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Comment by rubyist5eva | Hacker News Reader

Guns are the great equalizer. Women don’t have equal rights until they are equally capable of defending themselves.

I'm reminded of this Thomas Carlyle quote: "The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall."

Guns are not the way to do anything

In unequal power situations, guns are mighty useful. A world where no one needs firearms is a nice ideal, but unfortunately we don't live in that world. The police cannot be trusted to show up anywhere in time to defend you, and in fact might shoot you instead of whoever is attacking you anyway.

Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal consequences? Yes. Should we work towards a world where no one feels the need to own a firearm for self defence? Absolutely.

But saying that firearms "are not the way to do anything" is just denying reality.

You need to have the big "I consider America the world" disclaimer at the top.

A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.

The police all over the world do show up when needed, and the don't shoot people unless it is a complete last resort. In the very rare case you are a person that is being attacked, they're even trained so well they don't shoot the person attacking you and can deal with it in better ways.

The only thing firearms help an average person do is compete in a shooting competition. Take a look at the rest of the developed world and realise that your thoughts on this only apply to one country.

Whenever I hear about how the rest of the world doesn't need guns I always think of the Mexican avacado farmers who used (highly illegal) guns to protect their farms from cartels because the government can't protect them.

Always funny when a European corrects an American that the rest of the world is not America, as it is obviously Paris.

Kinda surprised Parisians weren't busy arming themselves to the teeth after the Bataclan.

Useless unless you also have the right to bear them into potential death traps like a theater.

Very needed when like in Bataclan the authorities take a secure the parameter and wait approach, like for Columbine and the Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida massacres. Or when the closest authorities cower in fear as in the Stoneman high school shooting (that was addressed by police units from further away).

Many ignore that the authorities always have guns. The only question is whether the civilians are able to have them too!

> A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.

Someone upthread made a good point: a regular person in their everyday life does not need a fire extinguisher. Most people go their whole lives without ever using one.

Several months ago I listened to a story about Myanmar on (I think) NPR's The World. After the coup and after the military started shooting protesters, many urban pro-democracy activists sensibly realized that nonviolent action wasn't going to work, and headed out of the city to get trained by some ethic rebel groups in the countryside.

However, when they were done with their training they had to do back home unarmed. Myanmar has strict gun control, and the rebels didn't have any guns to spare.

So, in summary: you don't need a gun until you do.

Edit: I think this is the story: https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-06-02/souring-peace-marches...

I agree with the OP, but I am not in America. Sadly, my nation definitely wouldn’t be considered a developed country (we are in the 60s or 70s by GDP).

So maybe instead of the OPs thoughts only applying the one country, maybe your thoughts only apply to one continent: Europe?

Now with respect to the article, my sisters are very interested in gun ownership because in their own words “no one needs guns just to protect against robberies”. And I agree, for peace of mind when it comes to bodily safety it’s better to trust yourself instead of being forced to trust crime statistics and police response times.

To correct one fallacy, brandishing a gun is largely unnecessary. If you brandish, you might as well use. However, knowing that you are armed can give you the courage and confidence that puts off attackers. For the most part these guys are opportunistic, and only escalate when they are sure someone is defenseless.

I've seen enough videos of the unarmed British police getting their ass handed to them by crazy Somali's with nothign but a knife to realize that yes, the police need guns.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

In London, unarmed police stood and watched as a man was beheaded in broad daylight in front of a crowd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby

Funny because your link directly contradicts the version of events you put forward. Not only was he killed before the police arrived but the two attackers were shot by armed police very shortly after the regular police arrived and prevented any other mayhem. AND a whole bunch of unarmed regular people intervened as well.

> Not only was he killed before the police arrived

I don't know if that can be proven. He never had a medical assessment that established that at the time, and everyone involved would have had incentive to say he was already dead to avoid initiating a confrontation with the armed attackers.

Okay he was attacked and left for dead by the attackers (although the bystanders who helped said he was dead at that point after the fact) who didn't further attack him before the police arrived or after they arrived. It doesn't make your version any less completely counter-factual because no police were there when Lee was attacked and they did in fact later successfully intervene to stop them doing anything further.

Women have been fighting for representation in government, pay equality, education equality. None of those are helped by owning a gun. How many women have had their access to personal development opportunities restricted by their inability to apply deadly force? I'm guessing it's a trivially small number.

> How many women have had their access to personal development opportunities restricted by their inability to apply deadly force?

