Hacker News Reader

Comment by jostmey | Hacker News Reader

The debate here has focused on guns as the problem. Guns are not the problem, they are an expression of the problem. To quote the article: "The Economist stated that rapid urbanisation and inequalities in wealth distribution were some of the largest factors in violent crime, and as one of the most unequal countries on the planet, Brazil backs up this claim." I think this statement applies to Mexico and other Latin American countries, to varying extents.

Removing guns from the streets may reduce gun deaths, but the violence will probably remain as long as the underlying social injustices are not addressed.

View on HN

> Removing guns from the streets may reduce gun deaths

It didn't in Brazil. Since 2004, civilians can't carry their guns and the police makes it very hard for them to be able to have one in the first place, or to register them again when it's time to renew.

Here is a graph with the homicides in Brazil from 1996 to 2016: http://www.ipea.gov.br/atlasviolencia/dados-series/31 (click on "País", then scroll down to see the graph)

Leading to the election of Bolsonaro, who promised to repeal gun control.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-guns-idUSKCN1P91Q6

Guns are like a megaphone for violence. Violent people will still exist but their reach is far less with a knife

lets have a serious discussion... knife is like number 5000 on a crazy persons shopping list. gun is probably 300 but also easier than 1-299

GP is making a serious point.

I'm not saying that guns should be legal (I'm also not saying they should be illegal). What is important is to focus on the root issues, and I don't believe that the root issues are "guns".

This is a false dichotomy. Why do you have to focus on the "root issue"? What's wrong with dealing with a part of the problem? No complex problems get dealt with as a whole. They get broken in to pieces and dealt with using the tools available. Guns are clearly a part of the problem so let's do something about them while also doing something about other social issues.

is this true?

I feel like by dealing with a part of the problem you first have an understanding of the system as a whole so that you can isolate the root cause aka the part of the problem it's not route in terms of the base or foundation of a problem it's root in terms of dealing with the actual causal issue

Policing and laws often treat symptoms and not the "root" cause. Financial laws addressing fraud don't try and solve the underlying human greed yet they are valuable in trying to the protect victims of fraud.

Saying we can only solve fraud by addressing the underlying socitial reasons driving people to commit fraud would be crazy. The symptoms can be dealt with it can and make a difference while also working on other causal factors.

It doesn't have to deal directly with the "causal issue". It just has to reduce the negative effect.

People don't see a gun and decide to use it.

They decide to hurt someone, then look for a weapon. If it's not a gun, it will be a knife, or acid, or poison, or fists, or a vehicle...

This actually isn't well backed up by psychology. The large majority of violent crimes aren't premeditated--they're impulses.

I'm willing to learn here, but I can't find a source for that claim.

Wouldn’t that mean the same thing? They decide to hurt (the impulse), and they grab whatever happens to be nearby.

That is, they don’t see a gun and decide to use it; they decide to use something and see a gun

Violence still happens but the magnitude would be reduced.

It's a lot harder to kill people with things that aren't guns. If it was as easy then soldiers would primarily equipped with "knife, or acid, or poison, or fists". The army chooses guns as the primary weapon are they are clearly much more effective at killing.

The army doesn't use poisons (chemical weapons) because they are so effective, and so horrible, that their use is unthinkable.

Remember the outrage when Syria did use poison?

So you're suggesting this is the main/only reason poison isn't the primary weapon provided to infantry for most military situations? Interesting.

Don't try to intentionally misrepresent me. You know that's not what I said.

I'm saying that if the army shared the goal of mass shooters - to kill as many people as possible indiscriminately - guns would absolutely not be their weapon of choice; and if the army switched weapons from guns to poison, the magnitude of violence would be amplified, not reduced.

I was discussing what solders carry as a primary weapon but since you brought it up why don't "mass shooters" regularly use chemical weapons now instead? Could it be because they're regulated and not readily available to civilians?

Probably because they think, as you did, that "it's a lot harder to kill people with things that aren't guns."

Fortunately that means they use guns instead of more dangerous weapons.

Not sure there are any good ways to prove it at this point, but I think that part of the appeal is the mass media coverage. You get instagram famous, news at 9 and news at 5 and 10 and 11 TV famous, you get facebook famous.. and the debates about guns and the interest groups and the people who want votes and those who want money and power - they all keep your name in the news for longer than most stories in a cycle.

Then when you trial date comes up it all goes on again - so these people see the fame that others have gotten - and how people have loathed them and feared them, and their shots are heard around the world.

Not so much the case when someone mixes bleach and windex.

