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> they can always buy a few automatic weapons at any gun store

Actually, you can't, at least not in the US, and that's been true for decades.

Thinking that you can is like thinking that you can buy a race car at the local dealer because you see similar looking cars with the same name on TV.

> Take 2009..let's list all the terrorist attacks in the United States:

The Fort Hood shooting, which killed 13 should be on that list. So much for "all".

As he mentioned above the Federal Government does not consider the Fort Hood shooting a terrorist attack so it was left off the list.

It wasn't. It was a US soldier attacking a US military base. Treason in time of war. Entirely different problem.

> It was a US soldier attacking a US military base. Treason in time of war. Entirely different problem.

His "mole" status doesn't change his cause or tactics.

What war?

I realize your trying to make a statement not a point but even if you don't believe that Iraq is a true war, and certainly even if you don't believe that we should be fighting in Iraq the Military is undoubtedly operating in a "war mode" right now: Troops are fighting overseas and the Military is preparing more troops to be transferred overseas to fight. That's what war operations are about, not declarations by Congress.

"We've always been at war with Eastasia."

> Actually, you can't, at least not in the US, and that's been true for decades.

What about by illegal means? I believe that is relatively easy. Theft? And, also, non-automatic weapons are pretty easy to come by.

Indeed a better way to put it would be that it is easy to obtain an automatic weapon with relatively little planning/effort.

Further plenty of semi-auto guns (ar-15, mini-14 are very popular for this) are easy to convert to full auto.

Garbage; the ATF has made sure that easy conversion is not possible.

Link? Last I checked anyone with reasonable mechanical knowledge and a bit of metal working skill could do it. May not be "caveman easy", but easy enough to someone who can read a simple set of diagrams. This simple set actually: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3853405/AR15-Lightning-Link-Plans

Or, in a pinch, be good with a freaking paperclip.

The ATF's standard is roughly that it treats a gun as a machine gun (legal definition) if it can be made to fire automatically with about the same effort as making an automatic weapon given a barrel.

Since it's fairly easy to make an automatic weapon given a barrel (the metal working isn't that difficult) ....

Yes, there are lots of "plans" circulating, but that doesn't prove that they work. Selling bogus plans is the perfect crime because the buyer can't complain.

FWIW, I've had a standing offer for years to anyone to demonstrate a conversion and have yet to have anyone even try. (I'll pay reasonable costs plus $5k AFTER the demo. Yes, you have to front your expenses - I'm not paying for failures or fraud.)

Sounds like entrapment tho buddy. I've personally seen a few conversions (in a different country, but same principles) so I know they exist and can be done. How do you convince any taker that the fact that they'll essentially be breaking the law to win your 5k won't land them in jail before they can even collect?

> Sounds like entrapment tho buddy

Since I'm not a LEO, it can't be entrapment.

> I've personally seen a few conversions (in a different country, but same principles) so I know they exist and can be done.

I've no doubt that readily convertible guns exist. My point is that they're (and the relevant parts) are regulated as machine guns in the US.

The "principle" is that the receiver doesn't accept the parts or the parts, and possibly the receiver, are regulated as machine guns. For example, M-16 parts don't fit the semi-auto AR-15 receiver.

I have no idea how such guns and parts are regulated in other countries, but wouldn't be surprised if the laws were different elsewhere.

After all, some other countries treat silencers as good manners they're strictly controlled in the US. (Yes, I know about the plastic bottle trick. It's hard to ban duct tape and a plastic bottle, but it is a single shot device.)

Try e.g. http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-301570.html, go down to the first comment with this time stamp: September 9, 2007, 02:52 PM

Follow up WRT to the MAC-10, as that's the most prominent case where the ATF shut down production of open bolt versions for the "civilian" market (civilians can buy machine guns if made before 1986, there are about 100,000 of them in legal circulation).

Just use a rubber band and bump fire it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkF2wish5I8

That's just for legal purposes, not something you'd depend on for a terrorist attack.

