Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 1001 posts

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

#91

Post by tablespoon »

Balero wrote: post #30
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In unequal power situations, guns are mighty useful. A world where no one needs firearms is a nice ideal, but unfortunately we don't live in that world. The police cannot be trusted to show up anywhere in time to defend you, and in fact might shoot you instead of whoever is attacking you anyway. Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal conseq…

You need to have the big "I consider America the world" disclaimer at the top. A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun. The police all over the world do show up when needed, and the don't shoot people unless it is a complete last resort. In the…

> A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.

Someone upthread made a good point: a regular person in their everyday life does not need a fire extinguisher. Most people go their whole lives without ever using one.

Several months ago I listened to a story about Myanmar on (I think) NPR's The World. After the coup and after the military started shooting protesters, many urban pro-democracy activists sensibly realized that nonviolent action wasn't going to work, and headed out of the city to get trained by some ethic rebel groups in the countryside.

However, when they were done with their training they had to do back home unarmed. Myanmar has strict gun control, and the rebels didn't have any guns to spare.

So, in summary: you don't need a gun until you do.

Edit: I think this is the story: https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-06-02/souring-peace-marches...

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

#92

Post by briffle »

ryandvm wrote: post #69
sharklazer wrote: post #53

Everyone should own a gun, and most more than 1. If we were to maintain public education (which... just no, please) gun education should be standard.

Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to lawfully defend themselves. So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of unlawful or unintentional killings.

is that so strange? In 40+ years, I have never needed a seatbelt. I do know of 2 people that were prevented from escaping their car because of their seatbelt, and died. yet every time I get in a car, I put one on.

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

#93

Post by rubyist5eva »

itsme-alan wrote: post #5
rubyist5eva wrote: post #4

Guns are the great equalizer. Women don’t have equal rights until they are equally capable of defending themselves.

Guns are not the way to do anything

Tell that to the criminal with guns breaking into your home and taking all your property.

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

#94

Post by Throwawayaerlei »

blacktriangle wrote: post #81
merpnderp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear about how the rest of the world doesn't need guns I always think of the Mexican avacado farmers who used (highly illegal) guns to protect their farms from cartels because the government can't protect them. Always funny when a European corrects an American that the rest of the world is not America, as it is obviously Paris.

Kinda surprised Parisians weren't busy arming themselves to the teeth after the Bataclan.

Useless unless you also have the right to bear them into potential death traps like a theater.

Very needed when like in Bataclan the authorities take a secure the parameter and wait approach, like for Columbine and the Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida massacres. Or when the closest authorities cower in fear as in the Stoneman high school shooting (that was addressed by police units from further away).

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

#95

Post by Throwawayaerlei »

sharklazer wrote: post #87
ryandvm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to lawfully defend themselves. So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of unlawful or unintentional killings.

1. Most people don’t even understand how a gun mechanically functions. It lives in the realm of magic for most people, despite being mechanically very simple. This base ignorance of the function of a firearm is one of the biggest reasons why firearm-related accidents happen. You might not want a gun, and fine—that’s your stance—but you should know how it works and how to use it. 2. We don’t nuke each other all the ti…

1. Most people don’t even understand how a gun mechanically functions. It lives in the realm of magic for most people, despite being mechanically very simple. This base ignorance of the function of a firearm is one of the biggest reasons why firearm-related accidents happen. You might not want a gun, and fine—that’s your stance—but you should know how it works and how to use it.

Unless you need to clean it and for that you can get help if you're ignorant, you don't need this detailed knowledge. You need to only know how to load and safety clear it, ideally know how to clear a jam, and that if you move any safeties to "Fire" it will fire if you pull the trigger.

As much as people like us are horrified by how little education so many people get about their guns, centuries of ergonomic improvements would seem to allow a tremendous number of them to use them safely and effectively in high stress self-defense situations.

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

#96

Post by sofixa »

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 high availability of guns for everyone. Not all that remarkable is a weird way of putting it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. Protests and revolutions in France have done more to guide government power than anything ever that happened in the US. Blatant corruption, lobbying, outright incompetent representatives, abuses of power, erosion of human rights, blatant disregard for human rights. If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for/against? Mask mandates?

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

#97

Post by laverya »

sharklazer wrote: post #88
nradov wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of firearm use is 100% lawful for target shooting, hunting, and self defense.

Lawful use: 600k-2.5m per year. Gun deaths per year: ~40k. A lot of those being suicide.

600k-2.5m/year is specifically lawful defensive uses. If you count "shot skeet", or "went hunting", or "went to the range", the number of lawful uses goes up a LOT.

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

#98

Post by jboggan »

chmod600 wrote: post #90

I've only known one person to use a gun in self defense. She didn't fire it.

I didn't fire the one time I had to draw in self defense, and neither did my father the one time he needed it, and neither did my mother the one time she needed it.

For context I grew up around Atlanta.

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

#99

Post by Throwawayaerlei »

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…

Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided.

So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul.

not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone

The suicide statistics from some countries with effective total bans on civilian gun ownership do not support your claim for those, and for accidents we're at 500/year out of a population of 330 million people. There were years when more very young kids were accidentally drowning themselves by getting stuck upside down in 5 gallon (19 L) plastic buckets that are are ubiquitous here.

If Americans didn't fight against the Patriot act, wars, torture, what will they fight for? Mask mandates?

Are any of these, the middle ones not directly affecting us, worth starting a civil war that would take hundreds of thousands to millions of lives?

(I might argue yes for the wars, but it's not the sort of thing I suspect has ever happened in human history.)

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

#100

Post by secondaryacct »

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…

If you want to fuck with an american, tie him down financially with a credit card, prevent him to run with a coke and big mac a day, and destroy his cognitive ability with a good old Bible.

Then, tell him his guns make him free, because any sort of social conflict would be solved by violent murder. Shake well, exploit.

Post reply on HN