How exactly would someone like, for example, Jared Lee Laughner have wounded and killed so many without a gun? How many would the Vegas shooter have killed? It’s interesting that harm reduction is fine for some things, but when we’re talking about guns suddenly the concept is discarded or evaded. I’ve talked to people who make the specious argument that if people didn’t have access to guns they’d just make bombs, as if making a bomb to kill dozens or even hundreds of people is trivial.

Imagine if that psychopath who attacked Glasgow airport in ‘07 had access firearms instead of a home brew “bomb” that only succeeds in lighting him on fire? Bombs are hard, knives require strength and skill, an AR-15 in a crowd is too easy.

> How exactly would someone...have wounded and killed so many without a gun?

In addition to bombs and knives, here are some other alternative weapons people have used to kill far more people than Jared Lee Laughner did:

Gasoline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire (192 killed)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire (87 killed)

A truck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack (86 killed and 458 wounded)

Poison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_H%C3%B6gel (over 100 killed)

A cord

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway (at least 49 killed)

See what happens when someone gets in a crowded place with a gun vs a knife. Also the general public should not be allowed to take a vehicle in to a dense area like a city.

> Also the general public should not be allowed to take a vehicle in to a dense area like a city.

First, ban guns. Then, ban knives. Then, ban vehicles. Where does it end?

We're going to get to books eventually...

Honestly, I think banning guns won't work, especially in a country like the US. However, it seems like an easy solution to a difficult problem, hence the relatively widespread support.

To find solutions, we need to look at the problem from as many angles as we can. What I see is:

- gang violence - lack of jobs, profitability in illegal industries like drugs and prostitution, poor high school graduation rate - mass murders - mental health issues, anger at "society" (desperation or desire to right some wrong), intolerance - murders - jealousy, revenge, etc, without a better outlet - covering for another crime - robbery, burglary, drugs, etc

So, now we look at solutions, which will be some mix of:

- gangs - better job availability, better eduction, access to capital for self employment - mass murder - better mental health care access, more informed public - murder - more social interaction/feeling of community, access to counselors, better HR departments - other crime - similar solutions as gang violence

We can't eliminate all violent crime, but there are more solutions than taking away the tool. Honestly, I think more people should be familiar with guns, not fewer, so part of my solution would be to encourage people to get basic training with them, which should help people appreciate their destructive power more.

However, spit balling solutions like this isn't particularly helpful, just like attacking guns isn't helpful. Let's look at what the causes to the problems are, look at possible solutions, and look at how much those solutions will cost and estimate an ROI for each solution. I'm a fan of generally removing restrictions where those restrictions are big causes of crime (e.g. legalize marijuana, which will likely reduce drug crime; legalize prostitution, which will decrease sex trafficking and organized crime), but I want to look at the numbers before deciding which changes to make. We need more studies and policy proposals based on those studies, not populist crap to get reelected.

Vehicles should be banned in cities because they are a huge health and safety risk when used as intended. They have an endless list of downsides.

You are a bit quieter with a knife though. A gun gives you away immedietly to all around you unless you have a silencer but those arent so easy to get in the USA (class 3 if I remember correctly).

In England people get knifed and who can know?

And if its not a knife it will be a car, power tools, planes, boats, pushing someone off of a building. I rather retain my right to protect myself from crazies and die trying than be disadvantaged compared to criminals who wont follow the law...

Having gone to the range here in the US I gotta say its not as easy as most think. You have rules amongst people who handle fire arms you must follow or get banned from a range. I am convinced after my experience that a bad actor is already mentally unstable and will kill someone they intend to regardless of guns or not. How many US serial murderers didnt we have that didnt use guns anyway?

A gun is a tool. Anybody can use a tool correctly and anybody can use a tool incorrectly. Any tool can be bought legally and illegally. People who do not follow laws will have an advantage against those who do in terms of available tools.

As others in the thread have said people dont think of getting a gun to murder they think of murder and then consider their options.

Worse yet: Oppresive governments usually take away the rights of citizens to defend themselves before they begin total oppression of the people. Just ask Venezuelans who has guns there...

> You are a bit quieter with a knife though. A gun gives you away immedietly to all around you unless you have a silencer but those arent so easy to get in the USA (class 3 if I remember correctly).

There's a ring adapter you can screw on most weapons (Econo-can) that allows you to suppress any weapon with a regular oil filter. It would be easy to 3D print and is surprisingly effective, even on a full auto rifle[1]

> And if its not a knife it will be a car, power tools, planes, boats, pushing someone off of a building. I rather retain my right to protect myself from crazies and die trying than be disadvantaged compared to criminals who wont follow the law...