For the purpose of shooting up your local mall, the difference between a fully-automatic and semi-automatic AR-15 is not that great (it's not like you're going to be laying down suppressing fire), and you certainly can buy the latter without any real difficulty.

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." -- The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times)

I guess I don't understand how that quote relates back to what I said. Are you saying that terrorists should be prepared to lay down suppressing fire, and thus shouldn't settle for the semi-auto weapons they can easily purchase at most fine sporting goods stores?

lol: No I was just thinking of someone trying to '[shoot] up [my] local mall' and as a licensed concealed carrier I remembered what the Dalai Lama said.

Sorry.

"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." -- Walter Mondale

I wonder about the tragedy that can be caused with easy access to deadly force. If/When the proverbial shit hits the fan, if many people around you have guns, a single irrational one could cause a firestorm that kills you in the crossfire.

If everyone isn't walking around with guns and a fight breaks out, you can run away. But you can't outrun bullets.

This is why I am concerned about open carry laws or even concealed gun laws.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." — Jefferson

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." — Charles A. Beard

Why these quotes? Is anything Thomas Jefferson, Walter Mondale, or the Dalai Lama said automatically true?

"[A]rguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do.

There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism." -- An Authority [1]

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Because they were famous and their quotes were pithy.

My question is, how come nobody ever gets shot in Japan? Guns are banned, there are criminals, but most murders are stabbings (or arson, etc.) If you listen to Jefferson, Japan would be a haven for dangerous gun-toting criminals shooting up anything and everything just to get some pocket change. But that is apparently not the case.

I would argue that their culture is significantly different to that of the USA.

For starters, there was never a lot of guns in the hands of civilians in Japan so it shouldn't be that hard to keep them banned.

It's also risky to bring guns illegally into the country; to take that kind of risky one would probably have to be into other illegal, profitable stuff like drug trade. But there isn't a lot of drug trade in Japan (compared to US).

Anyway, I think it's very hard to use Japan on one hand, or Switzerland and Israel on the other, to argue about gun laws in US.

Shootings in Japan [1]

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[1] http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Shootings+in+Japan

And the first result says, "The number of shootings in Japan fell to a record low of 53 in 2006." From the wikipedia page "Gun Violence in the United States", "In 2005 [there were] 10,100 homicides committed using firearms".

The US is bigger than Japan, but not 190x bigger. So if you are trying to disprove my argument, you did a bad job.

Wow compare that to Chicago alone which had 382[1] firearm homicides in 2006.

[1] 467 Homicides [2] * 81.8% involved firearms [3]

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago

[3] http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2...

Yeah, and Chicago has really strict gun control laws.

The point was that a gun ban does not equal no guns. Also you need to understand that the demographics vary widely.

Obviously, but 190x less gun violence is a very large difference in the right direction. With 53 in a year across a country that populous, it's fair to say noone.

Japan has less crime period. Now, before you start saying that that's because of strict gun control, know that they have less knife crime, less fraud, less divorce (though it has dbl since 1990), you get the point. There is no ban on knifes in Japan and yet there are far less crimes commited with them. Your correlation is not causation.

Japan has a completely different demographic and social makeup. Shame plays a huge part of their culture. Traditional family values were the norm until recently.

I would argue that your thinking that gun control is the cause of low crime in Japan as misguided.

    "Shootings [in Japan] rose to 66 compared with a record low of 53 in 2006, the National Police Agency said in a report. The figure was up for the first time since 2001. [...] The number of those who died from shootings rose to 22 from 2 in 2006, the report said. Those wounded numbered 18.

    Gun-related crime had been rare in a country with strict gun control laws, but last year's string of shootings shocked the public and prompted the government to further strengthen its firearms law." [1]

Make a wager; will stricter gun laws help? Have strict laws banning drugs helped? (Heck, how did prohibition go?)

