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Comment by thatswrong0 | Hacker News Reader

Banning firearms in general won't work in America. There are already more guns than people in circulation, the right to own them is codified into the Constitution and requires an amendment to fix (and amendments are ridiculously hard to pass), and of course there's the huge section of the population that would probably rather die than let their right to own guns be infringed. Not to mention that we do have a giant border with Mexico to our south that would probably make any attempt to remove all guns from America pointless.

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>Banning firearms in general won't work in America.

Obligatory "not with that attitude".

Many of those guns are smuggled out to Latin America (guns for drugs trade), while the rest are owned by an increasingly small segment of the population.

Mexico doesn’t mass produce enough guns to feed the American market in any significant way, and their gun laws are much more strict than ours. It’s the other way around: the bad guys in Mexico get most of our guns from us, the gun shops in the USA with the highest sales are near the border.

Then Mexico should build another wall like the one on it's southern border.

I'm serious, but the reason I have used from your comment is taking your assumptions as true. I'm all for the wall for a different reason; countries must control their borders or the people living there are not sovereign.

I have been to Mexico a few times (it's an awesome place!), right near the border, and much further south, but I did not feel it was a safe place. I know enough people with stories that I would rather not try to tell here. In Mexico, only the criminals and police are armed. Cross the border to the US, and volla, we all are equals. You can watch nearly endless TY* of cartel shootouts in Mexico (on residential streets), that stuff is practically impossible here, the elderly person down the street has weapons capable of hitting a body 200+ meters away. Mexico will be much safer when it's not just the criminals in the general population who can defend themselves.

It's going to be an interesting conversation when it's only US citizens that have DRM-free DMLS systems.

*I didn't check today, but I bet the memory hole is working on that...

>Banning firearms in general won't work in America.

This is the go to reason that people give, but it just means they haven't tried. No one said it would be cheap or easy but it could be done.

As for gun smuggling, the USA used to be the source of 80% of guns used in crimes in Canada and in Mexico it is 70%.

https://www.quora.com/How-are-guns-smuggled-into-the-United-...

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469...

https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10771628/gun-violence-america-...

So actually a gun ban in the USA would help both Canada and Mexico with their gun problems. In Mexico many of these guns end up in the hands of the cartels who are much more willing to use them than your usual criminals, and whilst they would still probably be able to obtain weapons they would not be able to do so in the same sort of volume and they would also have trouble locating ammunition.

It worked get for alcohol prohibition. I'm sure it'll be about as easy for guns.

Do Americans love guns that much?? I mean, there are so many other toys to play with.

Does owning a gun cause a nice buzz? Is it a social lubricant that makes everybody at a party happier when you bring it out? Does it have an ancient history that spans across the globe? Does it result in a chemical addiction?

Haven't found a good replacement for alcohol that wasn't more illegal or harmful.

Guns aren't toys.

They are an important tool in America's system of checks and balances: Guns are not for shooting deer; guns are for shooting politicians.

The 2nd Amendment is very clear; in fact, it's probably the clearest portion of the entire Constitution:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

In order to protect the freedom of each state from the imposition of some tyranny, it must be possible to gather groups of patriots who are armed with the highest quality equipment; therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

America was born out of armed revolution against a tyrannical government, and Americans are taught that they must be wary of enemies both foreign and domestic. To Americans, the government is at best a dangerous servant, and at worst a tyrannical master.

The gun is known as "The Great Equalizer" for a reason. To restrict gun ownership is to transfer even more power from the weak (the individual) to the strong (the State); that is anathema to those who understand what it actually means to be an American.

When is it appropriate to shoot a politician?

When he's doing Stalinesque things.

> Do Americans love guns that much??

Yes. There are many thousands of gun owners who would prefer to kill or be killed than to be disarmed.

Note that this is not a statement of my own stance; it's a statement of my impression of that community after a lifetime of immersion in it.

I have absolutely zero doubt that banning firearms in America would result in far more deaths than it would prevent even with the most optimistic expectation of its efficacy.

It's so difficult to articulate to -some- non-Americans. We are not property of our rulers. The cops aren't going to do it, they don't want just the criminals armed. Same thing for the military. They both joined to preserve our way of life. That's ignoring the fact that they physically cant, it's built into our system. Even replacing the police and military with bluehats would not remotely work. And then there's Gen Z.

The "ban guns" stuff is propaganda for people who are disconnected from the reality of what the United States is. It's weird to see OS advocates miss the connection. They don't realize what side they are on in the war on general purpose printing.

The guns are for the possibility of civil war/social upheaval/violent revolt. At the end of the day, the rule of law is a thin veneer over the force of people with guns. (It is, to a first approximation, just a way of deciding who tells the people with guns what to do.)

To head off the inevitable "but a bunch of rednecks with guns would never be able to stand up to the military!" That's first-world myopia. Look at what happened when, e.g., Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan. A bunch of farmers did not take on the undivided Pakistani army. Instead, after initial skirmishes, part of the Pakistani army broke off and fought for independence alongside the revolutionaries.

> The guns are for the possibility of civil war/social upheaval/violent revolt.

I will never understand Americans' desire to prepare for a tyrannical government, that may with some low probability happen in some unspecified future, but in such a way that it can still be defeated.

When they are simultaneously giving up lots and lots of lifes in violent murder sprees every single year. With absolute certainty and in the present.

Looks like an optimization gone wrong to me.

May shed some light:

"How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment: The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun. Today, millions believe they did. Here’s how it happened." https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/how-nra-rewrote-secon...

Guns and gun ownership are a deeply ingrained and arguably sacred part of culture for a lot of America. A law to outright ban firearms would not be enforceable. Not now, and probably not even in 100 years from now. Not without a secession or civil war, anyway. Too many people would be very vehemently opposed to it and would genuinely rather be shot and killed by law enforcement than allow their guns to be confiscated. Not even a semi-automatic ban or something like that could ever happen; at least not for many generations.

Not everyone feels this way, but more than enough people do to make a universal ban completely infeasible. The question right now is if there can even be any federal legislation passed to address issues like gun access to the mentally unstable and people on watchlists, let alone high-capacity magazines or gun modifications or a ban on certain classes of firearms.

> "Do Americans love guns that much?? I mean, there are so many other toys to play with"

- For some of us, they aren't "toys"...your disrespectful tone does nothing to help us debate where the line should be drawn for firearm ownership.

> "Does owning a gun cause a nice buzz? Is it a social lubricant that makes everybody at a party happier when you bring it out? Does it have an ancient history that spans across the globe? Does it result in a chemical addiction?"

- I think your characterization of gun owners and their motivations is shallow and insulting...sure there are your "gun porn" fans that seem to only care about purchasing the latest "tactical" rifle to share pictures of on social media, but many of us who don't live in populated cities, use our rifles and handguns routinely, or at least wouldn't traverse our properties without them on our sides for protection. Turns out predators exist, and the best way to warn off a cougar, coyote, or bear is having protection. I've killed coyotes that would have killed the livestock that feed my family.

More drinkers than gun owners.

Plus you are choosing one example were prohibition failed, what about when it works, particularly with regard to guns and reducing the incidence of mass shootigs? You choose to ignore the real world evidence that shows it works because it doesn't fit with your political stance.

I don't mind, but be honest with yourself that that is what you are doing.

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