Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

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"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

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