Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwkoss | Hacker News Reader

I think it is unfortunate that so many Americans don't know about the history of the Black Panthers. In US public school system, we are taught that the Civil Rights Act was won through peaceful marching - this is not the whole story.

Black Panthers carried guns to protect protests, and having guns created a situation where cops could not rush in and beat dissent into submission. There is a strong argument that without the second amendment, the Civil Rights Act would not have been passed, and we would still be living in an institutionally segregated society.

I don't own a gun and don't feel I need one because I'm a privileged urban white. Gun control has historically been used as a tool to disarm Black Americans: the NRA supported gun control in response to the Black Panthers! (https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...)

Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

View on HN

Correct me if I'm wrong here but the Black Panther Party was formed in 1966 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964

Good point! I didn't realize that there are two 'Civil Rights Act's from the 60's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 prohibited school and employment segregation and gave minorities voting rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968 prohibited housing discrimination and criminalized hate crimes

It appears earlier armed defense was carried out by various groups in the Black Power movement, including the Freedom Riders and Black Armed Guard led by Robert F. Williams.

The Black Panthers were ideologically inspired by Williams, but I had conflated earlier action with the later-formed group. Thanks for pointing that out!

> Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

Interestingly, that would be most of them, with the supreme court ruling that the police does not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

Owning a gun makes it 2-3x more likely someone in your family will die by a gun. So it makes you less safe, not more. https://slate.com/technology/2015/01/good-guy-with-a-gun-myt...

And it definitely makes it less safe for the rest of us in society.

correlation != causality

If someone has threatened you with a gun or you live in an area with increased gun violence, I would expect that greatly increases the chances that you'd want to acquire your own. This cohort would already be at a much higher risk of gun death before they owned a gun as well.

There has never been a placebo controlled double blind study on gun ownership. Probably never will be because of ethical concerns.

It probably does increase risk, but I expect the effect size is much lower than 2-3x.

How about no one has guns ?

How about we fund mental healthcare nationally, reduce wealth inequality, and end racial disparity in policing first?

Until then, an attempt to ban all guns is not only a politically infeasible waste of energy, but also seems like a racist attack on the self-defense rights of the disempowered.

"What about...". There are mass shootings in schools every year. How about we solve the problems you mentioned and the others in parallel. US spends enough on military budget , they can cut back and solve these. The disempowered don't need "white knights", they are the ones often dying to gun violence.

If you have a gun in your house and are responsible with it, nobody will be at risk.

That argument is pretty much a "no true Scotsman" type argument.

You can't discard datapoints you don't like because they're not "responsible" firearm holders.

No, you can. Owning a gun for self defense is an individual decision, so individual responsibility must be considered.

You can’t say that the Americans who want guns for self defense are better off without them because statistically, across the population, they increase danger.

Why can't you say that? Every decision you make is an individual decision. Whether or not to vaccinate yourself is an individual decision, owning a gun, driving a car, looking both ways. All can have consequences for others besides yourself.

I don't understand your response. Are you arguing that vaccinations, cars and being a responsible pedestrian should also be banned?

No, we’re objecting to conflating categories which demonstrably exhibit radically different behaviors and outcomes.

To overstate the point: You can’t conflate “bought a black market gun, keeps it illegally, has no training, and engages in felonious behavior on a regular basis” with “endured numerous comprehensive background checks, bought high value guns (some specialized) at retail, took hundreds of hours of training from prominent instructors, keeps them for sport and defense, obeys all applicable laws, is a practical expert in said laws, and has committed no crimes”, then when the former happens to kill someone illegally, proceed to average the two and use that to assert “see? owning guns is bad”.

Hogwash.

My military-trained father-in-law accidentally discharged his handgun inside the house while cleaning it. The bullet ricocheted and could have killed anybody.

It was a manufacturing defect. All those guns were recalled and replaced 2 months later.

He was cleaning a loaded gun?

We gave him a lot of hell thinking he did exactly that.

He claimed he unloaded it and checked he unloaded it.