The dead ones.

It makes it a lot more expensive, shall I say, for the opposing side to rid themselves of such turbulent agitators.

There's memorials to people who were killed during the Civil Rights era; there's not very many names on them, around 33 for the first I heard of, 41 for the SPLC's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Memorial and it includes a number that aren't relevant to my point. One reason for this is because a lot of them including Eleanor Roosevelt were armed.

Are you aware of the fact that there is a number of countries where the average police officer is unarmed as well?

The patrolmen are unarmed, police with rifles are just a radio call away though.

Somehow I never read news about "rapist shot dead by attacked woman". Are you positive that buying more firearms will make it happen? Because it definitely doesn't look we're there yet.

Have you considered that you don't hear about those defensive uses because your sources of news simply don't report them?

1. https://www.fox13memphis.com/top-stories/teen-tries-to-rape-...

2. https://www.foxnews.com/us/south-carolina-mother-of-3-shoots...

3. https://www.azfamily.com/news/us_world_news/police-woman-sho...

4. https://www.al.com/news/anniston-gadsden/2015/04/17-year-old...

5. https://myfox8.com/news/nc-grandfather-shoots-home-invaders-...

6. https://www.kltv.com/2019/12/05/tyler-police-arrive-scene-fi...

"Police: Woman shoots, kills man peeping into her bedroom window"

Maybe she could have just called the police? Or take a picture of him and post on NextDoor, which is what happens in our neighborhood. Of course, it always turns out to be a misunderstanding; the Amazon delivery guy trying to figure out if someone's home so they can leave a package. But at least they are just publicly shamed on the web instead of dead from a gunshot wound.

The article is short on details but it's possible she did call the police. Other articles explored the possibility the woman knew the man, which would bolster a claim of self defense (a stalker, abusive ex-lover, etc)

It's also possible that she's tried that in the past, but given that the guy would be watching her as she does it, it may not be super practical to expect him to wait around for the police to arrive.

And I don't know how many times the police have to be called for this only to show up and find nothing before they stop promptly sending an officer for new reports.

It happens but even the six stores a month in American Rifleman aren't statistically significant, when compared to the number of "bad person kills less bad/good person" numbers or "accidental shooting death" numbers.

> in 2020, there have been unintentional shootings by over 220 children. This has resulted in 92 deaths and 135 injuries

Math is hard...

You should look up the numbers of yearly defensive gun uses in the United States. The CDC reports 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year

> Kristen McMains, a 25-year-old lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky, first became suspicious that John Ganobcik was stalking her when she traversed the skywalk connecting her office building to the parking garage across the street. She felt her fears were confirmed when she boarded an elevator and the suspicious man followed -- but did not press a button. When the doors opened on the fourth level of the parking garage, she bolted for her car, and Ganobcik sprinted after her.

> Before McMains could get in her car, her attacker caught up, slammed her head, and jabbed at her with an eight-inch rusty serrated knife. He forced her into the passenger seat and said, “We’re going.” Fearing rape and murder, McMains fought viciously to escape, tearing off all 10 of her fingernails in the struggle, but she was unable to escape. Desperate, she told Ganobcik that she had just cashed a check and could offer him money. When she reached for her purse, instead of money, she pulled out the .32 Beretta Tomcat her father had bought for her.

> At first, it failed to fire, but McMains kept pulling the trigger and ultimately she shot Ganobcik in the neck and the buttocks. He fled, and a passerby called 911. Eventually, Ganobcik pled guilty to robbery and attempted kidnapping, receiving a 15-year prison sentence. McMains’ use of force was immediately recognized as justified.

https://ccwsafe.com/blog/the-kristen-mcmains-case-pt3

In most incidents where people use firearms to protect themselves no shots are fired, just brandishing the weapon is enough. Those incidents don't make the news.

Buy if you're looking for an actual news story, here's one.

https://www.wtol.com/article/news/local/resident-shoots-woul...

> just brandishing the weapon is enough

The comment is probably not meant this way, but brandishing has connotations of anger, excitement, or intimidation.

I would caution one not to do this as it may be illegal in your jurisdiction. Only draw a firearm with the intent to use it, not with the intent to intimidate. Certainly, the intent to use it may have a side effect of intimidating an aggressor — I don’t dispute that.

You don't pull a gun unless you intend to use it. The law recognizes this. If you pull the gun with justified intent, and you end up not having to use it, that's just a happy circumstance. This has happened to me.

