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Comment by SlowRobotAhead | Hacker News Reader

>The more likely cause is the legal structure around gun ownership in the United States.

And what are your qualifications on the topic? What do you actually know about the laws starting at the founding and hitting the popular milestones of 1934, 1968, 1986, 1994, 2008, and 2010?

If someone doesn’t know why those years are significant but still has strong opinions on the topic... well, it’s just that the USA has been having this “conversation” for 200 years and these people are just new to it, being unaware of the facts is a bad position to start from.

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This isn't an argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

See also reddit.com/r/iamverysmart

Asking someone to be educated on a topic is not an argument from authority.

The simple fact is that

(a) the US has a 10x higher gun homicide rate and ~5x higher homicide rate than other comparable countries

(b) the big difference between the US and these countries is vastly higher gun ownership in the US

What could the relationship be between guns and deaths from guns?

Nope, too hard.

Saying the USA has more homicdes than other countries is a laughable statement. Of course we do, we have more guns. This is ENTIRELY to be expected. It doesn’t mean there is a problem.

We have 10,000 homicdes with firearms in a country of 340,000,000 people and 400,000,000+ guns. More than 1/2 those homicides on minorities in cities that have stronger gun control. We have a drug problem not a gun problem. Remind me where drugs are legal, because if the argument that banning something makes it go away, drugs must be legal somewhere right?

> Saying the USA has more homicdes than other countries is a laughable statement.

No. It is a trivially verifiable fact. Which you don't deny, so why is it "laughable". Is 3+4 = 7 also "laughable"?

> Of course we do, we have more guns. This is ENTIRELY to be expected.

Again, you seem to be violently agreeing with me: more guns → more deaths.

> We have a drug problem not a gun problem.

That's an interesting non-sequitur, especially considering your statements above "of course we do [have more homicides], we have more guns". Guns and homicides are casually and statistically related.

> banning something makes it go away

So few words, so many mistakes:

- most of these countries do not "ban" guns. They just highly regulate them.

- no-one is trying to make guns "go away" or ban them entirely

- not all things are the same. Drugs are not the same as guns

- Australia, for example, changed their gun policy to be much more highly regulated and homicides dropped and mass shootings (previously ~1/year) disappeared

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