Total Beginners Guide to Guns | Hacker News Reader

Total Beginners Guide to Guns

theprepared.com

46 pointsexolymph43 comments

It seems so important to Americans to own guns. I don't understand why, but sure, it's your country, live it like you like.

For my side, I'm happy to know that people around me don't have guns. If I beep at a bad driver in front of me, he won't come out with a pistol. I won't be shot at by accident if I'm driving through a bad neighbourhood. If my neighbour gets drink, he might pee in my flowers, but won't come at me with a revolver.

Guns do not shoot on their own, people shoot.

Yeah and that’s terrifying, people are crazy.

More people are sane than are crazy. I live in a major city in Texas and I like that the mostly sane people around me might be carrying.

I see it as a type of herd immunity against people who are actually crazy

Basically you are saying that you like the power balance between the crazy and non-crazy. Which is quite dependent on the definition of “crazy” and does not depend on the _level_ of power. One could have roughly the same balance with very limited weapons available as well as even more and more powerful weapons being carried. It’s interesting how societies decide as to how to achieve that balance.

And if he comes at you with a baseball bat, he can do so without fear.

Can he? I could have a baseball bat too. Or I could just drive/run away. A baseball bat has a very limited range.

Easier to flee from a baseball bat man than a gun man.

(i'm pro-gun and open carry in the US, but this argument is poor)

BTW, the best argument for pro-gun, pro-open carry are the Black Panthers, and i think an armed marxist, anarchist or antifa movment that focus on autodefense and street occupation is the best way to fight back.

I’ve also brought up the Black Panthers in this context.

Both you and the other reply are correct, it’s easier to run from the bat-man. But, as you probably know, most people can’t hit anything with their sidearms beyond 20 feet away. And you may not be able to run away. There could be a baseball bat gang. Or there could be other people who need your protection; or you could be injured or disabled.

But, more generally, I’d like to know why my argument is poor. One of the points in favor of allowing people the use of guns for self defense is that it helps the weak defend against the strong; and it helps anyone to defend against others with deadly weapons, whether firearms, bats, knives, or fists. Isn’t that so?

Some general points (I’m not judging your argument, just countering):

1. If you are cornered by a gang, you’re probably screwed anyway, no matter the arms involved, so I guess this is a moot point.

2. Baseball bats do not fit into jacket pockets. I can’t walk into a bar with one and no one notices.

3. Destructive power of a bat is so much lower than of a gun. Sure you can kill a person with it, but not a dozen of people on the street (easily).

4. Baseball bats are kind of localised. I can be hit by a stray bullet but unless I’m right in the heat of a fight, I won’t be accidentally killed by a baseball bat.

5. Melee weapons wound first, kill second. It is much harder to shoot to wound. So with a melee weapon you can stop more easily.

6. If I’m heavily intoxicated, I may struggle to wield a bat with any efficiency, but still fire bullets around.

If someone wants to apply direct, criminal level of bodily harm, sure, they can use a knife. Already, this is a higher risk, as they have to stand closer to me etc. But the risk of collateral damage seems so much lower when guns are not involved.

These would all be highly relevant points if I were arguing that bats and guns are equivalent. But my argument assumed the opposite of that.

> There could be a baseball bat gang.

I have a much better chance of running away from the baseball bat wielding gang than the gun wielding gang, and about as much chance of fighting off a baseball bat wielding gang with a bat as I do of winning a shootout with a gun wielding gang (basically zero).

The collateral damage from my conflict with the baseball bat gang will also almost certainly be smaller.

Note: not arguing for gun control in general (though there are certain reforms I'd like to see, and some useless laws I'd like to see rolled back) and I didn't down-vote you. Just pointing out that in virtually all conflicts I'd prefer the baseball bat scenario to the gun scenario.

> Easier to flee from a baseball bat man than a gun man.

Perhaps if you are able bodied and min good health, but not everyone is so fortunate.

> i think an armed marxist, anarchist or antifa movment that focus on autodefense and street occupation is the best way to fight back.

Fight back against what? I want to fight back against Marxists, not join them, why would you want to fight with Marxists if you're pro-gun?

Can you name a single Marxist movement or revolution that ended in the establishment of a state with gun rights?

> Cannabis: Note that even if you live in a state with legal marijuana, it’s still a crime at the federal level. These forms will ask if you are a “user of illegal drugs including marijuana.” There are no drug tests or verification.

Always glad to see ridiculous laws effectively nullified by lack of enforcement.

You also need to learn the law of self defense, equally if not more important, if you plan to use a gun for self defense.

I always worry that if I were to go through the process of buying a gun, on some level I'd feel compelled to use it in order to justify the time and expense. I've yet to be in any situation in my life where I need one, but I feel like if I had one, I'd start looking at things differently and asking myself: "Is this a situation that calls for the gun?"