The article you linked says "The manner of Brackett's death is now ruled as a homicide."

They do exist, but Youtube's algo won't suggest them unless that is something you are already interested in. I find videos almost weekly of store owners and individuals defending themselves. The people that have training and experience with their tools are usually able to successfully fend off the attackers.

There dozens of defensive uses of firearms daily. Many don’t result in shooting and even when they do they rarely make local news and certainly not beyond. There are a few sources that are trying to catalog these events I’ll try to snag one when I’m not on mobile. I’ve had to use a firearm before and it was never reported because no one got shot.

There is a plethora of research and data attempting to estimate how many crimes are stopped/deterred beforehand merely by the presence of a firearm by the victim. None of these estimates are small.

Research questioning prisoners why they don't commit home invasions list the presence of firearms in the home as the number one reason. My state has very few home invasions and nearly all of them are drug/gang related.

If an attacker is stopped before it happens, we don't really know if it would have been a rape or a mugging or an assault.

Don't take my post as fact, please research this and come up with your own opinion. Let it simmer a bit in your mind. You can call me crazy later, just let it percolate for a little bit first!

Here are my thoughts (or hypotheses, if you will):

Guns are a very political topic. There are narratives in place on both sides of the aisle. Most news is reported in service to the narratives that outlet supports.

Do the news sources you consume ever tell you about about defensive gun usage? In any context? These stories aren't hard to find if you look for them.

I thought that too, then I saw LA police slowly drive past a trans woman screaming for help to flag them down as her and her friends were getting mugged, which lead later to assault. There's video evidence since the mugger was on insta live and recording it to get clout, then a friend assaulted another trans woman on as their friends laughed at her. That logic works if you can trust the police to do the bare minimum.

With video evidence, and the assailants live-streaming repeatedly after from their apartments bragging about the assault, trying to hype up their rap career. It took weeks to get the police to do anything about it, where they would tell the women that they had no leads despite the livestreams.

If someone I'm with or myself is allowed to have a gun I prefer it.

Police will never protect you. If you want to be able to defend yourself and your family either be rich enough to have private security or train to use a gun, if you have the right. Many of our offices are guarded by guys with guns and many of the anti-gun advocates you see on TV have bodyguards with guns.

I sincerely wish they were not necessary. However we live in a world where people are attacked, raped, and murdered with enough frequency that owning a gun to defend yourself is reasonable.

Which world/country are you referring to?

You live in a place where none of that happens? Really?

People around the world are living in places where guns are not used as a solution to crime. There are many in fact that view guns as more of a problem than a solution.

Nice job not answering the question. If you're being raped or mugged, would you rather A) wait until it's over to call the police who may or may not do anything or B) defend yourself with a gun before you are raped or mugged? There is a third answer C) have physical/martial training to fight your way out of it, but never bring a fist to a gun or knife fight.

A gun is not a "solution to crime" as you said. In the hands of a potential victim, it is a "preventative from the crime ever happening".

I can see why anti-rape self-defense is a popular rhetoric as gun ownership has indeed prevented crimes, and not being raped is a very good thing. Unfortunately, it's also used often as an emotional sales tactic, causing people who shouldn't be in possession of a gun to be in possession of one, resulting in unnecessary injury and death.

Coupled with the fact that even if you arm every single person capable with a gun, there's still going to be crime, you have to consider a balance. Some countries are doing very well without them.

causing people who shouldn't be in possession of a gun to be in possession of one, resulting in unnecessary injury and death.

Figures on injuries are iffy in the US, for example the degree involved, but death is binary and since 1980 accidental deaths from firearms have gone from 800 to 500 a year, at the same time both the number of people in the US have increased by 50% and percentage armed have increased by even more. The latter probably due to the nationwide sweep of "shall issue" or better concealed carry regimes in states, now covering 42 states and ~75% of the nation's people.

One of the reasons this is a red hot issue it that it's the only failure of the Left's in its culture war on the Right, and it's a very big failure.

I leave thousands of dollars of firearms out on a bench feet behind me at the shooting range every time I go. So do countless other shooters. I've never personally witnessed a crime at a shooting range or even read of one. Why do you think that is if not for the 100% guarantee that everyone is armed at the range?

Maybe, because criminals don’t go to gun ranges.

Meanwhile a local elementary school is shot up… or a cinema… or a place of worship… or a high school… or another high school… or a concert…

If only those toddlers had firearms. Or those concert goers who were fired upon from 100s of yards away from an elevated position.

