Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlang23 | Hacker News Reader

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

View on HN

As a european who is not always very fond of the US, this is ridiculous, and lazy thinking.

The amount of generalization and black and white simplifications to come up with such a thing is impressive though.

He is far from being the only one to have this feeling. I once intended to even base my business there, but at this point I do not want to have anything to do with this country. This is not lazy thinking, this is exactly the opposite. This is finally catching up with reality and moving beyond hollywood movies and the American dream propaganda.

Your comment is devoid of argument.

So is yours.

Indeed, because I'm not arguing any position in the debate, but offering an observation whose truthfulness anyone can judge on their own.

The parent, on the other hand, was responding to someone in an attempt to prove them wrong. By not saying anything that engaged with what the grandparent said, they failed at that.

So I know what I am, but what are you?

I wish the US would do better too. But the US is not that bad. It's ranked 17 on the human freedom index, along side Sweden.

Just saying, where do you live?

(I'm not American, and I wish they did better, but it's not that bad)

And yet, in this very thread there are discussions, presumably by Americans, about whether human rights “afforded” to people only apply to citizens or all humans.

They are literally arguing if “people” only means US citizens.

The Bill of Rights affords citizens protections from their government. They weren't written as inalienable human rights. So it has long been debated whether those protections are owed to non-citizens.

Yes, those are exactly the types of disturbing discussions I was talking about.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The USA was founded on the premise that human rights applied to all. When any governing entity no longer respects those rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

The current government of the USA, at the urging of a self-selected elite among its supporting citizens, believes those inalienable human rights only apply to a select few. These are the conditions outlined in the Declaration of Independence as reason to overthrow the current regime.

There is well-documented historical precedence. Tread lightly.

While I agree with your point, I need to point out that the Declaration of Independence generally isn't used in case law.

It seems like it would provide quite a bit of relevant background to originalist interpretations of the constitution, and those are fairly common.

Originalism as a legal doctrine means looking at the original meaning of words in the Constitution. It explicitly rejects as too wishy-washy trying to figure out the intent behind laws from other writings and using that to decide what they mean.

> Some people would give the Declaration greater weight, as a reflection of values that inspired the Constitution, and thus of values that we should read into the Constitution even if they are not expressly there in the Constitution's text. But I am skeptical. The two documents are very different. The Declaration is fundamentally a rhetorical document, meant to persuade the world -- and more immediately and significantly, to persuade wavering Americans -- that the revolutionaries' cause was just. The Constitution is fundamentally a legal document, meant to spell out a form of government to which Americans would be bound, and by which that government would be bound. Perhaps the Constitution implemented the rhetorical ideals of the Declaration, but perhaps it didn't (and perhaps it was the worse for that). The way to see if the Constitution implemented the ideals of the Declaration is to look at the Constitution's text, not to assume that it did.

https://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/201... (Note: Blog by UC San Diego prof.)

> The USA was founded on the premise that human rights applied to all.

I agree with you, but when those words were written, slavery was still one of the cornerstones of the American economy and women didn't have the right to vote.

Should the protections afforded by the constitution apply to all people? Of course. But legally, the US has a longstanding tradition of denying certain rights to certain people.

Slavery and suffrage were eventually fixed. perhaps it's revisionist, but I'm told most founders wanted it one way, and wrote non binding language such as this, while punting legal battles to actually implement these principles in favor of diplomacy.

> When any governing entity no longer respects those rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Interesting that you read it that way. I read it as when YOUR governing entity no longer respects YOUR rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Yeah, everyone has the rights, but not everybody has the same government. The People are not random people, they are citizens.

That document declared "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"... which part of that says only some men are created equal, or only citizens were endowed by their Creator, or that maybe some Rights are inalienable?

I see no room in the wording of the founding statement of the USA to read into it that it's OK for an administration to treat some people like shit as long as it's only certain groups. I only get the sentiment that if the administration treats anyone wrong (for a strictly definition of wrong), it's time for them to go.

As soon as it becomes OK to discriminate between those with inalienable rights and those without based on privileges like "citizenship" then it becomes easy to redefine or revoke such privileges at will. There is plenty of historic precedence for just that. The only legitimate reading of 'all' is all, not some or a few or all citizens.

No, everyone has the rights. The point isn't that only citizens do, the point is that only citizens get to say how their government functions. If you're a citizen of another country, you get to say how THAT country is governed, but not mine.

And thus slavery was legal.

Do you think slavery should be legal?

Really I am pretty sure that they do apart from oddities like restriction son roles like the president

Every country in the world makes a distinction between rights/privileges/protections they afford their own citizens vs non-citizens within their borders.

Canada's Bill of Rights does not restrict those rights and protections to citizens except for political rights such as running for office and voting. The right to due process in particular, is considered universal in Canada.