You say that Japan has less crime overall because of gun control; I say it’s a culture / demographic thing. Maybe we are both wrong. I think it is the traditional values of Japan, and I am not alone in supposing this.

    “But [Ichita Yamamoto] also fears the increase in gun violence could be a symptom of something more worrying.

    ‘There are few people who do this kind of thing in Japanese society,’ he says.

    ‘There is no culture in Japan that we shoot other people.’

    What concerns him though is that perhaps Japanese society is changing.

    ‘Japanese traditional values have changed, the concept of family is changing, relations between people are changing,’ he says.

    ‘A lot of people feel lonely or isolated, so this kind of incident could be something to do with changes of this kind.’

    Shootings do, as the gun-owners complain, get blanket coverage in the media.

    But while newspaper columnists and pundits are good at wringing their hands about the fact that gun crime is increasing, they are not so successful when it comes to agreeing what it reveals about the state of Japanese society.

    And more importantly, perhaps, they cannot agree on what to do about it.” [2]

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[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST252568

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7257072.stm

Yeah, very possible that culture is a big part of it. I would attribute a lot of it to that, along with the homogeneity of the population, which probably reduces the race-related tension which is so prevalent in the US.

I was mainly saying that your argument that the great-grandparent of this was using noone incorrectly was wrong. 53 in a country that large is a rounding error, as is the rise from 53 to 66 which you just stated. Statistical noise.

You can't really compare it with prohibition or the ban on Marijuana, either. Culturally, that seems like a much more ridiculous law than gun bans do - drugs and alcohol affect ones self, and people generally feel that they have a right to choose what they do to themselves. Bans on things that are addictive? Of course those will be broken. It's not a very good comparison.

I think you and I have different definitions of real difficulty. It's expensive, time consuming and you have to go through a background check. Yes, its possible, but definitely difficult.

It depends on the state and the kind of gun you're buying. Purchasing a shotgun in Oklahoma, for instance, just requires a trip to Wal-Mart and $200 or so.

We were talking about silencers and automatic weapons, not shotguns.

For the purpose of shooting up your local mall, the difference between a semi-automatic AR-15 and a bolt-action hunting rifle is not that great, either. You'd get fewer bullets off but each individual impact would be worse (.30 caliber over .223) and if you aimed, and actually knew how to shoot, you'd probably do alright.

you don't need full automatic weapons...you can just buy a regular gun like an AR15 and kill just as many people.

the fort hood incident isn't on the list of 2009 attacks. Here is the wiki discussion about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_terrorist_incident...

He doesn't argue that small attacks don't instill terror -- it doesn't serve the dual purposes of "inspiring" allies and donors while instilling fear in the target city/nation. Also, you must recall that you actually need people to blow up the bus, train, etc -- which is difficult to get in the US at least and they have to be able to continually do it.

I agree that terrorism is often over-hyped by the media, but that doesn't mean the threat is something to be ignored. The 4 pathetic attacks you bring up do show the current state of impotence, however we have to be vigilant. The opinions presented by many today would be quite different had Time Square been painted with blood.

A successful string of smaller terror attacks would absolutely inspire fear and impress donors. The trick is that it would have to be a string. And carrying out many small strikes is a huge practical challenge as an "other" operating in a foreign country.

After, say, the third pipe bomb in a middle-American mall/starbucks/bar, every single American in public would be watching anyone vaguely different-looking at all times. So the campaign is far, far more likely to be snuffed out before it got far enough underway to be considered a 'success' to allies and donors.

So I wouldn't expect to see anything like that from Al Qaeda unless/until they figure out how to deliver their device via a mechanism that: 1. isn't immediately obvious as a terror device 2. doesn't expose the 'secret' of the method after the first few attacks.

e.g. Malvo's run was only as long as it was because no-one was looking for a sniper firing from a vehicle and there was no evidence left with the victim indicating the camouflage.

