Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by tduberne | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

tduberne

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.

View on HN

> 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.

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com