Other countries take a similar approach to rights.

Yes, there exist rights that Canada recognizes in everyone, just like there are rights the US recognizes in everyone. There are also rights it recognizes for a smaller class of persons. Just like I said before.

The US constitution makes the same delination, with the majority of the document outlining the limits of government power. It is only because some people want to strip others of constitutional protection that they argue about who it covers. Everyone gets freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, etc.

We are running concentration camps with 70000 children currently. We elected an almost-Nazi with routinely espoused almost-Nazi views who had a total information awareness intelligence apparatus at his fingertips. We have demonstrated legal facilities for "enemy combatants", "extraordinary rendition", offshore torture, treating an american citizen as a terrorist so they can be denied their constitutional rights.

Most of that is from the Bush administration. The parent's declaration would have been slightly paranoid in that regime, but with this one, it is arguably a bit mild. The statement should now be that no country should be dealing with the USA.

The parent's sentiment might have been somewhat outrageous

Death penalty exists, but it is rare.

Loaded guns exist, but they are not common. Most of them are in the hands of well trained people who are harmless unless (in the unlikely event) that deadly force is the only way they can get out of the situations.

The US has its problems, but you have been listening to propaganda by anti US forces (you might want to figure out who they are and what their agenda is!) if you think either of the above issues are worth a worry.

This should be the top reply.

Most of the points in this post are not accurate. There are more guns in civilian hands here than there are people.

"The Small Arms Survey stated that U.S. civilians alone account for 393 million (about 46 percent) of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership

"Most of them are in the hands of well trained people who are harmless" I am not sure what you base this on, you don't need any training at all to buy a gun, just ~24 - 48 hour waiting period and if you have a concealed carry permit, you can generally walk out with the gun after paying. Depending on the state, training to carry a concealed weapon can take from 2 - 8 hours. Some states don't even require training if you want to open carry your weapon.

In 2010 there were ~20,000 suicides involving a gun. In 2016, there were 11,004 gun homicides. The US leads the world in mass shootings, especially in schools. Accidental gun injuries are most common in homes where guns are kept for self-defense.

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

Getting shot by the police is a leading cause of death in young male people of color.

"you might want to figure out who they are and what their agenda is"

Indeed.

You can buy a gun easily enough. However the people who actually do that tend to be enthusiasts who are well trained. To have a loaded gun on your person you need to be well trained in most states.

Again what do you base this on? I got a concealed carry permit after a 2 hour training class. During this class I had to fire a total of 6 rounds at a target ~15 feet away. I was not given any training on how to use the weapon, only a primer on the laws about when I can shoot someone. At no time did I have to demonstrate that I could safely bring my weapon from concealment to ready without shooting myself in the leg or a bystander. I can guarantee that of the 20 other people in my class, most of them did not meet any definition of "well trained".

"However the people who actually do that tend to be enthusiasts who are well trained" - based on what? You can buy a gun even if you have never fired one before.

Thirty percent of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun, while a larger percentage, 43%, report living in a gun household. - "https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...

Is your argument that 43% of US households consist of well trained enthusiasts and the this is a small number?

> At no time did I have to demonstrate that I could safely bring my weapon from concealment to ready without shooting myself in the leg or a bystander.

It's not hard. If you pull the trigger, a bullet comes out (if the safety is off and if there is one in the chamber). So, simply don't pull the trigger until you are ready to fire a bullet. Most (if not all) people that buy guns, you included, understand this basic concept.

It's not like guns require massive amounts of experience to achieve proficiency. It's a simple tool, not a piano.

Pulling the trigger when you need to sounds like a simple problem in theory, but much more complicated in practice.

My uncle told me a story about when he was deployed to Afghanistan there was a designated area by the mess hall you were supposed to use to ensure your sidearm chamber was clear. Every once in a while, there was an accidental discharge and an officer would be seen over there sheepishly holstering their sidearm. My uncle pointed out that it wasn't required that you had to pull the trigger, just that you had to ensure the chamber was empty. My uncle said he never had a single accidental discharge in the 2 years he was there because he simply never pulled the trigger. If you don't pull the trigger, no bullets come out.

Meanwhile, this happens:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-off...

And this:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/03/19...

So soldiers trained by the US military would sometimes make mistakes with their weapon resulting in a discharge they were not expecting? Seems like perhaps its not so simple a tool after all...

That's like saying a knife isn't a simple tool since chefs sometimes cut themselves despite being trained to use them.

How do you store and carry your weapon safely? How do you transport it? Who has access to it and the ammunition? It is a simple tool that kills tens of thousands of people a year, the least we can do is treat it with at least the level of respect we give other potentially deadly tools (hardly a piano).

Most gun owners give their gun that level of respect.

