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Comment by baktubi | Hacker News Reader

I think the nation should make military training/civil service mandatory. The reality is that random attacks will happen in random places and everyone needs to be equipped to handle accordingly.

Basic combat training and paramedic abilities, disaster recovery and such associated procedures.

This would create a tighter bond between citizens and improve communities ability to look after one-another.

If everyone handles those situations steadfastly, terror won’t work.

Another benefit is less reliance on national guard to handle climate crisis like hurricanes, fires, and floods.

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>> military training/civil service mandatory. >> Basic combat training and paramedic abilities

Those are very different things. Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat. Not every civil service volunteer is taught to handle a weapon. And basic first aid training is almost universal already. More lives could probably be saves by everyone being trained in basic mental health and de-escalation techniques.

Not trying to nail down exactitudes here just throwing out some ideas…

What if they don't want to be de-escalated?

Then the worst case scenario is the status quo.

But most situations that currently result in someone getting shot can be resolved less violently, as demonstrated by the lack of firearms carried or desired by the majority of UK cops.

A culture shift isn’t an overnight thing, but better worlds are possible.

Among what populations is it near universal? I grew up in an upper-middle class bedroom community, and I only had to get first aid certified in order to be a lifeguard at a local pool. That was just about a decade ago, and I’d be hard-pressed to do anything other than apply a cold compress and perform the Heinrich maneuver now. My father-in-law was a trained physician overseas but became a pharmaceutical researcher when he came to the US, and the last time he was in a situation where he had to perform CPR, he had no idea what to do. I doubt more than 20% of American adults would be useful in a serious casualty situation.

I doubt more than 20% of American adults would be useful in a serious casualty situation.

And 99% of those would fear lawsuit.

I'm curious where you get the idea that "Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat". It's certainly not true in the US Army.

The US army is only one of the US armed forces. The US is only one of many countries. Many train soldiers very differently than the US does.

Granted, but the US Army is the only one I have direct experience with. Hand to hand combat seems like such a basic component of combat training that I would be shocked to hear that it is completely absent from any armed forces boot camp.

You didn't answer the question by the way.

Maybe additional training in first aid helps in a terrorist attack, maybe it helps when grandpa has a heart attack. At any rate it is hard to see the downside. Maybe, except that if you do this in the US you end up politicizing first aid too.

The other side of the coin is that we should be focusing left-of-bang, preventing terrorism much earlier.

Wouldnt that also equip many attackers with better skills?

It would equip everyone with better skills. But more important would be the sense of community involvement—most attackers have a disease of the mind brought on by isolation and lack of empathy.

You basically just need to make the odds of encountering a trained responder higher than a lone wolf. FWIW, this would be a much better approach to the “well regulated militia” part of the second amendment than what the US has today.

Edit to fix bad quote of “well regulated militia.”

Isn't it actually "well regulated"?

Indeed it is, thanks. But there’s still no reason training can’t be part of the regulations.

It would, no doubt.

I Russia, despite a nominal ban, you can buy a gun on the vegetable market, but nobody seem to be going, and shooting people out of a sudden other that 2-3 freak accidents per year.

Being murdered in a banal armed robbery is a by far bigger risk.

Vegetable market?

Inform/flea market

Already there. The Oklahoma City bombing is only the most notable, but domestic terrorists coming from the military is growing. https://www.csis.org/analysis/military-police-and-rise-terro...

“ Most investigations apparently involved veterans, some of whom had unfavorable discharge records.3”

Honestly, you’re going to have bad apples no matter what. But what about the rest of the citizens? How can they respond to disaster scenarios without training?

Domestic terrorism is the same thing as abroad terrorism, except one uses patriotism as an ideology, the other uses religion.

People make a way. When the Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down highways, neighborhood workers and residents rescued people from the collapsed structures. The same happened in NYC on 9/11 when the WTC fell.

For the United States specifically, another good argument for this training to be in place is the importance given to the second amendment, the rationale of which is to have “a well regulated militia”. One would assume that everyone being well trained is part of that.