And yet in most European countries a tiny percentage of the population has (access to) guns, yet we're magnitudes safer than America. Australia banned a huge swathe of rifles and shotguns in 1996, yet there hasn't been a huge rise in victims of crime.

> A gun is a tool. Anybody can use a tool correctly and anybody can use a tool incorrectly. Any tool can be bought legally and illegally. People who do not follow laws will have an advantage against those who do in terms of available tools.

This is an extremely tired old chestnut. I mean, come on dude. Do you see someone with a knife killing 58 people and wounding 400+[2] within 10 minutes?

[1] https://youtu.be/haiqFcIXTqs?t=51 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting

> Having gone to the range here in the US I gotta say its not as easy as most think. You have rules amongst people who handle fire arms you must follow or get banned from a range.

I don't think being banned from one particular range significantly reduces the chance someone will commit an act of gun violence.

> ___ is a tool. Anybody can use a tool correctly and anybody can use a tool incorrectly. Any tool can be bought legally and illegally. People who do not follow laws will have an advantage against those who do in terms of available tools.

Does this argument scale? At what point is it too much?

Replace ___ with explosives, tanks, grenade launchers, or even just bigger guns. Uranium is a useful tool to generate power.

> Worse yet: Oppresive governments usually take away the rights of citizens to defend themselves before they begin total oppression of the people. Just ask Venezuelans who has guns there...

What about Australia? After a nasty rampage in the 90s, they had folks turn their guns in. You can still own one under certain circumstances, but there's a lot more process and conditions involved. And yet 20 years it hasn't devolved into authoritarianism. In fact their rates of gun violence have dropped significantly.

In Australia, homicide has decreased by nine percent since 1990 and armed robbery by one-third since 2001, but recorded assaults and sexual assaults have both increased steadily in the past 10 years by over 40 percent and 20 percent respectively. Crime was already decreasing in Australia before the 1996 ban, however since that time violent crime overall has increased significantly.

I'm not the author of the message, but I wonder why the downvotes?

Is the message factually incorrect or you think it's irrelevant?

It's the misrepresentation of the data, sexual crimes are on the rise because of increased reporting, not necessarily because of increased occurrence.

Downvoting because you have not provided references for your statistics and because sexual assault is unrelated to gun violence.

For those curious to do their own investigation, all these numbers are on wikipedia (and for Australia will mostly be sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics where you can freely access the original reports). All things in context though. A 9% decrease over 30 years doesn't sound very impressive, but when you consider that the per-capita homicide rate in Australia is ~5x lower than the US it doesn't sound so bad.

The sex crime example is interesting, because it's a raw count and does not take into account increasing reporting and investigation rates as a result of social change. Over the past few decades Australia has had significant public awareness campaigns for domestic and sexual abuse which are suspected to have significantly impacted reporting rates: https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi359

Statistics can be bent to show whatever you when when you assume your audience won't actually think critically. This is a very common problem on both sides of the gun debate unfortunately and I don't think leads to anything productive.

> And yet 20 years it hasn't devolved into authoritarianism. In fact their rates of gun violence have dropped significantly.

Hasn't it been devolving into authoritarianism though? They have banned books and all sorts of things. I've read where lots of people have disagreed with the govt's new laws for censoring the internet and keeping data on people, yet the gov there still does what it wants without worry.

Australia and USA have so many differences that any comparisons are moot. It saddens me to see people trying to compare what happens on that island to what is going on in the states.

I understand there may be less guns there, but from the stories I've seen about violence at bars in parts of Australia leading the gov to shut down parts of the cities earlier just shows that the strong violent abusive people are comfortable engaging in criminal behaviors including assaults and battery, they are not being controlled by gun laws.

It also seems apparent that the weaker, vulnerable people plead for protection, and instead get shortened hours of access.

People also tend to forget about Switzerland[0] entirely where guns are also legal, and yet you don't have the same issues. The problem with guns is gun education, the problem with murderers is psychological, if they can't use one weapon they will turn something else into a weapon.

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

I think Switzerland is an important consideration to show it's not just gun policy or ownership that determines the use of lethal weapons in a country.

I would add that some of the problems with murders are economic, some are lack of spiritual guidance, and there are other factors. If you consider that many families in the US do not get the kind of health care that they could in other places - these issues tend to spiral affect other areas of the family that sometimes spill into crimes in the community.