Car owners kill far more people than gun owners do not give much respect to how deadly their weapon is.

Car owners kill ~38,000 people a year. Guns kill ~15,000 a year (excluding suicides). There are roughly 20,000 suicides a year via firearm. I would argue that if you compared the number of cars driven on a daily basis in the us vs the number of guns fired, that guns cause far more deaths on a per use basis. Seems like Car owners are far more respectful of their 'weapon' on a per capita basis.

+1, on top of that

Car killing people -> mostly accidents.

Gun killing people -> mostly intentional.

> How do you store and carry your weapon safely? How do you transport it? Who has access to it and the ammunition? It is a simple tool that kills tens of thousands of people a year

Unintentionally? I highly doubt that. I would guess the majority of the tens of thousands of deaths were the result of the gun owner intentionally pulling the trigger, not because they were bumbling around transporting it incorrectly, storing ammo incorrectly, etc.

According to this[1], only 500 people died in 2016 due to gun accidents. The rest were intentional.

[1] https://www.aftermath.com/content/accidental-shooting-deaths...

You do realize that 500 gun deaths alone would make headlines in most other countries?

500 accidents in a country with gun rights and a population of over 300M is nothing. You have like a 1 in a million chance of dying by a gun accident. Even lower if you don't own or use guns. It's a non-problem.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Don Diego de la Vega [indicating sword]: Do you know how to use that thing?

Alejandro Murrieta: Yes! The pointy end goes into the other man.

He's parroting NRA talking points.

> You can buy a gun easily enough.

All you need is to know some guy.

> To have a loaded gun on your person you need to be well trained in most states.

All you really need is to grab a loaded gun and conceal it about your person. No paperwork required.

The problem is not guns I think, it's the culture of violence, and fear. Don't Swiss families all have shotguns from the military in their homes?

That's not true. To go from a novice with absolutely no experience with guns to a person with a concealed carry license took one day of a seminar in a southern east coast state.

You are making an innumerate argument. The odds of dying in a car vs getting shot are relevant. There’s no meaningful risk of getting shot and the US is one of the safest places in the world. Those are facts. You should try and get out more.

"There’s no meaningful risk of getting shot and the US is one of the safest places in the world"

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

The United States is Ranked 94th in the world by intentional homicide rate.

"The odds of dying in a car vs getting shot are relevant." Why? I did not mention cars at all in my post so not sure how you bringing up cars renders my response illogical. Is your argument that individuals killed by gun violence would still be dead if there were no guns? Does this include victims of mass shootings in schools, churches etc.? By your rational, we should allow all countries to own nuclear weapons as the odds of dying in a car crash vs a nuclear explosion are far higher.

In 2017, over 15,000 people were killed by firearms (excluding suicide) and traffic deaths killed ~38,000. A car's primary function is not to kill, whereas a gun has almost no other purpose.

I appreciate the recommendation to get out more, but one of the nice things about modern technology is we always have access to facts wherever we are, and those facts indicate your points are very flawed.

A few things:

First, when you bring up the page, the list wasn't sorted by rate, so being 94th on it is meaningless. It turns out that if you sort it by rate, the US is 89th, so not much difference, but... the unsorted list didn't prove your point.

Next, so what if the US was Xth on the list? Is that good? Bad? Indifferent? Your claim seems to be that that's high, but you don't actually provide any reason to reach that conclusion based on place on the list.

Why are cars relevant? Because most of us accept the risk of driving in a car, without worrying about the danger level. It's low enough that we just casually accept it. If guns kill half as many, that's too many (it's also too many from cars!), but it's not a danger that keeps many of us awake at night.

> A car's primary function is not to kill, whereas a gun has almost no other purpose.

That argument may not be saying what you think. First, the dead don't care either way. But second, if cars kill more by accident than guns do on purpose, does that make cars better, or worse?

Given the amount of ammunition fired into targets and other inanimate objects for fun, I take issue with that "purpose" argument.

Given that I once threw a bean burrito at a road sign for fun as a teenager I take issue with its supposed purpose of being eaten \s

Your argument is invalid.

Now, let's compare the final destination of the average bean burrito vs the final destination of the average bullet.

Most bullets are destined to be fired directly into objects, most guns fired will never be used to take or defend a life.

Maybe if there were an entire recreational industry built around tossing burritos at road signs. But, uh, there's not.

15,000/325,000,000 ~= 1/25,000. Just for scope because 15,000 sounds big but not that huge for a country this large. Yes its way too high, but its not like Americans are Yosemite Sam all the time.

The only countries in the world with a higher rate are:

Honduras, Eswatini, Jamaica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Philippines, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay

I would say those concerns are not really big ones, at least not for me. The big ones are treatment of foreigners on state level in US - it is extremely xenophobic. You are literally a lesser human being and have some basic human rights revoked when not holding US passport, morality and sanity be damned.

