Hacker News Reader

Comment by GiorgioG | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?)

In most states it’s illegal to carry a gun and drink, etc. Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here?

Maybe your European friend forgot what happened in Paris a couple of years ago in a country with strict gun control laws. Gun control laws provide a false sense of security. Since you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no gun control laws will achieve “gun safety” that people seek.

View on HN

> Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here?

You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire. There's a reason why muggers in Paris or Tokyo don't shoot people, and the reason is not because they are nice muggers.

And "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" is kind of the opposite of "gun control laws are slippery slope toward total dictatorship" (which a lot of people seem to believe). You cannot claim both at the same time.

You cannot possibly believe that you can confiscate all the guns in the US. So what magic wand do you have to make them disappear?

>You cannot possibly believe that you can confiscate all the guns in the US.

You don't need to confiscate all guns to practically eliminate gun crime. The UK didn't, we just adopted a harm reduction model, gradually controlling and then removing those weapons with the greatest risk for harm and the least legitimate use - handguns and semi-automatic centrefire rifles. It took decades, but it worked.

Start with a serious federal licensing and registration system. Establish a national database with comprehensive ownership records, including private transfers; require firearm manufacturers to submit forensic samples of bullets and casings for all new firearms. Mandate firing pin microstamping. Fix the known shortcomings of the background check system. Close the gun show loophole. Instate the five-day waiting period originally proposed in the Brady Act. Require secure storage of all firearms in an approved gunsafe. Introduce mandatory safety training. Impose considerably harsher punishments for reckless or dangerous use of a licensed firearm.

Once you've got all that in place, then you can start talking about buybacks, amnesties and outright bans, starting with Title II firearms. Mandate a legitimate sporting or professional justification for the purchase or transfer of any firearm. Ban large-capacity magazines, then centerfire handguns, then semi-automatic rimfire handguns, then semi-automatic rifles.

After 30 or 40 years of incremental progress, you end up with a society that has a negligible number of handguns and semi-automatic rifles, while still maintaining the rights of sportsmen and farmers to own shotguns and bolt-action rifles in a properly controlled manner.

You can do it, if you can muster a serious and well-funded opposition to the NRA.

> Start with a serious federal licensing and registration system.

Good luck getting that kind of law passed anywhere outside of NY/CA. Registration = Confiscation is a strongly held belief. See how many New Yorkers registered their AR-15 when the NY SAFE Act was passed in the middle of the night.

> Close the gun show loophole.

There is no loophole. Federally-licensed gun dealers must run background checks no matter where they sell their wares. Private transfers do not require background checks.

> After 30 or 40 years of incremental progress

What you call "progress," I call a city-slicker's fantasy paradise. I grew up in a nanny state (NY) and moved south in my mid-30s. It's refreshing to live in a place where guns are seen as tools and not as evil monsters that charge out of their locked cases and mow down innocent children all on their own without a human pulling the trigger.

The sitting president (regardless of what you or I think of him) was elected on a base that believes in a different idea of progress. I voted for him stricktly because I believed he'd be largely ineffective and that he wouldn't shit all over my gun rights.

>What you call "progress," I call a city-slicker's fantasy paradise.

Not so long ago, you could have said the same thing about seatbelts or drink-driving or Jim Crow.

There's a clear case to be made that guns should be at least as well regulated as cars. There isn't a national movement arguing that you should be able to drive with no license, no insurance and no tags. In most states, you need a license to cut hair. This is not an unwinnable battle, it's just a battle that nobody is putting enough resources into winning. Liberals may be outraged and dismayed at the rate of gun violence, but they're not taking action.

> There's a clear case to be made that guns should be at least as well regulated as cars.

So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because based on what you've posted, that you're not familiar with gun regulation in the U.S because you're from the U.K.

Guns are heavily regulated. You can't walk into a corner store and pick up a handgun. No were never going to allow registration or licensing as a barrier to acquire firearms. That doesn't mean there are no laws in place to prevent unlawful gun possession.