Certainly some of it lack of character in general. Some of the problems in the US stem from Mexico and Honduras and other places being connected by land.

There are so many factors. I hate seeing some statistics used to paint a picture and then compares the apples to oranges of other places. People who would ban / restrict gun ownership don't really get that most of the statistics and news stories are issues where people are breaking the law and are not going to follow any laws that are made.

New gun laws just make it harder for poor people to get access to defend themselves, and multiple options and training and practice. The drug dealers, gang bangers and rich people can absorb the costs of new laws no problem. The middle class and poor are the most affected.

> Australia and USA have so many differences that any comparisons are moot. It saddens me to see people trying to compare what happens on that island to what is going on in the states.

The US is different but not a special snowflake. The US is not Australia. The US is not the UK. The US is not Germany. The US is not..... The same reasoning means no country can learn from any other country unless they are virtually identical.

But how about Canada? Being similar to the US in many ways, why are their rates of gun violence much lower comparatively?

> I understand there may be less guns there, but from the stories I've seen about violence at bars in parts of Australia leading the gov to shut down parts of the cities earlier just shows that the strong violent abusive people are comfortable engaging in criminal behaviors including assaults and battery, they are not being controlled by gun laws.

And they have much fewer guns to use when acting on impulses, limiting the amount of harm they can cause. Do you think America is less violent? Remember when a single person killed 59 people and wounded 500+ more from a hotel room?

> The US is different but not a special snowflake. Just California alone I think would qualify. The weather, the girls, the agriculture, the money...

kidding aside... could it be that Canada is only worth about $39 billion for drug sales and the US is about $109 billion per year?

I only have one neighbor (that I know of) who would kill for under a thousand bucks, however if there was a million dollars sitting downtown in cash I am guessing there would be more.

I don't know enough about Canada to say, only a few minutes of edited tv here and there, but from what I had seen - people there appeared to be more willing to help people in need - on the street, and via the govt.

The people I saw in the cities also appeared to be very comfortable and not so angry / intimidating - which may mean you can coerce people there without threatening with a gun or shooting up a block. If you can bully large groups with just a scowl, there is no need for guns and shooting.

I'm just guessing though, I am sure there are many factors.

The lack of help here in the states puts a lot of people on the street with lack of access to healthcare and shelter - that kind of creates environments for crime.

I also think people here are more willing to stand up and fight for what they have or what they want. Not sure that's a geography thing (are people more willing to be shitty to others around them about keeping their 70 degree all year california weather as opposed to the snowy mountains up north?

I'm not sure they actually have fewer guns per capita available up there, but I think they have less reason to fight and kill.

Maybe it’s the US’s prison to no vote and no job pipeline, not sure Canada has the same thing?

Could it have to do with things like the US has 58,000,000 latino / hispanic Americans and Canada has 700,000 ? The US has 10 million illegal immigrants and Canada has 100 thousand? Canada has a million black people and the US has 38 times that many?

I don’t mention these things because I think these people are bad or good, it’s just something that makes USA and Canada different.

Again I am not an expert, just seen a couple of shows and a few searches online. These are some ideas about things that may be factors in the differences. I’m sure I am ignorant in these areas and more. Could it be that people in the US spend more time outside throughout the year comparatively and so more fights break out down here? All kinds of things.

I looked into moving to Canada, but I don’t qualify to move there, I could try to sneak in and be an illegal immigrant, but I would not get the healthcare and votes and other experiences I assume – so I may visit one day, but I don’t expect to actually get a lot of first hand understanding of how different it is unfortunately.

I agree that better social programs, decreased inequality, and drug decriminalization would be a much better approach to preventing gun violence than more people having guns.

Just piping in to say, that, demographics of a city DO have an effect on violent crime. And a lot of it stems from inequality - you can actually see it literally on the roads. In areas where you get tailgated, music bumpers, and just all-in-all too different kinds of people sharing the same spaces, you have a LOT of latent anger. And anger rubs off on everyone. It's kinda like the theory of a single happy person rubbing off on others and makes them happy. Well in these urban areas filled with inequality, I've generally just seen mostly the anger spread.

It's an enormous problem that essentially stems from the wrong kinds of people living with each other. The fix? Don't change the people, change the inequality.

> Australia and USA have so many differences that any comparisons are moot.

I hope you stick to the same standard next time someone says "$(Policy X) is how you end up being like Venezuela!"

> You are a bit quieter with a knife though. A gun gives you away immedietly to all around you unless you have a silencer but those arent so easy to get in the USA (class 3 if I remember correctly).