Imagine this kind of treatment for you if you travel for leisure or business. Would you ever, and I mean ever, want to have anything to do with such a place? People vote with their feet/money.

Anti-US forces really don't have to try hard with propaganda. Heck, they don't have to do anything. US is doing all this by itself, and thanks to internet those cases are not buried as easily as in the past.

I'm a US citizen. Most of his points are valid.

Guns fucking everywhere is a problem. Lots of Americans think so. Yes, we absolutely execute people -- and our criminal justice system is a completely sham, especially if you're not white and rich.

Oh, and God save you from our health care economics.

If I weren't American, I'd absolutely never come here. In fact, I am American, and I'm actively researching ways to establish residency elsewhere.

> Guns fucking everywhere is a problem.

Which is a bigger problem - guns everywhere or cars everywhere?

Cars really depend on where you are. The US is huge, and it's not really possible to live in e.g. rural Texas without owning a car. Everything is miles and miles apart. On the flip side, New York has an efficient subway and few people own cars. But with the geography of America, it's simply not practical to have the same sort of public transport common in Europe.. the country is 3000 miles wide.

Unfortunately having cars everywhere (and a car-centric culture and urban landscape) will probably kill more people in the long run via CO2 emissions than gun domestic deaths. The collapse of the entire ecosystem and the corresponding mass extinction is undeniably the most important problem of this century.

While technically true, why is this a useful argument? Amount of guns and amount of cars are not linked in any way

>Guns fucking everywhere is a problem.

Please elaborate. I have a house in an open carry state, and I rarely seen anyone actually carrying. Even as a gun owner by far the most likely place I'm going to see a gun is on the hip of a law enforcement officer.

Please consult literally any source on gun-related violence, injury, and death in the US vs. any other modern, liberal democracy.

Is it really that bad though. We like painting a negative picture, because we want the US to improve.

But on the human freedom index the US is ranked 17 alongside Sweden.

The US has problems, systemic and cultural problems that should be fixed. But your risk of getting shot in a mass shooting is low.

On one hand, we should always evaluate if we are suffering "the grass is greener over there" effect.

On the other hand, Aaron Sorkin explains[1] in 3 minutes how the USA is far from the best place to live and what made us great when we were better in those different ratings.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw (NSFW audio)

"But your risk of getting shot in a mass shooting is low. "

But absurdly HIGHER than say, in Sweden. And most gun violence isn't mass shootings.

Plus, there's the ever-present specter of medical bankruptcy.

Yes, but overall the risk of getting shot is still low. So it being 10x higher isn't that bad.

I didn't say the US doesn't have issues, just that looking at the whole picture -- and comparing with other countries, it's not that horrible.

In Sweden economic opportunities are slightly fewer. Not that it really matters, if you live in modern Western country you're doing pretty well.

As an American I read that as, "we don't have to change, and anyone who suggests we might is in on some conspiracy." Head out of the sand, my friend.

You are right that the death penalty is rare. Rare as in very few developed countries allow it.

Regarding guns, please stop to ask why our friends and neighbors need to carry a killing device to feel themselves.

The US has its problems, but it has corrected many of them over time. (vide: slavery) This occurred when citizenry was not content to leave things where they are and dismiss criticism.

> The US has its problems, but you have been listening to propaganda by anti US forces (you might want to figure out who they are and what their agenda is!)

I think if you think these things are anti-US propaganda, I think you might want to examine the bias you have when you observe your own country.

The death penalty may be rare but it's something that shouldn't exist, especially in a well-developed country and even moreso in a country that frequently proclaims itself the embodiment of freedom, democracy and liberty.

Having grown up in a country that is very restrictive on gun ownership, I feel largely the same about civilian firearms.

> Death penalty exists, but it is rare.

As an American, this attitude drives me nuts. "We don't kill that many people, and heck most of them are even guilty!"

Regarding "loaded guns exist, but they are not common." Again, this is the same attitude of "Even though we have a mass shooting every week, all in all it's not that much." Even if my chances of getting murdered in public are lower than, say, a car accident, the fact that we now teach preschoolers active shooter drills says something sad about our country.

Mass shootings are an incredibly small source of gun deaths. ~2/3rd are suicide and ~1/3rd are murder.

While the US does have pretty high gun related homicide rates, it is largely because proportionally more of our homicides involve guns. Our overall homicide rate is a fair bit higher than most european countries but nowhere near the top world-wide (about #90.)

However, much of this is concentrated into particular locations as the US does have many of the top 50 cities in the world by homicide rate (behind only mexico, brazil and venezuela).

Overall, US gun ownership does not present a significant practical risk unless you go to certain places. Concerns about gun policy (and the death penalty) by potential visitors to the US are thus ideologically, not practically based.