And that scares me much more than the potential for an intruder.

(I say this not as a criticism of anyone else. It's just an observation and concern that I have for myself.)

If I was a hunter, the concern would probably go away. Because hunters have a legitimate/legal reason to regularly use their firearms. But if I owned one for the purpose of self-defence, I'm pretty sure I'd go looking for situations that called for it.

I once read something that went like:

- do not carry a gun if you are not ready to draw it

- do not draw a gun if you are not ready to shoot

- do not shoot if you are not ready to kill

Because when faced with an opponent with a gun, one moment of hesitation could mean your death.

I also read (from a gun instructor) that if you intend to use a gun for self defense, you should know that using it will bankrupt you. Because even if you use it in a lawful way, the legal process that will determine that it was lawful costs more than the typical gun owner can carry financially.

So I think you are right. I can understand how fear might push to buy a gun, but I definitely see it as a bad idea, even if the danger the person fears is real (which I think is often not the case). Using a gun is the end of your life.

As a non American, it is often puzzling to read that there is even a debate about it.

> even if the danger the person fears is real (which I think is often not the case). Using a gun is the end of your life.

In 2020 in the US, there were 674 cases of defensive gun use[1], actually down from 751 in 2019. For the record, that's more cases than mass shootings in the US[2], despite what most news sites would have you believe. And 2020 was an abnormally high year for mass shootings. So I disagree with your "often is not the case" statement, because many times it is the case.

But I think that misses the point. If the danger a person fears is real, then even if you are financially bankrupt after having to use a firearm in self defense, you're still alive, which is better than being flush with cash and dead.

But beyond that, personal protection is, interestingly, not what America's second amendment was made for - it's merely a side effect. It's actually about giving the people the right to, effectively, overthrow the government, or at least keep them in check. It's about balance of power.

And before someone chimes in about how a bunch of rednecks with AR-15s will never overthrow the military with their tanks and jets and bombs, leaving aside the fact that many military personnel would probably disobey orders to attack Americans, the fact is there are over 300 million guns in the hands of an estimated 150 million people; whereas there are about 1.3 million active military personnel[3], and as they say -- quantity is it's own quality.

[1] https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/firearms/defens...

[2] http://mass-shootings.info/statistics.php?year=2020

[3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili...

As the link points out, the real number of defensive gun uses is 1/2 to 5 million per year, which strengthens your argument. The 674 are just those recorded by law enforcement.

Wow, that's a 3-4 order of magnitude difference.

I think the main origin of the huge discrepancy is the definition of the “use” of a gun in self defense. The vast majority of these uses do not involve actually discharging the firearm, but merely indicating to an aspiring assailant that you are armed. A mugger pulls a knife, you pull aside your jacket to reveal the holstered pistol, he runs away. You do not inform the police (people stopped bothering in big cities decades ago), and it never becomes part of an official statistic.

23,941 suicides by firearm in 2019.

And counting "mass shootings" as a 1:1 comparison with DGUs is disingenuous both analytically and morally.

Mass shootings are socially shared psychological trauma. Every one irrevocably coarsens our social fabric.

I am not sure that this really changes the situation. The fact that peopke do use guns in defensive situations do not meant that this is the best option. I would expect most of those situations to be armed robberies, and there an obvious alternative is just to give the attacker what they want. It is painful and traumatic, but likely less so than killing them, and likely more cost efficient.

There are places where attackers "shoot first and ask second" (I heard that Sao Paolo is like that), but even there carrying a gun is likely to put you in more danger than it helps.

I think the main problem with gun ownership is that there is a feedback loop: the more people own guns, the more likely it is to be held at gunpoint at some point, increasing the appeal of carrying a gun. It is hard to break, no question. But it is possible. Australia was similar to the US not so long ago, and they managed to change it.

Knowing the law would help clarify to you what justifies using it and when it does not for self defense. You don't go looking for situations that call for self defense, that is the opposite of self defense, usually.

Zardoz: Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones. You have been raised up from brutality, to kill the brutals who multiply, and are legion. To this end, Zardoz your god gave you the gift of the gun. The gun is good.

Exterminators: The gun is good.

Zardoz: The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!

The actual total beginner guide to guns is go find some old retired military man like my dad and express interest in guns, and they will excitedly take you under their wing and ply you with all of their tools, knowledge, and experience.

They (perhaps rightly so) see my generation and those that have followed as (in the large) not buying into America's gun culture.

So they are always on the lookout for disciples.

Semi related.