What are you trying to say with that statement? That knives should be the preferred murder weapon? That clearly isn't the case in any country where getting a gun is 'easy'. Or are murderers in the those countries idiots for using guns instead of the stealthy knife?

Except that's not always true![0] Take Switzerland for example where knives rose as murder weapon of choice, and the rate of guns became lower. In fact... for a country that has so many guns, it's incredible to hear that only about 100 homicides occur per year[1]. The USA has a mental health issue, not a tooling issue. Gun safety and proper education can deter gun violence.

[0]: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/homicide-report_statistics-show...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Switzerland#Crime_sta...

Switzerland is very different to the US concerning guns in most ways (including the fact that it only has around 1/4 of the guns the US has, per capita).

This article from the same website you linked is quite informative in my opinion:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/florida-school-shootin...

A gun is a tool, but it is a tool with one use; wounding and killing organisms. A gun when used correctly, as designed and intended, is a ranged lethal weapon. A knife or a hammer, a car, or even a flamethrower have uses which don’t involve hurting or killing anything, and your point stands for them. If you’re killing someone with a car, you’ve misused your tool, but if you kill with a gun you’ve used it correctly.

> A gun is a tool, but it is a tool with one use; wounding and killing organisms.

This is kind of true, it depends on the ammo used of course.

However I think they have multiple uses, and from what I have seen they are mostly used as a deterrent and sometimes as a compliance tool.

If it's a pistol on the hip of an armored car runner or security guard, it's existence is a deterrent - and there is a definite difference when people see an armed guard and a 'rent-a-cop / mall security with a whistle' -

Cops often use guns to threaten in order to get compliance in their orders. I suppose it's the same at military bases and prisons - they are used everyday to deter people not used everyday to kill people.

Of course this tool can be used to deter good things and to force compliance for nefarious things like armed robbery so it's not a tool that is always used for good or in good ways.

I would guess if stats could really be made - they are mostly used for target practice at paper and cans as such when being used, unless you consider them being on display at various places like courthouses as being in use.

So it's a tool with more than one use imho. Not the best tool for the job they are often used in sadly.

Police and for that matter anyone in law enforcement are trained to draw and aim only when they intent to use the gun. Using a gun for anything other than shooting is how you either escalate a situation or how people are (too often) shot with their own guns. It is also a felony to use a gun as a threat or coercive tool, and it’s called ‘Brandishing’. Police don’t threaten with a gun outside of Hollywood. They offer a verbal warning, and if you don’t comply (and sometimes if you do) they will fire.

You never draw your gun unless you intend to use it.

You never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy.

Treat all guns as loaded.

Anyone who hasn’t had that drilled into them has no business owning a firearm of any kind. Such a person is most likely to hurt themselves or someone else, or have their gun taken from them and used against them.

Oh how I wish you were right on all this.

> Police and for that matter anyone in law enforcement are trained to draw and aim only when they intent to use the gun.

Which police are you describing? I would not mind this being true, but from my experiences on the east coast I don't think this is true of most law enforcement, unless you mean to say that drawing it to use as a coercive tool is the "intent to use" -

It may be a felony to stick a gun to someone's head and threaten them with violence if they do not comply with what you say - however I think that is not applied often. Most cops are not charged with that if they do it, and most criminals at that level are not ratted out either.

> Police don’t threaten with a gun outside of Hollywood.

I have seen just that, many times.

Again I wish you were right, but it's not true, and I'm sorry you believe that. Maybe things are different in your hometown and you don't worry about traveling.

I agree with not drawing unless you are prepared to use, and do not point at things that you would not be okay with destroying, and all guns are loaded. Those parts of your comment I believe are true.

However I still believe that people having a firearm without shooting it is still a use. Yes sometimes the appearance of one may be escalating, but often times one being visible (eg a soldier holding an m16 pointed at the ground, a bank guard with firearm in holster) does deter other violence from occurring.

edit for formatting - had to hit enter after quote.

> If you’re killing someone with a car, you’ve misused your tool, but if you kill with a gun you’ve used it correctly.

Murdering someone is never the correct use for a gun. Killing in self defense or under circumstances of war is another matter. For the sake of my discussion of guns I'll define murder vs killing: Murder is a premeditated kill, you hate someone, you intend to kill them. Killing, is just what everyone thinks it is, taking the life away from some animal or person.

I've seen numerous cases where men and women with legal access to weapons have stopped bad actors from either shooting up total strangers, or trying to rob them, or worse. I've even seen plenty of videos of attempted break-ins to peoples homes.