I just plain disagree that it would impress donors. Much like how simple things like bed nets or drinking water wells don't seem to get press or inspire donors for aid to Africa -- despite their proven impact -- many dollars flow towards sexier causes like AIDS.

An attack method doesn't have to be super secret. It could be something as simple as pipe bombs in a backpack if they want to nickel and dime us to terror.

Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States

Counter argument to that is that it is because of the billions in spending that actual terrorism is such a rare occurance.

You may be playing "devil's advocate" here (and I thought of the same thing), but what about the complete lack of terrorist activity BEFORE 9/11 when we presumably weren't spending as much money?

What about the earlier bombing of the WTC?

If you go beyond the CONUS, the string of al-Qaeda successes around the world prior to 9/11 convinced Osama bin Laden and company that the US was a "weak horse" ... and boy were they surprised by our ferocious response to 9/11.

If we'd not made such a vigorous response at all levels, don't you think al-Qaeda's successes would have encouraged even more attempts?

This weak horse argument is completely specious as International Relations professor Stephen Walt explains: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/22/horse_feather...

It's not when I'm limiting my use of the phase to al-Qaeda, where they indeed used that argument ... and found out that they were fantastically wrong.

Well, at least about the US being a weak horse.

As for the general proposition, at the highest level, do you think weakness encourages or discourages attack?

It's not when I'm limiting my use of the phase to al-Qaeda, where they indeed used that argument ... and found out that they were fantastically wrong

AQ seems to have calculated pretty well actually. What you're missing is that the US acted precisely as AQ wanted them to act. They wanted the US to go nuts and overreact which would cause them to overreach, and that's exactly what we did. We wasted trillions of dollars on a pointless war in Iraq. Our pointless war killed a million people and turned another 3-4 million into refugees. That screamed to the world that the US is an irrational self-absorbed state that kills lots of people without caring. That has repercussions for our ability to get intelligence in the future.

In the process, we also convinced the entire world that we were much weaker than they ever thought. Think about it: the world's most powerful military was completely sandbagged by the remnants of a third rate army in an impoverished state for years. All our fancy technology? Most of it worthless. US soldiers getting killed one and two at a time every day for years. Our impotence made manifest.

We gave AQ exactly what they wanted. Many people in the Islamic world used to think that AQ was a joke before 9/11; we made them into our nemesis and thus elevated them to our level. Rather than saying "these are a bunch of criminals and we'll bring them to justice, just like any other criminal gang that kills innocent people," we convinced the world that there was a global movement which AQ represented and that we were going to destroy it. And then we failed at just about everything.

As for the general proposition, at the highest level, do you think weakness encourages or discourages attack?

I think anyone asking the question needs to go read some IR theory and history. Look, organizations make decisions based on their capabilities and their own internal dynamics. Was the US strong or weak in 2000? It depends. There is no objective answer because the question is ill-posed. So anyone can justify any answer. People in AQ who wanted to act convinced themselves that the US was weak. If the facts had been otherwise, they would have twisted those facts into justifying attack as well.

What you're talking about here is signaling theory and you really should read about it. Historically, governments have been convinced that by taking various actions, they were "signaling" or "sending messages to" their opponents. But years later when historians looked through the opponents' archives they discovered that those opponents never got the message. Or that they interpreted the message in ways that suited their own internal biases. Showing resolve and demonstrating strength sound good to people but are fundamentally misguided actions.

I have read about it, WRT to the Vietnam war, where Team LBJ's precisely calculated signals and finely tuned bombing did indeed not send the message intended to North Vietnam ... but perhaps it did signal something true.

And I of course disagree with your analysis of our post 9/11 response and how it was taken, and note your complete failure to address our invasion of Afghanistan and decimation of al-Qaeda in that region. That most certainly sent a strong and unambiguous "signal":

Kill "too many" Americans and we will break things and kill people, starting with you and your country. That worked too for Nixon and North Vietnam.