A couple weeks later every single one of those guns was recalled and replaced by the manufacturer. The gun, itself, apparently had a defect wherein it could pop a round loose, hold it where you couldn't see it, and then chamber it if you knocked it a bit. I have no idea how this could possibly occur, but the manufacturer actually claimed this and wound up having to spend enough money that something wasn't right with those handguns.

Fortunately, he adhered to standard discipline and made sure the gun was never pointed at anybody. So, when it did go off, nobody was in line of fire. However, it did ricochet and still could have caused quite a bit of harm.

Always adhering to discipline doesn't make probabilities zero--it just minimizes them.

How do I know if you are responsible? Do your children have access? Are you sure they can't find the key or figure out the code?

A couple months ago a friend of a friend was killed because a boy from school brought a gun from home to their house to show off and was playing with it. He thought it was empty. It wasn't. Now a girl is dead, a boy's life is ruined, and their families are devastated.

This happens all the time.

I think making parents liable for violence caused by their children who gain access to their weapons is a reasonable regulation, and some states have already passed laws to this effect.

Yeah, sure...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-Qdx6vky0

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-shoots...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nra-employee-shoots-himself_n...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-accidently-shoots-self-wife...

(I won't even mention the circular argument in the parent comment)

Gun owners accidentally shooting themselves means there's a 100% chance they were doing something that following the most basic gun safety controls that everyone knows about would make impossible. You can infer from this that those people were not responsible gun owners.

Link 1: Guy said it was unloaded. Gun safety rule #1 is treat every gun likes its loaded and clear every gun when someone hands it to you so you know personally that it is in fact unloaded.

Not doing either of those things is incredibly stupid and irresponsible.

Link 2: "The man was showing his girlfriend that loaded guns are safe when he died" - The guy was playing with a loaded gun. No legitimate gun safety demonstration would claim that a loaded gun is ever safe. That's not responsible gun handling.

Link 3: Doesn't describe the incident in detail but he pointed a loaded gun at a living thing so its gross negligence.

Link 4: Another questionable gun safety demonstration. Once again no detail but he pointed a loaded gun at a person else it would have been physically impossible for a person to get shot.

It is not standard practice to have live rounds around when you are doing a safety demonstration. They make clearly marked training rounds that have no propellant in them for the purpose of demonstrating loading and unloading a firearm. Using live rounds is not justifiable as "responsible" behavior.

Its disingenuous to use examples of people doing incredibly reckless things in order to argue that "responsible gun owners" regularly shoot themselves or others.

Gun handling is like being the only car driving on a road during the day with clear, calm weather, no animals, and no pedestrians around. It makes it so simple that all you have to do is maintain a sane speed and drive between the lines and there's no way you can get into an accident. Handling a gun is always like that unless you're on a battlefield or something. If you follow simple rules its impossible to hurt someone.

>Gun owners accidentally shooting themselves means there's a 100% chance they were doing something that following the most basic gun safety controls that everyone knows about would make impossible. You can infer from this that those people were not responsible gun owners.

My point was that the supposed "responsible gun owners" also get it wrong.

Else it's more like a No True Scotsman (where a "responsible gun owner would never accidentally mess with their gun, because anybody who does such things is by definition not a responsible gun owner").

If a cop showcasing "gun safety", an NRA employee, and other such cases with more experience and more training than the average gun owning person, are not "responsible gun owner", then I don't know who we can trust to be. And why we should listen to anybody saying "with me it's OK, I'm responsible". After all that's what the cop was saying before he shot himself...

>Its disingenuous to use examples of people doing incredibly reckless things in order to argue that "responsible gun owners" regularly shoot themselves or others.

It's disingenuous to construct an abstract category of "responsible gun owners" vs the "unresponsible" rest, when even the self-proclaimed "responsible" owners, and even safety/gun experts, mess up.

What we do know is that gun owners regularly shoot themselves or others. Even some claiming to be "responsible" (which is something that all do, only an idiot would claim to be irresponsible or admit to it).