I personally think that our lack of collective support for our struggling cities/regions says much more about us as a country than our active shooter drills (of which I am also not a fan).

You are correct that such fears aren't terribly practical. Human beings in fact aren't terribly reasonable about what they are concerned about.

They bike to work, smoke a cig, and then worry about a Muslim terrorist blowing them up.

Unfortunately people aren't reasonable and our prosperity is partly based on resources and partly based on sucking in a lot of smart people from elsewhere to further enrich the nation we built with said resources and this shitty marketing could easily damage the second ultimately more important source of our prosperity.

> While the US does have pretty high gun related homicide rates, it is largely because proportionally more of our homicides involve guns. Our overall homicide rate is a fair bit higher than most european countries but nowhere near the top world-wide (about #90.)

While not exactly wrong I would definitely argue that "a fair bit higher" is a gross mischaracterization. The US has an intentional homicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000, which is many times higher than UK (1.2), France (1.3), Germany (1.0), Spain (0.7), Italy (0.67) or any of the Nordic countries.

> Concerns about gun policy (and the death penalty) by potential visitors to the US are thus ideologically, not practically based.

Depends how you frame it. Yes, your chances of getting killed in a random shooting are lower than a lot of other more mundane things. At the same time, your chances of getting killed in a random shooting in the US are many, many times higher than getting killed in a random shooting in one of the European countries previously mentioned.

> While not exactly wrong I would definitely argue that "a fair bit higher" is a gross mischaracterization.

"A fair bit" isn't particularly precise but it does means "quite alot" or "a large amount" so think it is a gross mischaracterization to call it a gross mischaracterization. If we are being pedantic, "Several times" is more accurate than "many times" since many generally means a bit more than 4 or 5.

> Depends how you frame it

I don't think so. Practically speaking, all that matters is comparing absolute risks of different causes of death in a specific situatio. For a foreign tourist the risk of gun related homicide in the US is significantly smaller than the other risks of death (such as cars). The relative amount of that risk compared to other countries isn't practically relevant. The risk of drowning in a locked dry room is many times the risk of drowning in a bathtub with an inch of water, that doesn't mean that the risk of drowning in that bathtub is practically relevant (unless you are a baby or extremely drunk/drugged).

That whole attitude of being "the greatest country in the world" always seemed so peculiar to me. I get that all countries tend to be patriotic and embellish themselves but that just sounds a bit ridiculous and antagonistic. For a country established by immigrants and populated by immigrants, you'd think the national identity would be a bit more versatile.

Instead, it's been homogenized to the point where people have to fight their own perceptions to reclaim their culture and identity. It's a shame, really.

As an American, I'm lovin' it! Guns are everywhere, yet shootings are very rare. I feel very safe knowing I and others around me all want and enjoy safety, and we have strong law enforcement to keep it that way.

(Although I agree that our 4th amendment has been horrifically raped in modern times.)

The vast majority of gun deaths are consentual (suicide), and of the homicidal remainder, the vast majority are within organized crime. Stay away from gang activity and don't flagrantly disobey police officers, and I guarantee you'll be completely fine.

If you disagree with all this, it's probably just not the country for you. You make a good decision staying out.

> The vast majority of gun deaths are consentual (suicide),

~2/3 is a majority, but certainly not a vast majority.

> and don't flagrantly disobey police officers, and I guarantee you'll be completely fine.

Plenty of people are shot by police without flagrantly disobeying police orders. It may reduce your risk, but it does not eliminate it.

> If you disagree with all this, it's probably just not the country for you. You make a good decision staying out.

As a country founded on pluralism, The USA has plenty of room and hospitality to offer those who disagree with you.

2/3 = 66% So if I ate 66% of a cake you just ordered, and handed you back the rest would that not be considered a vast majority of your cake?

Nope, 'vast' means more than very large and its closest synonyms are 'immense' or 'boundless'. I would consider a vast majority to require at LEAST an order of magnitude difference, so 90%+ as a bare minimum and I would probably not use it myself until more like 95% and I would still consider that rather hyperbolic up until 99%. You could call 66% a strong majority or a clear majority, but 'vast' is far too strong in my opinion.

My sentiment exactly! To me, the essence of America is captured in the New Hampshire state motto: "Live free or die".

There are some people who don't vibe with this sort of philosophy. But thank God the USA exists for those of us that do!

If the guns were removed, you'd be more safe, as if there are no guns your chance of shooting goes down from "very rare" to 0.

That is patently false.. By definition criminals do not follow the letter of the law, a good example being that murder is already illegal. Strangely enough though, it still happens. Weird right? So would it also make sense that even if guns are illegal that maybe some bad actors would still have and use them in an illegal manner? Disarming law abiding citizens is all you're doing. Full stop.

