprising that someone who wants to die is more likely to have something that can help him do just that?

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

#823

Post by philwelch » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #778

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…

You are comparing the USA, a developed country, purely to developing countries. I mean, ya, the USA does better than much poorer countries, but can’t compare to any other developed ones. And just because all developed countries don’t have a unified homogenous homicide rate doesn’t really provide any excuse why America does so much more poorly.

> You are comparing the USA, a developed country, purely to developing countries. I mean, ya, the USA does better than much poorer countries, but can’t compare to any other developed ones.

Almost every country in the world is much poorer than the USA. Most European countries have a smaller per-capita GDP than Mississippi, the poorest US state.

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

#824

Post by lostandbored » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #218

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…

> 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. I don't know about Angola, but in most european countries it's really easy to buy guns (for hunting, sharp-shooting, etc.). When my dad retired he joined a shooting club with his friends, the gun permit being slightly harder to obtain than a fishing permit. There are gun shops everywhere whe…

Yeah, from East Texas and having lived in Estonia, American fascination and glorification of violence is insane looking from the outside.

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

#825

Post by _carbyau_ » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

orangepurple wrote: post #777

_carbyau_ wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely agree with your comment. I am curious about the 22lr being "woefully underpowered for self defense" bit though. I mean, it will put holes into peoples bodies. And I thought the idea was self defense and keeping peoples heads down/awayFromYou. I know it won't put big holes in doors/tables etc. I guess I haven't really considered what the real requirements are for self defense in a country where so many peopl…

A firearm used for self defense needs to provide a balance of bullet energy transfer (correlated with threat cessation effectiveness), ease of use, ability to make attempts to fire on target successfully given extreme stress, little or no notice to prepare, and operating while thoroughly disoriented due to surprise. Bullets which do not halt upon impact with the body but go through it with minimal damage do not stop…

Thank you for the detailed response.

I guess my dreamed up scenarios were more vague "shooter/assailant in the area" whereby I figured I'd want to "make myself less desirable to bother with while I exit the area". Hence small caliber, lots of noise/attempts and if - god forbid - anything connected it would still hurt/slow them.

I never really contemplated a "someone intent on killing you" scenario. It isn't something I think of much and I appreciate that clearly people have.

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

#826

Post by philwelch » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

babesh wrote: post #802

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 wonder if there is a good history of how the civil rights acts and Vietnam withdrawal actually happened. For instance, did the war protests really have that much effect or was it because the war was lost?

The war wasn't lost until the US unilaterally withdrew.

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

#827

Post by hcurtiss » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:48 AM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #401

zepto wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time. This is a fantasy. I’ve never been in a situation I’m the US where I thought a gun could appear at any time, and I don’t even live in a particularly great neighborhood.

Congratulations on never having encountered a police officer. If you do, you'll be very aware of the fact that they're treating you as if you were armed. I am aware of it, and I'm not even black -- and I've seen how much worse it is for black people. Congrats, also, on graduating school before school shootings became a big thing. Me, too. It was great not having to go through metal detectors on my way to class. I am…

My kids don’t go through metal detectors. The mistake here is to presume large urban centers define the US.

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

#828

Post by optymizer » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #194

yongjik wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble understanding how guns would defend an American's freedom. See, it's as if the US military trains soldiers how to hide in the Appalachian, raid local villages, and steal food and ammunition from trucks, because if a non-specified enemy conquers the US and its troops are marching down the streets from Sacramento to Boston you need these skills to hide and keep fighting. Except that, if you're at this st…

> Except that, if you're at this stage, you have failed. The whole freaking point of having a military is to not let it happen. So the US military instead trains its soldiers to fly bombers and read satellite photos, because these are the skills that make you win wars before it runs you over. Eh, not so much. I believe the term is "defense in depth." There's also the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." If…

> the enemy may be the US military itself.

with tanks, nukes, helicopters, and actual soldiers with automatic weapons and grenades.

It's delusional to think that you will do anything other than piss yourself if the US military "knocks" on your door. At best you will die by grenade, at worst - turned into a pancake by some tank.

How do you picture yourself winning against the strongest military in the world, with your rifle at home? Do you really think you'll join a militia, shoot at US soldiers and survive to tell the story of how you bravely defended your freedoms against a tyrannical government?

This isn't a movie where you die a hero. The ship where citizens can defend themselves with weapons against a tyrannical government has sailed a very long time ago.

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

#829

Post by yongjik » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:50 AM UTC

gorwell wrote: post #358

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…

"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.

Taliban is an interesting case, considering that (1) it's unpopular among many (maybe the majority of) Afghans, (2) it would have been better for almost everybody, even most Taliban recruits, if they fizzled out, and (3) you can trace its birth to foreign powers (US, Pakistan, maybe others) arming and training Afghans to fight their own geopolitical games.

Taken together, my take is that an armed and disenfranchised populace can be exploited by demagogues (and foreign powers) to destabilize the society, eventually overthrowing it, to the detriment of everyone in it.

Not exactly an argument for more guns in society.

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

#830

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 3:52 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #578

nverno wrote: 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…

" They provide you with a reasonably effective defense" No, they don't at all. Just the opposite actually. I get the 'Guns to defend against Tyranny' argument, that's kind of reasonable. But as 'personal defence' they don't work nearly as well as having strong gun regulations which keep guns out of the hands of the morons. It's much safer walking down the street in Canada where you can't legally carry a gun, because…

Canada is 80% white (so considerably more homogeneous than the U.S.), enjoys somewhat lower levels of inequality, and doesn't have a long, porous border with a developing nation that has endemic corruption, violence, and organized crime. It's really different.