Criminals don't care about laws, it's a fundamental issue that gun control proponents continue to ignore. More gun control only makes life unnecessarily more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their rights.

>So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because based on what you've posted, that you're not familiar with gun regulation in the U.S because you're from the U.K.

I am well acquainted with US gun laws.

Do you need to apply for a license in advance of buying a gun in a majority of states? No. Do you have to take a test and prove that you are competent before you can own a gun in a majority of states? No. Is there a national registry of all guns with mandatory reporting of all transfers? No. Is there a requirement for third-party liability insurance? No. Is there a federal agency responsible for researching and reducing firearms fatalities? No.

In a majority of states, you can walk into a gun store, show your driving license, wait for the NICS background check and walk out with a gun within a matter of minutes. In a majority of states, you can buy a gun from a private seller with no background check.

Guns are far, far less well-regulated than cars.

> Criminals don't care about laws, it's a fundamental issue that gun control proponents continue to ignore.

The police care about laws, because they can enforce them. Criminals care about laws, because they can be arrested and prosecuted for breaking them.

Firing pin microstamping and pre-sale collection of striation data makes it far harder to commit a crime with a gun and get away with it. Mandatory safe storage makes it far harder for criminals to steal guns and far less likely for children to access them. Improved background checks reduce the availability of guns to known criminals and people with serious mental health problems. Mandatory registration reduces the supply of guns to the black market by creating a paper trail from factory to crime scene.

If you treat gun crime like a public health issue, you can use evidence-based interventions to mitigate risk. Seatbelt laws save lives. Drink-driving laws save lives. Mandatory driver training saves lives. Speed limits save lives. Exactly the same principles apply to gun control. Practically every other developed nation on earth has taken this approach, with great success.

Let's agree to disagree. Clearly you enjoy living in a nanny state and think that's the only way to feel safe.

I've evaluated the risks and feel that my family's safety is my responsibility. When seconds count the police is only minutes away - oh and they have no legal obligation to protect you in the USA.

> ”Let's agree to disagree. Clearly you enjoy living in a nanny state and think that's the only way to feel safe.”

Regardless of how wrong you might think someone is, please don’t follow up “agree to disagree” with an insult. Even if you don’t think your parent deserves better, the HN community as a whole does.

It's not an insult, it's stating his/her preference to live in a place where the government is very involved in the lives of its citizens.

> This is not an unwinnable battle, it's just a battle that nobody is putting enough resources into winning.

Consider the fact that a majority of Americans believe in the right to gun ownership.

So, incidents like the Vegas massacre; is there any response to this kind of thing at all you'd accept, or is it just not a problem that 58 people got killed and hundreds wounded?

> So, incidents like the Vegas massacre; is there any response to this kind of thing at all you'd accept, or is it just not a problem that 58 people got killed and hundreds wounded?

A good response would be to react to overall death statistics and not emotional one-time events. I'm quite confident that across the US, cars have killed more people over the Vegas news cycle.

I understand and empathize with the desire to do something to prevent incidents like this. The issue with the anti-gun movement is that it focuses on the tool and not the human. We have a serious mental health problem in this country. Far too many young men are angry (depressed?) and in need of help but seeking mental help is seen as not a manly thing to do.

Yes we should do something, but gun control laws (at least those in this country that we are ALL willing to tolerate) will not yield the outcome you desire.

I realize most of you won’t do this, but go take a firearms class and learn to shoot. It’s a skill worth learning. As a reader of this forum you are likely to enjoy tinkering and building useful, mechanical things. By far the funnest thing I’ve done is build an AR-15 (gasp! Those things are evil!) from parts. Despite the media’s demonization of this non-military non-assault weapon, the AR-15 is a standardized component platform very much like the PC or LEGOs. That isn’t to imply that it’s easy to build one (lots of swearing involved in getting trigger springs and pins lined up in the small spaces, etc.)

We all want to reduce gun violence, but as history in the US has proven, stricter gun control is not the most effective answer IMO.

