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Comment by just_testing | Hacker News Reader

This is one of those statistics where there are only two distinct values that matter:

- Zero shootings - Too many shootings

Any number bigger than zero is too much and we should do our best as a society to decrease it to zero.

Reducing the outcomes to a binary, eliminating the ability to perceive incremental improvement, is a toxic, antisocial and anti-intellectual bit of rhetoric.

He's saying that the ideal is zero shootings. Having fewer shootings is good and can be appreciated, but the ideal goal is still zero.

That's not my point. My point is that facts are being overlooked in order to exaggerate the trend.

Pick a random person on the street and they'll probably tell you the number of shootings in the USA is going up, not down.

As I said, action should be taken. But if people are misinformed, the correct action cannot be taken.

If we are to continue to reduce the number of events, we need to be more upset about each event.

edit: I agree that we should have the correct information. But it's important to keep pushing to improve.

Even conceding that point, so what? There are probably fewer cases of workplace sexual harassment than there were 20 years ago. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be vehement about ending them altogether.

Is this statistic different other statistics about homicides and other forms of death?

- domestic violence that results in homicide - homicides in prison - automobile related deaths - drug overdoses - suicides

I think most people would agree that life is precious and should be preserved. I'm not sure most people would agree that we could get any of the above statistics to zero.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither and will lose both."

- Benjamin Franklin

> He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it.

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

Stabbing everyone to death would reduce shootings to zero.

Probably not a good policy, even so.

There are about 800 people from Las Vegas with bullet wounds that would have fared better against an elderly man with only a knife.

The parent's comment wasn't that eliminating guns would simply lead to more stabbings. It was an example of a policy - literally stab everyone to death, first order - that would have the desired effect but where clearly other aspects than "no shootings" obviously dominate.

That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric.

> That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric.

You might view it as a pointed way of seeking clarification of the argument really being made behind that presumably hyperbolic rhetoric.

Sure. That was meant to be quite mild criticism.

Anything more than zero shootings is too much? What a ridiculous assertion.

What about deaths from car accidents?

What about deaths from hammer?

Choking on your toothbrush?

Jaywalking?

Infections resulting from not washing hands?

Carbon monoxide?

Your absolutism is dishonest and unhelpful.

Yes, there are too many deaths from all of those things, except possibly the toothbrush thing.

You may be joking about "Infections resulting from not washing hands," but hospital-acquired infections, which can easily come from exactly this, kill something like 100,000 people a year.

And many of these are more highly regulated than guns.

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