The fact that we got "sandbagged" in Iraq was certainly bad ... but you can't cite it in isolation with the fact that we then stuck to it until we got it right. Capturing and hanging Sadam also sent a major signal.

but perhaps it did signal something true.

You're missing the point. Opponents will reinterpret signals according to their own biases. Since signals are ambiguous, that is easy to do. Consider this example. Let's say the US leaves Iraq tomorrow. AQ will get on the media boasting about how AQ forced the US out and how their departure is a sign of AQ's power and American weakness. Now consider that the US stays in Iraq for another decade. Then AQ will start boasting about its long term strategic brilliance in forcing this idiot superpower to waste trillions of dollars getting bogged down accomplishing nothing and this thus proves AQ's power and American weakness. It doesn't matter what you signal, other actors will interpret according to their biases, not yours.

And I of course disagree with your analysis of our post 9/11 response and how it was taken, and note your complete failure to address our invasion of Afghanistan and decimation of al-Qaeda in that region. That most certainly sent a strong and unambiguous "signal"

Look, not everything boils down to signaling. Killing AQ leaders accomplishes something in and of itself; it is valuable for changing reality and not for signaling. If you wish to justify such actions, you can do so without discussing the signaling at all.

In any event, AQ is still very much in business. And our strategic position in Afghanistan is incredibly weak. We have utterly failed to vanquish the Taliban. All we've been able to do is pump up an astonishingly venal and corrupt government that most Afghans hate. For the most powerful military in the world, we've certainly failed spectacularly.

Kill "too many" Americans and we will break things and kill people, starting with you and your country. That worked too for Nixon and North Vietnam.

Afghanistan is not Osama Bin Ladin's country. Saudi Arabia is. Afghanistan does not provide the funding or the networks that AQ relies upon. So, yeah, we killed a lot of people in a country where most people had no interest in attacking the US and in so doing we failed to eliminate AQ. Brilliant.

The fact that we got "sandbagged" in Iraq was certainly bad ... but you can't cite it in isolation with the fact that we then stuck to it until we got it right.

Our war killed a million people. They're not coming back from the dead.

And we didn't get much right. Our strategy involved paying off our enemies with money, weapons, and power. If we had given the German army tanks and cash during World War II and promised to stop fighting, things might have gone better, but I wouldn't call the result victory. And the plan never would have worked if our allies hadn't finished ethnic cleaning their opponents right around the same time. In general, plans that require ethnic cleansing for success are...bad.

* Capturing and hanging Sadam also sent a major signal.*

And what would that be exactly? That the US will start wars that waste trillions of dollars, kill a million people, create 4 million refugees in countries that didn't attack the US in order to...what? I think this proves that the US behaves irrationally. Trillions of dollars matter. One million dead people matter.

No. The vigorous response is the best recruiting tool they could possibly get.

There was terrorist activity before 9/11. Think OK boming, the first WTC bombing, abortion clinic attacks.

You are correct. I should have been clearer. Has there been a marked reduction in (US) terrorist-type activity after 9/11? It doesn't seem that's the case.

I'm not sure we can make a useful judgment here. After that stunning success (in the eyes of terrorists), you'd expect more people to try.

Also, you should normalize against the general level of world wide terrorism of this nature, e.g. start with early post-9/11 examples like Bali and Madrid, each of which killed about 200 people.

Considering the extremely small numbers both before and after I doubt you could find any statistically significant trend either way.

counter argument to that would be, if actual terrorism was being stopped, we'd hear all about it on the news. Terrorism is such a hot topic, that anything related to it, gets non-stop coverage for a week.

Intelligence agencies don't report on their successes. So how would we know how much terrorism is being stopped by intelligence?

Counter argument to this would be that we (US) try to avoid broadcasting when we catch people involved in relatively clandestine networks so we can try to continue doing so.

I just wanted to note that Israel is a state which dealt with constant terror issues in the 1990's/early 2000's. There were times where a week hadn't even gone by between terrorist attacks (blowing up cars, buses, night clubs, shopping centers, etc...). Source:

"Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (Sept 1993)" - http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Pales...