Not to mention the whole point is moot. Even if "responsible gun owners" were 100% issue free, the law doesn't give guns to people who are "responsible gun owners" only, it gives them to anybody who passes some basic checks and wants to buy one. Nor does the law follow up with people in their homes to see if they really follow that "responsible gun operation" that they say they do.

The examples you gave were all extreme cases of gross negligence.

You're feigning ignorance and acting as if they are highly trained people dealing with incredible complexity and unmitigatable danger. Its as simple as it sounds. They pointed loaded guns at other people and/or themselves. Its really easy not to do it 100% of the time. Everyone knows its not ok whether they use guns on a regular basis or not.

Everyone should be able to recognize the unusual amount of irresponsibility they showed. You pretending they were above average because they had gun related jobs doesn't make it so.

The No True Scotsman fallacy doesn't apply. Its a form of unfair gatekeeping. That's not the case here. These people were ignoring everything about gun safety so its perfectly fair to say they don't fall into the category of people that are responsible.

Your lack of trust that anyone can be responsible with a gun is a separate issue. You should be able to recognize by the actions that led to the shootings that these people are not experts.

>Its really easy not to do it 100% of the time.

That's the same tired argument of C advocates regarding memory safety faults in C: "just program carefully, just don't double free / don't go over buffers, etc". As if those doing those things are consciously doing them, and can just decide not to.

And even less so is that case that someone teaching about gun safety, consciously shot himself with a loaded gun. The reality is that people with the best intentions and training can mess it, and that even more so for people don't have the best intention and training. Also people are faulty, memory is faulty, and just "you're doing it right, just do it wrong" is a naive non-solution.

>The No True Scotsman fallacy doesn't apply. Its a form of unfair gatekeeping. That's not the case here. These people were ignoring everything about gun safety so its perfectly fair to say they don't fall into the category of people that are responsible.

If these people (gun owning NRA employee, gun safety demonstrator, and tons of similar examples) can those things happen to them (and ignore safety), anybody can do it.

Even more so when gun safety isn't the issue. Even the most fanatic and OCD-level gun safety follower could just get their gun, when in some anger episode, and kill their spouses. So there's that too.

And it happens by the tons -- unless you're in the mafia or street gang, it's more likely to get it by a gun owning family/friend than by e.g. burglars.

>You should be able to recognize by the actions that led to the shootings that these people are not experts.

That's not even wrong.

And the same goes for owning a car or having a pool in your back yard. That doesn't make it not worth it.

Owning a car is necessary for daily life. And your backyard pool will not impact the rest of society.

>Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.

I agree. Similarly, most people who live in rural areas also have a need for guns to protect themselves adequately - from animals as well as malicious people - as police and other state protection can be an hour or more away when they try to respond rapidly.

I prefer to focus on the Black Panthers use case because there is an interesting cognitive dissonance in the modern left in that anti-racism and gun control are both promoted by the same ideological groups. Tends to be more persuasive in my liberal social bubble as I see a growing lack of empathy for rural Americans.

My personal litmus test for gun control legislation is: "Would this law meaningfully decrease access for a black single mother who is a victim of domestic violence and does not have confidence in a timely police response?"

As a Canadian, I’m always confused at how safe Americans think a gun makes them when in the woods.

Guns are not a good defence against many wild animals. Get some bear spray, it is dramatically more effective and will not kill somebody as easily if you accidentally shoot a person in the dark!

Point taken about the civil rights marches though

In New Jersey, bear spray is also illegal (or it was when I last lived there, 6 years ago). And this is in a state that acknowledges that there's a problem with bear overpopulation.

It appears an amendment to allow bear spray was proposed in 2017, but it hasn't really gone anywhere. https://www.billtrack50.com/BillDetail/842364

I have witnessed a teen use bear spray in a fight that took place outside of tim hortons between 20 teens and an (Not naming) Food delivery service driver in their mid 40's. The guy was screaming on the floor for an hour. The Police considered it as a weapon.

still better than having been shot multiple times at close range, no?