I'm a Brit who was taught to shoot at school (http://whitgift-ccf.co.uk/about.html), so I have a rather different perspective on this. I wouldn't describe it as fear or unfamiliarity, just a belief about risks and benefits. (One of those life experiences that seems weirder and weirder in retrospect; imagine Hogwarts with SA80s. The ammunition was tightly supervised, but unloaded weapons less so)

I'm not sure you could untangle the "mental health" aspect of mass shootings from the politics of it. Some of it is "extroverted suicide" but a lot looks to me like people have been radicalised.

I don't put communal values above my own family's safety, and probably a good ten million others in the US who would agree

basically a full scale gun grab would result in Civil War 2, the harm far outweighing the benefit

you can't jail us all

>I don't put communal values above my own family's safety

Having a firearm in the home makes your family less safe. The potential benefits of protection from violent crime are vastly outweighed by the risks of accidents, suicide and domestic homicide. You might believe otherwise, you might believe that you're different, but the data doesn't lie. The gun that poses the greatest threat to your life is the one you own.

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858

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

There are many instances where guns saving lives never make it into reports/statistics.

Here are a few that do:

https://bearingarms.com/category/guns-saving-lives/

Imagine this: What if you were told you were no longer allowed to drive or even ride in a car, because the chance of dying in a car accident (in your own car even!) was too great? Wouldn't you say it's up to you to balance the level of risk you're willing to take to engage in the freedom of expeditious travel?

but why stop there, your own home would be statistically safer without a motor vehicle, alcohol or knives. and wow I hope you aren't in possession of perscription drugs, haven't you heard we are suffering an opioid epidemic?

isn't it time you thought of the children?

and as it stands I also believe one should have the right to take one's own life, so I completely discount scare tactics predicated on suicide stats

I'm litearally rolling on the floor laughing at this naivete. Shit, I grew up in the woods where the semi-auto Remington 742 woodsmaster or the 1100 shotgun wasn't any different than the Ace hardware hoe or the Rotenone or Sevin bug dust; we used both to keep the pests out of the garden that fed us.

I've bought one firearm, out of a dozen, from a licensed store. Almost all are private, individual to individual sales or inherited.

Why do malls have security cameras when they cannot catch all thieves? Why have a border control when you cannot catch everyone crossing it?

If America gets rid of one million guns, that's one million less guns criminals can illegally obtain. This is not an all-or-nothing game. I'm sure even Japan has a few illegal guns hidden somewhere.

Your comments belie a pretty strong ignorance of American gun culture. This isn't a numbers game; there is a large portion of the population that would not comply with a confiscation program, and would resist using (you guessed it) firearms. Many of the strongest supporters of the second amendment are in the military and police. It boggles my mind that the same people who denounce involving our military in middle eastern quagmires, would propose igniting such a civil war domestically.

This is a numbers game, and a long-term game. I'm sure there are Americans who would rather shoot a police officer than give up their guns, but I believe their numbers are dwindling. Societies change. After all, gay marriage or a black president was unthinkable only a few decades ago.

Personally, I kinda see the point of having guns if you live in the middle of nowhere eighty miles from the nearest police station. So I'd say, let them keep their guns. No reason to give them more political ammunition.

For the majority of Americans (by population, not area), guns make much less sense. If American cities are infested with shootings, it's not because gun control doesn't work. It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.

It has proven be a tough battle for Americans to coerce the government into action. But, hey, nobody said fighting your government would be easy, did they?

> If American cities are infested with shootings, it's not because gun control doesn't work. It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.

Yes you're so right. I mean Chicago is literally a war zone and has some of the strictest gun control laws in the land. Clearly this is the NRA's fault.

What bugs me is that this kind of thinking comes from watching/reading CNN, NYT, WaPo push the anti-gun agenda and people just gobbling it up with no actual experience with gun handling/ownership. In general the state of the news media in this country has reached a new low. I try to watch all the news channels to get a broad set of opinions on things in general. What I get instead is, either the president is brilliant, or the president needs to be institutionalized. Or that guns should be banned outright, or that kids should be taught to shoot before their 1st birthday. There's absolutely no objectivity these days. Maybe it's always been that way but it sure didn't feel like that 25 years ago.