I'm by no means an expert with Israel. But they're an excellent example of a society dealing with constant terrorist attacks, and surviving as a nation.

Can anyone on HN shed any light on how this affected Israeli society? Ideally before, during, and after terrorism? If possible, could you compare it to how the U.S. deals with terrorism today? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?

In July/August 2001 (before the 9/11 attacks) I visited some friends in Israel for a vacation. I was pretty broke so I didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing, but we toured around Jerusalem for a bit, visited the old city, and went to the Dead Sea. Very relaxing trip.

Israel has a very practical and realistic approach to terrorism, at least in my mind, because it's dealing with an entirely different type of terrorism than the US is; for that matter, the UK's issues with the IRA are more similar than the US's.

Everywhere we went, we had bag checks. They were always quick and painless, and everyone just took them for granted. At the entrance to a large store or mall would be a security guard; you'd show them the inside of your bag, and off you went. Likewise, there were soldiers hanging around in various spots; just like you'd see girls in skirts or guys in shorts, you'd see both in uniform, holding assault rifles. Most of the time they looked bored, and I'm sure they were. It wasn't like every street corner had a special ops team on it, but I saw them enough to get used to seeing them around.

Most telling, I think, is Israel's approach to airport security. There was a fascinating article in the Toronto Star about security at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, vs. Toronto's Pearson International airport, detailing why Israel has had no major terrorist attacks originating in its airports, which I strongly suggest anyone interested in anti-terrorism or airport security read through: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744426

Thanks for sharing that. :)

> Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it

Yes, but think about the money that is being made by keeping the hype alive.

Did you neglect the November 5, 2009 shooting at Ft. Hood that killed 13 people out of convenience to support your point or because you don't consider it a terrorist attack?

Even so, there's something insincere in a post that would mention a starbucks bench bomb, but not an incident that was perpetrated by a terrorist sympathizer that killed or wounded over 40 people.

posted about this below, wikipedia does not consider Ft. Hood event a terrorist attack, since the government isn't calling it one.

You don't even have to kill anybody. Or have any gun or bomb for that matter. Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Qo-EwVJQM and http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/05/dozens_injured...

Just a guy shouting in a crowd and everybody scared like hell

I think the DC sniper is a bad example. Once they were caught, people stopped running around in zig zags, and only people in DC were worried at all. If a small terrorist attack needs to be running at all times, or at least once a week, then the terrorists will quickly run out of people. I don't think they're that effective.

not really the DC snipers were idiots.

1. they set a pattern where they were killing a person a day + they were using the same car.

2. he constantly taunted the police, made calls, left them notes, left them cards. Shouldn't be that hard to use forensics to find out who it was.

3. he was actually connected to one of the victims. a truly random no-connections sniper would have been much harder to catch.

And yes people stopped running after he was caught...but that's because they knew the guy was caught. If it's a "terrorist organization", getting a few terrorists wouldn't solve anything, since you'd never know if there were more lurking waiting a few days till the next killing.

You know how serial killers usually follow a set pattern, and that's considered evidence--so if they arrest someone and another killing occurs according to that pattern they assume they didn't catch the guy? I wonder if you can get a hit man on retainer to randomly pull off a "signature killing" in case you get arrested.

More to the point, a terrorist cell should totally be able to cover for a single sniper or sniper team[1] that got caught. Imagine if they caught Malvo and Muhammed and all of a sudden someone else at a DC gas station got shot? Now instead of a couple nuts you have a shadowy and mysterious terrorist organization and as soon as you catch one another one pops up and shoots people in the face.

[1] Interesting fact: even in the military, snipers don't work alone usually. They typically work in teams of two. Also, they don't necessarily shoot people anymore, they might just observe or call in airstrikes. The term is "scout-sniper".

Yeah, that's a good point. I guess I forgot how dumb they were.