Oh man I'm sure glad that poor youth showed restraint and chose bear mace instead of the glock!

Sounds like you just made a great reason for concealed carry.

what are you talking about? As described, it was the teens who had the weapon - you'd rather they were carrying guns in that situation rather than bear spray? If that's so, I don't want to live in your world.

Under Canadian law, pretty much anything that can be used as a weapon is illegal to carry for use as a weapon. If that fight was in a wooded area where carrying bear spray was a reasonable precaution against bears, there would be no crime. The weapon offense was for carrying bear spray with the primary intention of using it on people.

Yeah, I think bear spray is usually a more appropriate form of defense against animal attacks: in addition to effectiveness, when humans go to their 'home' it is unfair for animals' natural defense or feeding behaviors to cause their deaths.

> if you accidentally shoot a person in the dark!

Fourth rule: always identify your target.

Even despite the dark, you can attach a flashlight to your firearm that allows you to quickly identify the target before shooting at it. Most modern guns have that capability.

Your litmus test is interesting - why focus on that single group of people?

Maybe another litmus test should be "does this meaningfully decrease access to guns for a person who is planning a mass shooting?"

I don't have any stats, and I suspect more single black women die than people at the hand of mass shooters, but you see my point - it's a game of tradeoffs and focusing on a single dimension is myopic.

I don't think your litmus test is particularly useful because any gun control regulation would serve this purpose, so it allows for throwing out the good for the sake of the bad.

It is certainly somewhat arbitrary, but I think it functions as an example of a group that is often physically disadvantaged vs attackers, institutionally disenfranchised, and has reasonable apprehension at the idea of relying on police protection.

Similarly, I like to think about economic legislation in terms of "how would this law affect the chances that a child born into the poorest neighborhood will one day become wealthy?". I think by framing it in a way that lets me imagine a hypothetical individual who is currently least-empowered, it allows me to consider things with a bit more empathy as I can imagine myself in their shoes rather than abstractly thinking about groups. Its hard to reason about fairly balancing many concerns of many groups with various levels of power simultaneously, so I think iteratively looking for laws that would empower the least-empowered can function as a sort of shorthand for moral reasoning.

Most people want stricter background checks. If you pass the checks it's fine. No one is taking away your guns.

>No one is taking away your guns.

Not yet.

> No one is taking away your guns.

You're right, but it's not due to a lack of trying. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Beto O’Rourke all support mandatory buybacks.

Of specific guns, namely rifles designed for military use. Shotguns, pistols, and low-capacity rifles are still fine.

I don't think the military uses too many small caliber semi-auto rifles. Any modern military rifle I can think of was banned for new sale in 1986.

5.56x45mm? Aka .223 Remington?

7.62x51mm? Aka .308 Winchester?

Only two of the most common NATO standards.

This is incorrect. 5.56 != .223 Remington, same for 7.62

It's actually very dangerous to former in civilian guns, designed for latter.

Citation for 5.56 vs .223?

Fact: The external case and bullet dimensions are functionally identical

Fact: The chamber dimensions in respective rifles are close enough, +/- machining tolerances, that "very dangerous" is inaccurate fearmongering

Fact: 5.56 max pressures exceed .223 pressures (to the tune of ~12.5%), but both are subject to the vagaries of exact loading

So while it's not a good idea to fire 5.56 out of a cheap .223 rifle, it's not a death wish to do so out of a .223 engineered to accept the additional pressure.

Curious where you're getting your information?

> Citation for 5.56 vs .223?

> Curious where you're getting your information?

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute

https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unsafe-Arms-and...

page 8:

In Firearms Chambered For: 223 Remington

Do Not Use These Cartridges:

5.56mm Military

---

Also literally first entry in FAQ on SAAMI site: https://saami.org/faqs/#ammunition-firearm-chambered

Can I use 5.56x45mm, 5.56 or 5.56 NATO ammunition in a firearm chambered for 223 Remington (223 Rem)?