It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.

If you mean "bought out" in terms of actually bringing voters to the polls over this issue you'd be right.

Like it or not, people against gun control are more likely to vote on that issue in the US than people for gun control.

The NRA has over 11 million paying members. That's almost 3% of the US population, probably over 10% if you just count adults. That's a powerful voting block.

> Like it or not, people against gun control are more likely to vote on that issue in the US than people for gun control.

This is why I voted for Trump. Hillary was guaranteed to shit all over my gun rights. Trump is proving me right - he's been largely ineffective and despite all the bellyaching, isn't really doing much harm (oh boy, I know I'm going to set off a shitstorm now.) But net-neutrality! But LGBT rights! If you look at what he's said and the practical effect of what he's done...it's basically a no-op.

Lazy downvoters who can't be bothered to explain the downvote - nice

> I'm sure there are Americans who would rather shoot a police officer than give up their guns, but I believe their numbers are dwindling.

You're wrong.

Furthermore, communities across the US are becoming more locally homogenous. It's not going to be a person here or there you'd have to deal with, it would be entire communities.

we aren't interested in hearing who you think "deserves" a gun, it is a RIGHT

How’s that working out for cities that have ineffective (but hey they feel good ‘cause we gotta do something!) gun buyback programs like Chicago (with super-strict gun control laws to boot)?

Stop being lazy and post some logical reasons for the downvotes

You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire.

You realize that in the case of one of the Paris attacks, the weapons were legally acquired, right? Guns aren't 100% banned in France. In fact, the French police decided to confiscate legal weapons from over 100 individuals with terrorist ties.(1)

(1)https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-07-06/france...

Actually the guns used in the 2015 Paris attacks were acquired from neighboring countries thanks to the border-control-free EU.

In the UK, handguns are so difficult to get hold of that organised criminals often resort to using modified flare guns or antique duelling pistols. Suffice it so say that these are not particularly deadly or reliable weapons.

There are about 50 firearm murders per year in the UK. We haven't had a single mass shooting incident since 2010. When taken seriously, gun control works.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/after-shooting-t...

The U.K. never had a serious firearms problem, at least not on the scale the US does.

I think there are a lot more factors at play then gun control.

For example, single shot rifles and shotguns are legal in the UK. Yet rarely used. Why is that?

I think one of the problems here is how the issue is framed to begin with. Do we have a serious firearms problem or do we have a suicide problem? Two of my cousins have committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound (one was an extremely successful doctor and the other an auto-factory worker.) Two-thirds of gun deaths in the US are from suicide. Bet you most of you gun-fearing folks didn't know that.

"In terms of race and ethnicity, Kaplan said that 77 percent of white gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides, while less than 1 in 5 (19 percent) is a homicide. The figures are nearly opposite for African Americans, for which only 14 percent are suicides."

http://luskin.ucla.edu/connection-poverty-inequality-firearm...

Instead of a firearms problem, maybe we have a suicide (mental health?) problem and a poverty/inequality problem. Or maybe we have a media problem - neither the left, nor the right's propaganda machines seem interested in the real issues.

Suicide attempts are predominantly impulsive acts that are rarely repeated, so controlling the means of suicide is an essential component in suicide prevention. Most people who attempt suicide go from intent to action within a matter of hours, with no significant forward planning.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032714...

Women are far more likely to attempt suicide, but men are far more likely to die by suicide. This disparity is explained predominantly by the choice of means - women tend to choose less effective means like poisoning and wrist-cutting, whereas men tend to choose more effective means like hanging and shooting.