Hunt, catch, and disarm the criminals too, like murderers. Then when we catch the criminals with them, we take the guns and destroy them. Illegal things happen but over time with proper enforcement they happen less. Such effort requires sustained unified community effort and political commitment without playing games for votes and lobby dollars, which is the most unrealistic and impossible thing of this whole scenario.

If we can keep nuclear weapons out of criminal's hands we can keep anything out of criminal's hands, it's just a matter of doing it correctly.

You are far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver in the US than by a gun. Your chances of being killed by a gun are basically zero (unless you are travelling to the US specifically to commit suicide), so that's a somewhat bogus concern

I'm always amazed by how few shooting fatalities there are in the US. 330M population, 33K gun deaths per annum [1]. And two thirds of the gun deaths are suicides. So that's only 10K homicides per annum. That's 1 in 33K. In the UK we have 65M population, and 800 murders per annum. That's 1 in 81K. Given that the US is so heavily armed I'd expect the gun death rate to be much higher. IMHO that demonstrates that the average person is equal to the responsibility of firearm ownership.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

You can also factor out gang-related gun homocides since your average American/tourist is not involved in organized crime. Basically, the chances of being killed randomly by a mass shooting or random murderer are extremely tiny.

I will say though that even ignoring gun homicides, our average homicide rate in the USA is rather high compared to other western countries.

Tiny is relative is it not? Relative to Japany chances of getting shot are extremely high. It's also not just about getting shot, it's about being near it and having to worry about it. I've been in at least 3 shooting situtstions in my time in the USA. Once in Westwood waiting in line for movie, once in Santa Monica while eating, once in Mira Loma as a kid and if I add friends and family they've all had experiencea. They weren't shot but they should not have to we even worry about the proximity.

Go live in a safe country for a few years then come back and you'll feel what you've become insensitive to

> Relative to Japan, chances of getting shot are extremely high.

Right, but still... https://xkcd.com/1252/

Something doesn't look right in your numbers. In fact the Wikipedia page you quoted includes a "Gun-related homicide and suicide rates in high-income OECD countries" chart that doesn't match your conclusion.

I checked the ONS statistics[1] for England and Wales (including Scotland and Northern Ireland shouldn't make a huge difference) and it says: "There were 29 homicide victims killed by shooting in the year ending March 2018, three fewer than the previous year. The number of homicides by shooting has fluctuated between 21 and 32 over the last six years."

Are you sure that you aren't comparing apples to oranges, so gun deaths in the US against all homicides in the UK regardless of the method? Another quote from the same paper suggests that might be the case: "There were 726 homicides in the year ending March 2018, 20 more (3% increase) than in the previous year."

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...

According this article (https://www.businessinsider.com/us-gun-death-murder-risk-sta...) your chances of dying from a motor vehicle incident is approximately three times higher than dying from a gun assault.

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, I would have assumed the chances of dying by gun assault was even lower. How was the probability of dying from a gun assault calculated? With car accidents you can generally assume random distribution, but you have to do some math with gun statistics before you can assume random distribution (remove suicides, remove gang-related deaths, etc.)

I'd be surprised if car accidents were randomly distributed. But assuming GP is correct, or even assuming you are correct that it's an even bigger difference, I'd argue that both are way too high, and that the gun deaths even being in the same order of magnitude as car deaths is entirely preventable, and pretty shocking in itself.

You bring up a good point. Traffic fatalities in general are are a HUGE problem in the US, not just alcohol-related, and they're mostly due to poor civil engineering. Another abject failure of US governance.

I don't understand why people always discount suicides among gun deaths, as if suicides only happen to "other people".

It's true that you can limit your gun risk by being white/urban/middle-class/mentally healthy, but these are not advantages available to everyone. There's a lot of victim-blaming in some of these comments, which glosses over the fact that plenty of infants and toddlers die from guns.

Gun deaths in total numbers are roughly the same as car deaths: each are approx 30-40K per year in the USA.

When someone says they don't want to travel to the USA because they are afraid of being killed by a gun, it is disingenuous to inflate their chances of dying by including suicide as an option.

If I say "What are my chances of dying by gun or car if I go on a vacation to the USA?" are you really going to factor in suicide as an option? Generally it is presumed that the person is not considering going to the USA to commit suicide on their vacation.

Thus, most people discount suicides to tailor the gun figure such that a more apples-to-apples comparison can be made.

It's like people claiming to be terrified of going to Japan because the chance of dying by a rope around your neck is insanely high compared to the USA.

> I don't understand why people always discount suicides among gun deaths, as if suicides only happen to "other people".