NO!

It is not safe to shoot “5.56” “5.56 NATO” or “5.56x45mm” (“5.56”) ammunition in a firearm with barrel marked as being chambered in 223 Remington for a number of reasons. The main reason being that a barrel marked as chambered in 223 Remington will have a shorter throat into the rifling than a “5.56” barrel which may cause increased pressure when the “5.56” ammunition is fired in it. This can result in serious injury or death to the user and/or bystanders, as well as damage to the firearm.

However, it is safe to use SAAMI-compliant 223 Remington ammunition in firearms with a barrel marked as chambered in “5.56.”

If you are unclear about which ammunition is appropriate to safely use in your firearm, consult the firearm owner’s manual or contact the firearm manufacturer for further guidance.

> So while it's not a good idea to fire 5.56 out of a cheap .223 rifle, it's not a death wish to do so out of a .223 engineered to accept the additional pressure.

I can't find the manual online, but I'm sure that in my previous, not quite cheap, Tikka T3 Super Varmint manual it was written the same. It's only truly safe only when manufacturer says so (like it was with now discontinued Ruger Precision 223/5.56, if I recall correctly)

5.56 isn't SAAMI-standardized in the first place, so they legally shouldn't say anything other than their wording there. Which you also see on many .223 rifles as you noted.

But that's a legal perspective.

From an engineering perspective, you can certainly shoot it.

With risks somewhere between "It will behave exactly like .223" and "It will explosively disassemble your gun."

But we're not talking about rocket science here.

Machining dimensions / tolerances + chamber / barrel design + round pressure = risk

All of which are variable enough in practice to make this a grey area.

Dude, this is insane. I sincerely hope that you don't apply this logic in public shooting ranges. You asked for citation, got it, and choose to ignore it.

What you're saying is equivalent that you could go on a car that weighs 5.65 tons on a bridge that can carry only 5 tons, (given that for such bridges the both standard body and constructor explicitly says: "do not do that").

Is it possible? Of course. You even could reload your ammo with nitroglycerin and it still will fit into the rifle.

Yes, there could be some protection built into construction, but this risk worth it?

Depends on the scenario.

People know the facts and make informed choices.

That's the differences between engineers and sheep.

Those are cartridges, not rifles.

A technicality based on the US military's preference for select-fire rifles. Everything else about an AR-15 rifle is based on its original military purpose.

The function of operation is a pretty important technicality.

There are very few guns that aren't based on, derived from, or exactly the same as military weapons. Many of the most popular hunting rifles and shotguns around the world, even those very traditional in style, would qualify as this.

Yes you don't need AR-15 for basic protection.

Except from zombie hordes.

I think at a point up this thread, the discussion was happening in terms of defence against the government (in the context of the HK protests). Arguably, you do need an AR-15 in those cases - or even something with more firepower.

> Yes you don't need AR-15 for basic protection.

What about any of the other rifles that fire the same exact cartridge but are not AR-15's? .223REM/5.56x45mm NATO, .308WIN/7.62x51mm NATO, etc... There's no talk about banning certain cartridges.

Are we just talking about banning a specific shape of a rifle? Why?

Do the people talking about confiscations and bans even understand these things?

Democratic candidates are proposing it in national debates though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXcL_I3uTGI

The reception of his response to this on Beto O'Rouke's reddit AMA was amusing: he received 13k+ downvotes

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d6etv5/hi_im_beto_oro...

Why is it that it's always a one-way street WRT to gun laws?

True compromise would be red-flag laws or background checks, in exchange for national CCW, or taking suppressors and short barreled rifles off the NFA list.

Hence Dave Chappelle's 'joke' that African-Americans should start registering for firearm licences en masse.

They don't need licenses unless they want to concealed carry (in most states).

I don't think most Americans care about the history of the black panthers because nowadays they're a bunch of aggressive anti-white racists. At least in the media that's the only thing portrayed about them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com