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

Here in the UK, acetaminophen poisoning is one of the primary means of suicide. We restricted the sale of acetaminophen to a maximum of 32 tablets in pharmacies and 16 tablets in general retailers. This led to a 43% reduction in deaths due to acetaminophen poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts due to other means.

http://www.bmj.com/CONTENT/346/BMJ.F403

If you're serious about suicide prevention then gun control is a vital part of the response, alongside other measures to restrict access to means of suicide and improve access to crisis care.

I have a bottle of 500 acetaminophen tablets in our medicine cabinet, no women or children have been harmed in this household by gun or Tylenol. Personal responsibility is still a thing in some parts of the world.

>For example, single shot rifles and shotguns are legal in the UK. Yet rarely used. Why is that?

They're extremely well regulated. Many thousands of British people enjoy hunting and target shooting, but they do so under strict supervision. If you want to own a rifle or shotgun, you need to apply for a license. To receive a license, you need a clean criminal record, a clean bill of mental health and evidence that you have a legitimate sporting or agricultural use. In the case of a sporting application, you'll need to be a member in good standing of a recognised shooting club; if you're a target or clay pigeon shooter, the presumption is that you'll store your firearms on club premises unless you have a legitimate reason to keep your firearms at home.

Any purchase of a firearm has to be approved in advance by the police. Your license permits you to hold a specified quantity of ammunition; you can be asked to account for how your ammunition was used and investigated if you purchase quantities of ammunition that appear to exceed your normal use. Your firearms must be kept in a locked container when not in use, whether in storage or in transit. The police have the right to enter your home at any time to inspect your firearms.

Any breach of your license is an extremely serious offence that will almost always lead to revocation of your license and can lead to a custodial sentence.

Yes, and this level of licensing isn't uncommon in some US states (MA, IL come to mind) though one could argue not to the same level of strictness.

I guess my point is there are still a significant number of guns in the U.K. (it's not fun-free), yet gun crimes are exceedingly rare. Why is that?

I would argue it's more than just what the laws are.

> If you want to own a rifle or shotgun, you need to apply for a license. To receive a license, you need a clean criminal record, a clean bill of mental health and evidence that you have a legitimate sporting or agricultural use.

In the U.S., we don’t need government approval, yes we need a background check if acquiring the firearm through retail. But if I choose to hand my firearms down to my kids, the government has no business being involved. But what if your child is a known felon?! Well, that’s covered too - it’s illegal to transfer guns to people who are not legally allowed to possess them.

People who really don’t like it here are under no obligation to stay, though I will say you can find like-minded people in “progressive” states - so you can have your false sense of security and stay in the US too.

The only people I know who have rifles or shotguns either work in rural areas or are into wildfowling, or if wealthier, into grouse shooting or deer stalking. These are fairly common in some parts of the country (e.g. Scotland where I am - where large parts of the country are dedicated to shooting one kind of beastie or another) but they are still minority interests.

Most people here just aren't interested in guns.

Ironically, in some areas here in the UK it is common for kids to be taught to shoot at school!

"It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?)"

And a gun. A gun is really an important part of this, and the bit that we can have some control over, and a gun is the thing that makes this situation different in the US rather than UK or Australia.

It isn't like we are going to get rid of drinking locations. If they weren't happening in public, they'd happen at people's houses. Same with alcohol - we've tried it. I won't speculate on possible drugs since we aren't quite sure about that bit, but it is unlikely we'll get rid of these things either.

Without the gun, the weapons likely wouldn't have been so deadly especially if the person doesn't have proper training and control. Most likely, the weapons would be things like knives or broken bottles. Not saying they aren't deadly, just that they take a bit more work and might have more chance to live.

Now I'll assume the weapon was illegal. Hey, it happens even in place with tough laws. If they are put in place correctly (see Australia, who had a similar gun culture to the US for an example), fewer people have guns. Illegal guns are harder to come by because of that. Between scarcity and increased risk in selling, prices will likely go up and the end result is that fewer criminals actually have guns because fewer criminals can afford them. Especially possible low-level drug dealers.

Personally I'd rather be shot and killed than be stabbed in the face repeatedly with a broken bottle (and potentially live). To each his own, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com