Probably because the interesting statistic is not "gun deaths" but rather "fatal gun-related accidents" and "homicides" (with or without a gun involved). Suicides don't just "happen"; there is no "risk of suicide" which could be affected by the presence or absence of any particular tool. If you don't want die from suicide, the solution is as simple as not attempting suicide.

> there is no "risk of suicide" which could be affected by the presence or absence of any particular tool.

This is wrong though. Reducing access to means and methods is one of the best ways to prevent suicide and we see drops in rates of suicide whenever we see changes to a commonly used method.

Two of the best documented examples are when the UK changed from coal gas to natural gas, and when the UK introduced catalytic converters.

Obviously reducing access to means and methods is not the only thing we should be doing to reduce death by suicide. But it is an important part of the package of measures.

You're missing the point. You're talking about reducing the number of (successful) suicides. I'm saying that there is no risk of suicide either way because it's something that people choose to do, and choices are not risks.

You're missing the point that if someone chooses to die but uses a less lethal method then there's a good chance they do not die and are saved by medical attention.

You're making the mistake of thinking that someone makes a choice to die and is then determined to carry out that choice and will use rational thinking to chose the most lethal method. It's often not a choice they make; they're often not determined to die and people usually do not make efforts to avoid being found; choice of method is complex but tends to focus on what's easily available and quickly fatal.

Have a read of The International Handbook of Suicide Prevention, edited by Rory C. O'Connor, Jane Pirkis, because it covers all this in detail. Or you can read the NCISH research. Or you can read Professor Nav Kapur's book Suicide Prevention.

> You're missing the point that if someone chooses to die but uses a less lethal method then there's a good chance they do not die and are saved by medical attention.

Forcing someone to live when they wish to die is no better than killing someone who wishes to live. You are welcome to try to talk them out of it but have no right to interfere with their choice—whatever it may happen to be.

> Forcing someone to live

Suicide prevention is not "forcing someone to live". Suicidal thoughts are usually transient and any delay in suicidal action allows the person to seek help. Like I said in my first post, reducing access to means an methods is only part of the package that we need to be providing.

You keep trying to make this point: you keep trying to say that suicide is a choice that people make. I'll try again: it often is not a choice that people make. Please just go read the research. Here's a tweet about "Rapid Onset Despair": https://twitter.com/ProfLAppleby/status/939820235946971138

You especially need to pay attention to intoxication and suicide. Or are you saying that an impulsive decision made when very drunk is no different to a considered decision that is stable over months made when sober?

> no right

Since you mention rights, people have a right to life and suicide prevention respects that right. It respects that right in a way that wide-spread gun-ownership doesn't.

UNCRC Article 6: https://downloads.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/U...

UNDHR Article 3: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

UNCRPD article 10: https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...

I live in England and the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act specifically give HCPs the right to take away people's choice in some limited situations. I don't know where you live but you almost certainly have similar laws around substituted decision making.

Yes - on a personal level, I tend to avoid travelling to the US. For the same reasons that I avoid travelling to most of the Middle East or China.

I found my time in China rather pleasant. However, I am aware of other less positive stories about traveling in China.

> I found my time in China rather pleasant.

Yes. As are some places in the Middle East. And so so many places in the US are great too, of course. It's just that the attitude of those states (and the most extreme parts of the population) towards foreigners make most trips not worth the risk.

Middle East I can understand but what's your beef with China?

Not AP but given my own government is unable to protect its own citizens travelling there im not about to risk a transfer through there. It's unlikely anything would happen but given my work I'm almost certainly on a list there and I'm simply not willing to risk it.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-24/china-hostage-dipl...

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/yang-hengjun-australian-writer-d...

There are 16 countries rated higher on the "human freedom index": https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/human-freedom-i...

I assume you won't travel to Sweden, they have the same score as the US :)

Don't get me wrong, I also frustrated the US doesn't so better -- not because the US is that bad, but because it would be so easy for the US to do better.

And for some reason I emphasize with the Americans :) (I live in Denmark, but I'm not scared of traveling to neither Sweden or the US -- but I've never been to a non-democratic country, no plans to either).

ironically, Hawaii has no death penalty and extremely restrictive gun laws. it's a big country!

Oh come on now. In Australia you can be detained without charge and all they have to do is mention the 't' word. I also had someone turn up to our tabletop session on the weekend saying trains had stopped because someone got shot outside the station, while I struggle to get a license for a muzzle loading antique flintlock rifle. Not to mention I can get fined for all matter of stupid stuff because of the nanny state.

The US isn't perfect, but of all the places in the world you could live it's undeniably one of the best. Probably second only to Germany in my favourite places to travel, tbh

> a general attitude of being the masters of the world

Sounds like you don't appreciate the regional and resource stability that the US military brings to your country. You probably just take it for granted that cargo ships can travel freely and trade without worry of being attacked. Global trade wasn't this risk-free before the US navy became "masters of the world".

