Comment by hiddenforest | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hiddenforest | Hacker News Reader

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With the upcoming administration, the likelihood of a ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds is a possibility. Both Joe and Kamala want gun registration, which is a no-no. The government has no business knowing who owns what. They work for us, not the other way around. And no, I'm not a right-wing gun nut. Quite the opposite, actually. I dislike the current administration. Our rights are inalienable, not granted by government. The second something is granted, it's no longer a right, but a granted privilege. I don't do granted privileges. Needless to say, no one I know who is a gun owner plans on registering anything. Most of the people I know who are gun owners bought them in face-to-face buys and there is zero record of them owning anything, as it should be. I dislike both the Dems and the Reps as far as rights go. I'd be happier with a tiny government that exists to protect the borders, ensure free trade, and prevent monopoly. The Founders were correct.

Your point of view is extremely US-centered. I would be shocked, for example, to hear an European to hold such a view.

>Your point of view is extremely US-centered. I would be shocked, for example, to hear an European to hold such a view.

Which Europeans believe that you work for the government, not the government works for you?

You haven't met many Finns, have you? Or Czechs. I know many Europeans who would love to have a 2nd Amendment. I've lived in Europe before, so I've had time to actually speak and interact with locals in several EU countries. I met heaps of Germans with all manner of firearms. It doesn't come up much in conversation in the EU, but the sentiment is alive and well and with more people than you might think.

> I met heaps of Germans with all manner of firearms.

This would seem to contradict the "gun control is the end of gun rights" argument you're trying to make.

And to a man, they loathe the need. However, you would be shocked at the number of "unregistered" firearms in Germany and all over Europe. Guns from the war, guns from abroad, all make their way into Europe. NY State mandated the registration of all AR and AK rifles a couple of years back. State police in NY show that less than 100 people have bothered to do so. Those people know better. Registration can lead to confiscation. Janet Reno, the erstwhile AG, actually said that the purpose of registration is eventual confiscation. No, thank you.

> State police in NY show that less than 100 people have bothered to do so.

So much for the "law abiding gun owners" meme, eh?

edit: While the registration law is indeed believed to be widely broken, the number of registrants was 20k+ people, five years ago. Nowhere near 100. https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/New-York-SAFE-Act-gu...

edit #2: Reno didn't say that, it's a hoax. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/janet-reno-on-gun-control-...

Do you think you shouldn’t need to register your vehicle too? Or obtain a drivers license?

I don't need to register the vehicle if I don't drive it on public property. I don't need to submit my information to the government to buy the vehicle. And I don't need a drivers license on private property either.

Fair enough. So should gun registration be required for it to be carried in public then? So you can buy and keep guns on your private property, but to "operate" it in public you're required to register it. And here in the context of a firearm, operate is carry, not necessarily discharge.

I'd say probably not no.

* I don't see how that wouldn't solve any problem with actual gun crime. Cars are required to be registered since they are meaningfully "operated" in public peacefully, guns aren't. For cars this is different because you can see the license plate, whether or not the registration is current, everybody has one... Nobody that wants to remain in good legal standing would drive an unregistered (unlicensed, uninsured...) car on a public road. Outside of concealed carry and a couple political protests, nobody is carrying guns around in public except criminals. Non-criminals shoot their guns on private property like ranges, and transport them in their vehicles on public roads. The latter has never been a problem. And lastly, criminals aren't going to follow silly restrictions like "get your gun registered before you carry it in public to go murder somebody."

* People are paranoid (probably rightfully so) about a gun registration database. This would not only confirm their fears, it wouldn't be useful for combatting crime making the paranoia worse.

If you take a look at CA's gun laws, almost all of them are laughably stupid to the point that they restrict cosmetic features, and where they don't, they don't meaningfully stop somebody from committing a violent offense with a gun. If you understand how guns work you understand this simply: the gun laws in places like CA are meant to stifle gun culture not prevent crime (since they are laughably ineffective) or they are written by people who are very, very, ignorant of how guns actually work. In the latter case, it has the former effect.

One of the government's fundamental purposes is to protect and maintain your enshrined rights.

For example the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In other words, an inalienable right which is taken away from anyone who is shot and killed or disabled by another person.

There's a very strong argument that the right to life trumps the right to kill.

The USA is a legendary place for amount of gun crime. Probably if you didn't keep shooting each other so much, nobody would care about registering the guns, and you'd be happy.

But collectively you do shoot each other rather a lot. Strikingly more than a lot of other countries.

A little more than 60% of gun deaths in the US are suicides. FWIW.

(this isn't an argument, just adding some context to our awful numbers.)

> Both Joe and Kamala want gun registration

Actually the majority of the country does.

It's refreshing to read that on hackernews.

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