As a gun owning, second amendment appreciating west coast liberal, I've found conversations about gun rights with other liberals and leftists to be MUCH easier since both the civil unrest of summer 2020 and the Jan 6 insurrection.

It seems that a lot of people have really had a rude awakening of two big facts.

1. the police aren't your personal bodyguards and no one is coming to save you when there is rioting in the streets

2. the extreme right is armed to the teeth and looks increasingly willing to use violence to slow their slide into irrelevancy and powerlessness.

It is weird, but i think you should remind your leftists friends of the Black Panther movement. Open carry pretty much created the movement, and it could have been the dream of any leftist if the rainbow coalition was not stopped by Fred Hampton's assassination by the police.

Netflix should really make a documentary on the BPP, the historian now practically agree on much of the main points (still miss classified files about CIA involvment, and a lot of FBI's). I really hoped the BLM movement could evolve into something like BPP, but i guess now it's harder to find time to read.

It’s not a documentary, but Spike Lee’s movie about Malcolm X has some stirring scenes where the Panthers are marching with rifles.

Such a sad state America is in that both left and right are prepping for armed civil conflict and consider it inevitable.

I carry a first aid kit in my car to be prepared for some horrific medical emergency.

Is it sad to make yourself ready for a horrifying, but historically likely event?

Preparing for bad things doesn't mean you hope they happen. You should still you everything you can to avoid it. But you are an idiot if you choose to stick your head in the sand and pretend it can't happen.

> Is it sad to make yourself ready for a horrifying, but historically likely event?

The sad part is the "historically likely" part, not the fact that you're prepping for it.

At least part of the blame goes mass media for not supporting a constructive dialog, but instead enforcing bubbles and amplifying mutual insults.

I do not read a reasonable distrust of the government and one's fellow man to be discouraging. Inevitable is a strong perspective but anticipating tail events is not. Civilization is overdue for mean reversion. Life is unlikely to be above the historical average forever.

I think you've managed to make a comment upsetting both extreme lefties and moderate righties.

(assuming there are not that many god-loving, only-country-music-listening, in-a-trailer-living extreme righties on this website)

If I've equally upset tribalists on both sides of the aisle, I consider that an absolute win.

> 2. the extreme right is armed to the teeth and looks increasingly willing to use violence to slow their slide into irrelevancy and powerlessness.

Kind of a weird accusation. This is what the left did during the riots last summer. Of course the right would be provoked to retort in kind.

That was a reference to the insurrection, not the riots.

We also have crazy elected representatives like this fucker, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/414450-fbi-investig...

Show me a liberal elected representative rallying for mass slaughter of their ideological opponents and I'll arm myself against them just as strongly.

Hm...

I've read through the document in your link [1] and it looks to me more like an excerpt from a bible study class than an attempt to raise the masses. I may be missing some context though.

Liberal representatives (including those at federal level [2]) make enough worrisome statements.

Now we can engage into the "he didn't mean that/she didn't mean that" game. The only way to win in this game is to say something like "I don't understand how a reasonable person can fail to see the difference between <...> and <...>". So instead of that we may turn to the facts of actual violence in 2020. This is left as an exercise to the reader.

Note: if you decide to run your own small facts checking, don't use google. Use duckduckgo or bing. Yes, I know ddg uses google engine. No, I don't know why, but results are surprisingly different. Even in incognito mode.

[1] https://www.spokesman.com/documents/2018/oct/25/biblical-bas...

[2] https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/549514-traditio...

> McCloskey has given to candidates of both parties...

I find stupid people being distributed across political parties more or less evenly.

[1] https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article2...

Weird, because it's the left doing all the violence. BLM, antifa.. etc. The left incites more violence. https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/08/10-times-democrats-urge...

Having guns does not mean they are violent. The other sides are not rioting...

I loved reading the opening of this article because it felt like a voice from the "other side of the aisle" that I could actually understand and potentially engage with. I do not (shame on me) make a project out of reading and digesting right-wing discourse: if it sounds like Tucker, I flush it. But it was refreshing to hear this voice, which does not sound like Tucker. Never mind that "women, liberals, urbanites, and people of color" are probably buying more guns in order to defend themselves against Proud Boys, et al, these are still statements that seem grounded in reality, and display no more emotional bias than I've likely got in the other direction. Anyway, I was quite relieved to read this.

> Millions of people of all walks of life have been buying firearms in record numbers as more rational people reject the culture war around this topic and recognize the need for self defense is still very real, even in an ‘advanced’ society. Women, liberals, urbanites, and people of color are some of the fastest growing groups of firearm owners, for example.

> Regardless of politics or background, you are welcome here. We believe in modern and responsible gun ownership — and think our communities and civil debates will be much better off if people at least accurately understood the topic of firearms before arguing about or fearing them.

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