Maybe we need to dissolve NATO then because clearly the EU does not see defense as a priority and puts little to no effort protecting its interests since the US takes care of it. I vote the US pull out of NATO and stop being "masters of the world" in the middle east, protecting shipping lanes with the navy, etc. EU can protect its own interests with its own defense budget. Good luck.

And worse - no proper support for Metric!

By far the greatest sin

This comment is as mindless as the generalisation it's applying to an entire population.

It's more about American governance than anything else.

This is not about the US citizenry but about the state.

If you can't actually see how the American state (not population or country) has devolved into something to be concerned about over the last 20 years, perhaps you're not looking hard enough.

Domestic politics and policies are cruel and divisive, international policies have regressed dramatically (i.e. they've pulled out of major international treaties around arms and climate and trade).

In the eyes of the average world citizen, America used to export an aspirational culture, now they export greed, cynicism, and technological dystopia (and I don't mean Facebook, I mean mass surveillance and drone warfare).

They are of course not alone in all this, but they are the biggest and most powerful country on the planet, so they lead by example, and it's becoming a shittier example every year.

So yeah, as an outsider looking into the US, I don't find that comment mindless at all.

The United States government is legitimized by its people. While I highly disagree with the ‘America terrible’ feeling your argument does not hold.

I’d instead say that it is legitimate as long as it continues to align with and perpetuate the interests and values of its people. To that end, if our government has strayed from that in significant ways, it delegitimizes itself and we, the people have an obligation to ourselves and others to rein it in.

America, the people, is still a source of pride for me but one can hold that view and still see significant flaws with how our government acts on our behalf - or despite it.

> If you can't actually see how the American state (not population or country) has devolved into something to be concerned about over the last 20 years

I find this timeframe strange. Although the US has had major policy mishaps in the last 20 years (Iraq war, NSA surveillance, etc), imo policy is still better than at any other time in America's history.

What timeframe do you think had "better" policy?

The fact that you refer to the murdering of a couple of million Iraqis as a 'policy mishap' just underscores the other guys point.

... and doesn't actually answer the guy you're replying to at all.

Mind you, I'm not saying that he's right. I'm just saying that you didn't actually answer him.

Q1 & Q2 2001.

After that began US's relentless creation of the modern, comprehensive surveillance state. It is the largest possible government and will effectively repress our great-grandchildren and theirs.

As an American, I advocate some isolationism to protect other countries. The reason is that other nations are proving grounds for the future mistreatment of US citizens. Protecting other countries now protects future Americans.

>This is not about the US citizenry but about the state.

So "stop dealing with the USA" is supposed to mean stop dealing with the US government? I don't think so.

Kind of hard to live here without dealing with the US government. Even harder to visit here without dealing with the US government. (The US government's actions when you cross the border was the original topic, after all.)

> Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A.

The US is about 4% of the world population. The rest of the world about 96%.

(Google for "US population" and "world population", use mathematical process known as division.)

But you realize that ordinary people don't have a large choice in this right? We can vote and vote and vote, but until the majority wins, and helps facilitate change, we are stuck with how people perceive our country as well as some of the harsh realities of living here.

I feel like you insulted me for the actions of my country. Isn't this how racism and hate is spread? I'm now not worth knowing and should be shyed away from because of my country...

Edit: I think the downvotes are a bit uncalled for. The OP said people should avoid the US because of its practices. The OP didn't say ANY country with these practices, China, Middle East, North Korea, Russia. It was a very general statement that has is heavily opinion driven.

You’re being downvoted for your “whataboutism”, being insulted and for comparing their mild comment to racism and hatred.

If you turn up in another country, sure, I have no problem interacting with you (assuming that you don't support the policies of your state). If I travel to the US though, I'm just as powerless against the state as you are - in fact, even more so - and so I'll avoid doing so.

I think most reasonable people know about North Korea, etc. That's not a benchmark

What surprises me the most is the huge divide between these horrific things that happen at government level and the fact that 99% of Americans I met were instead very lovely people.

To meet lovely people doing horrific things, live in one of the (not poor) DC Metro Area neighborhoods.

Why are you on hackernews, a USA website / company?

He says while commenting on web site based in the USA

As an American citizen, I've been trying to talk my family into leaving for years. Comments here reference the problem being the State and not the citizens. I beg to differ, the citizens in "general America" are dangerous and stupid to themselves and everyone around them. The entitled attitude of middle and upper middle class anyone is so unreasonable, I sometimes walk around the gang-tagged zones in my own neighborhood and think "we're a nation of trapped rats, we deserve this for the lies we keep repeating, we keep eating, we keep electing, and the most empty lie how we're the greatest nation on earth, what a hoot!"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com