Isn't the national guard serving that role ? Normal citizens with regular training under well controlled regulations.

Perhaps all adults should have that training.

What made the DC sniper attacks so terrifying was that there was no commonality to the targets, except that it was normal people doing normal everyday things. There's nothing you can do to protect yourself from the sniper except to not go outside (which is in fact what a lot of people did in response to the sniper).

> Basic combat training and paramedic abilities, disaster recovery and such associated procedures.

... Military training teaches none of those, so far as I'm aware, except maybe the first. But even then, you're getting training on a rifle, which is not the most likely firearm a civilian would be carrying.

> What made the DC sniper attacks so terrifying was that there was no commonality to the targets,

As a non-car driver, it stood out to me at the time that all the events occurred on the road, though of course I had no idea of the actual mechanism.

> If everyone handles those situations steadfastly, terror won’t work.

If your response to terrorism is a year of forced military training I can assure you the terror already won.

For the record I didn’t say “a year of forced military training.”

What if its a 20 year community involvement?

Funny fact is that conscription largely lowers the risk of prolonged civil wars, Syrian being one fat exception.

It also makes citizens more aware of the cost of war. Had conscription use up so much time of a citizen’s prime years, I think it would be more popular.

Im in favor of people concealed carrying for this exact reason...distributed security works better than slow centralized security and a vulnerable public. Obviously this doesnt work for a plane though.

Fully expect to get downvoted for this on HN...because its HN.

So if I want to create real mayhem I just need to have two suicide attackers starting a firefight in roughly opposite directions in a crowded open place and wait for dozens of bystanders to join in?

I could think of 100 ways you could still do damage to an armed public. Whats your point? Its a deterrent and if someone is doing massive damage they are going to be spotted.

Or because every actual study has shown this line of reasoning isn’t backed by reality.

Practically every law enforcement agency is going to disagree with you on that. Id like to see these studies if you dont mind.

You can name even one law enforcement agency that wants vigilante firearm violence? Because that is literally what it means to desire the general public act as armed first responders.

In a suddenly chaotic situation how does the distributed security communicate and know they're on the same side and not treat each other as the enemy?

They teach you this in the course you need to take to concealed carry.

If someone is doing massive damage...cornered people in a restaurant and is shooting them one by one. Someone can respond to that. Youre going to hear it and see it. Not every scenario is going to play out perfectly but at least theres mitigation on the table.

Doesn't really answer the question

If everyone has a gun, then either you teach this skill to everyone including the bad guys[0], or you don’t teach it to everyone and now a lot of normal people with guns are indistinguishable from bad guys with guns.

[0] because if you actually knew they were bad guys before you gave them such training you could stop them before they fire a single shot

You’re vastly overrating the ability of the common American to make rational decisions. In a stressful situation where a gun may be necessary, without proper and continual training, that ability drops to near 0. Look at the police - they use their guns incorrectly all the time and they’re trained peace officers. An average American, in an argument, maybe mix in some alcohol, with a gun in their pocket…many many senseless murders.

Not every person is going to carry a gun. And you need to be trained. Thats a requirement to concealed carry today.

Not in Texas or 18 other states! Get up to date on the gun laws.

> Obviously this doesnt work for a plane though.

I was thinking it absolutely does, unless everyone from more than 3ft away starts shooting.

Doubly so if we're talking knives or other sidearms.

Sikh logic, wildly underrated.

Or because the numbers are unequivocally against you?

So why not make the public less vulnerable by outlawing guns entirely?

I downvoted you because you talked about how you were going to be downvoted, as I do every time someone mentions being downvoted

>>distributed security works better than slow centralized security and a vulnerable public

Except that it literally doesn't. We know from public verifiable stats that people who own a gun end up hurting themselves or their family several orders of magnitutde more often than defending against an attacker or actually using it for self defense. It happens, but the numbers clearly point that it's massively ineffective for that purpose.

>>Fully expect to get downvoted for this on HN...because its HN.

You mean because people on HN frequently believe in the power of statistical analysis and logical thinking when it comes to deciding when something is worth doing or not?

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