Switzerland has plenty of guns, and their crime rate has lowered, and knives are much more common as a murder weapon now there. It's not the tool that deserves the blame, it's the mental state of the person, and without addressing that, and targeting issues that affect people (like pharmaceutical companies) we will never get to resolve the real problem.

Murdering someone is never the correct use for a gun. Killing in self defense or under circumstances of war is another matter.

You just moved the goalposts from what I said, killing, to murder. I never once used the word murder, and I didn’t even specify humans. Please discuss this with integrity.

So? Not sure how that matters. Japan mass murders are with car or knife, probably because that's the 'tool' at hand.

I’d take Japan’s rate of mass killings and average casualties per incident over ours any day of the week, wouldn’t you?

Not if I had to live in Japan, or be Japanese. They are a very different, extremely paternal society. You would expect different social statistics there vs an extremely independent Egalitarian society.

America is the way it is, because its full of Americans. Until we change what that means, we don't change anything.

> Guns are like a megaphone for violence. Violent people will still exist but their reach is far less with a knife

You'd think so, but I don't think that's the case. There have been many multiple-death stabbings in Asia, for instance:

https://newrepublic.com/article/151994/china-many-school-sta...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/world/asia/china-knife-at...

And many multi-death vehicular attacks around the world, like the one in Nice, France that killed 86 and wounded 458.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack

The people who want to ban guns are aware that doing so won't end violence, but they have a plan: they'll ban knives and vehicles as well. It's already being called for in the UK and in this very discussion. They'll never stop because being "against violence" is an easy way to score cheap political points, no matter how useless such measures are.

Then how do you explain India? There exists massive wealth inequality in India as well, yet the murder rate is infinitesimal compared to Latin America.

I believe the issue is more cultural than economical.

Does india have a drug problem or such a corrupt, unhelpful government? I don't know which way the causality goes, but all of the above (drugs, culture, crime, poor government) seem to be correlated.

> illegal drugs

Drugs don't seem to be the problem (e.g. look at Portugal or The Netherlands), but illegal drug trade. The violence doesn't seem to come from drug users, but drug traffickers. If we make it legal, the drug traffickers go out of business.

My guess is that Latin America is worse than India because the US is close to Latin America, and the US buys a lot of drugs. If we legalize the more common drugs, I anticipate that the weaker demand will drastically reduce gang violence because there just isn't as much money as stake.

India doesn't border a wealthy country, so it isn't likely as lucrative to murder. That's my guess, and I'd like to see some research to explain it better than my gut reaction.

> Does Indian have such a corrupt, unhelpful government?

Yes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronakdesai/2018/03/07/india-con...

Doesn't India actually have a fairly low Gini index? Lower than any country in South or Latin America, save Uruguay.

In Latin America there have been repeated movements for many decades to identify and address these underlying social injustices, including the wealth distribution. These movements often do not fare well, and the US Government is invested (financially, militarily, politically) in ensuring that these movements do not fare well.

Yeah, Venezuela's going through one of those movements right now, and thanks to it, has the third highest homicide rate in the world.

How much of it is cultural? Were the indigenous peoples of the Americas particularly murderous (I seem to remember depictions of human sacrifice where large cages were filled with people to be burned)? How much of it came from the Spanish inquisition/conquistador culture? These are the questions I ponder whenever related subjects come up, but unfortunately I have no answers.

From my experience visiting the Mayan highlands in Guatemala, I’d say the indigenous people are generally wonderful human beings dealing the best they can with a hard situation.

They’re so far away from the days of human sacrifice, it’s like asking if white people are naturally violent because of the 30 years war.

The Aztecs--and I specifically mean Aztecs here and not the Mexica in general--were probably some of the most profligate sacrificers in human history. But outside of them, the pre-Columbian Americans don't seem to be unusually inclined to human sacrifice, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. The difference is that they were first contacted by European society at a time when they still practiced religious beliefs that included human sacrifice while the Europeans had forgotten just how much they had sacrificed humans a millennium earlier.

That's true, but it's still a lot harder to reliably murder people with a knife.

It makes sense except for the US, which is sort of a strange outlier for gun violence.

Guns are part of the problem. It is as dishonest as saying that cigarets are not bad for health.

> Removing guns from the streets may reduce gun deaths, but the violence will probably remain as long as the underlying social injustices are not addressed.

The old no solution unless it's the perfect solution response. No-one is saying social issues and inequality shouldn't be addressed too but easy access to guns sure makes shooting people a lot easier.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com