Comment by smoothgrips | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smoothgrips | Hacker News Reader

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> Comparing your proposed 30000 guns in France with more guns than inhabitants in the US.

My point is, even countries with very strict gun laws have lots of guns, most of which are illegal, but they're still there, still accessible to people who want them and go through the effort to get them.

> This argument still does not negate the fact that it's much harder to get your hands on a working firearm.

I wasn't trying to negate that. In fact, I agreed: "While I agree it is more difficult to find a gun in Europe than in America..."

I'm countering this claim that you made:

>Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they need one

I believe that, yes, any lunatic _can_ find a gun. Yes, again, I agree, they are harder to get. However, I do believe that if said lunatic _really_ wanted one, he'd find one.

Well if you call criminals lunatics, which is a fair assessment, then yes. But not every person has contacts in the criminal underworld.

You're just going to have to trust me that I have a first hand perspective of both worlds in one european country and I can promise you that it's not easy to get a gun for any average person. Unless they are willing to jump through the legal hoops to get a licensed firearm.

One of my co-workers did this and from start to finish I think it took him a year to get a handgun. This does not count the hunting license because he was not interested in hunting, he wanted a handgun.

And once acquired he has to report to the police every route he wants to take with the handgun. For example between his home and the gun club.

And storage of the gun unloaded in a locked safe goes without sayhing.

Another friend had an AK47 brought up from Serbia, because macho reasons, and he was only allowed to have it because he was a member of the home guard here. But he had it mounted on the wall, once the police found out they forced him to take it down, disassemble it and store it in three different pieces as it was meant to.

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