These things ONLY happen where guns are not controlled properly. Surely even if you believe in your 2nd amendment rights, you can see that there is a heavy price to pay to have that right. Pretending there isn’t is denying reality. Also pretending that right would stand a chance against the US military moving against the government or people is laughable. But logic is out the window on this topic… no one is going to change anyone’s mind here.

Do you have a right to defend yourself when your life is threatened and fleeing is not an option? If so, then why should your physical stature limit you?

That is an extremely naive view of the world.

Many places in the world have long response times for police. A home invader is now going to wait patiently for the police to come save you.

Revolutions against tyrannical government are quite difficult for an unarmed population.

Many poor families feed themselves via hunting. I personally grew up in that situation and know many people who still experience it.

“Political power flows from the barrel of the gun.”

If a women shots and kills her abuser how can he abuse her when he is dead?

https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/in-the-news/women-...

Dont tell me what i already know

It would literally solve the problem though. Police should really be able to install hidden cameras at the request of abuse victims.

They're an excellent way to stop an aggressor.

>God made man, and Sam Colt made them equal!

Pretty sure the Taliban disagrees.

Tell that to the criminal with guns breaking into your home and taking all your property.

All the countries that have greater gender equality have strict control of firearms.

(Sorry for the inconvenient facts down voters)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Inequality_Index

Doesn't 'strict control' imply that few legally detain guns?

Gender Inequality Index: #1 (best nation) is Switzerland. This country is shock-full of firearms, there is an assault rifle in many (most?) homes (a weird way to 'control', in my opinion).

#2 is Norway, where 9% of the population legally owns 1.3 million guns (population: 5.4 million)

#3 Finland. 12% of Finns legally detain a firearm

Switzerland's famous assault rifles are not kept with ammunition, and are mostly useless. (I suppose you could bludgeon a home invader with one.) Firearms are more heavily regulated there than in most of Europe.

"He shakes out the gun holster. "And we don't get bullets any more," he adds. "The Army doesn't give ammunition now - it's all kept in a central arsenal." This measure was introduced by Switzerland's Federal Council in 2007."

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912

As far as I know and saw in Switzerland the army doesn't give ammo anymore to militiamen (maybe because some over-used it, or maybe due to long-term storage issues) but they are able to buy it, and many do.

Moreover there is a mandatory training programme (a few weeks each year), including shooting exercises. Security-related matters aren't neglected, lowering the accident rates.

After his term a militiamen can buy the army-delivered weapon, and quite a few do so. This is financially clever as most on-duty militiamen take care of the gun (thinking he will buy it) and it reduces its cost for the community as he buys it, along as for him thanks to the massive buying programs of the army.

Many, even among non-militiamen, are hunters or shooters (as a hobby) and a fair fraction of them reload used ammunition.

In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... )

As a related note: most firearm-related death rates are established while integrating suicides: in the US the apparent (and widely publicized) ratio of firearm-related death for 1e5 people in 2017 was 11.67, however suicides form 7.32 of it (4.46 being homicides). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

IMHO the Swiss context differs from the US one because the militia is the core of the defensive system, each citizen has to be involved and the local culture integrates it. Even more significantly the Swiss society isn't under lasting and major murder-triggering major pressure (ethnic tensions, extreme poverty...).

Gun ownership doesn't put a stable society into jeopardy, and disarming haters won't transmogrify them into tolerant citizens.

https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland

> In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... )

A note of gentle caution: you can't compare suicide rates across countries because there are big differences in methods of counting deaths.

True, however AFAIK this is less distorted between similar nations such as (here) the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland

Directly comparing data from Switzerland and Pakistan, Tuvalu or Rwanda is indeed too risky.

Question I've never been able to get an answer to, although I haven't tried hard: is it illegal to keep your own supply of ammo for the rifle?

Possibly confounding issue: with the new SIG 550 the ammo was changed to use lead free primers, just like the GP 11 1911 ammo was changed to use non-corrosive primers far ahead of other nations (in the US, our first example was for the WWII M1 carbine). I wonder if the Army discovered those primers didn't last as long as projected....

I think you're wrong.

https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzer... is a good discussion of Swiss law.

TL,DR: Swiss law is different than U.S. law, and it's hard to generalize as each is more or less permissive given different areas (and the U.S. is really 51 or 52 little countries in most senses, as Switzerland is divided into Cantons).

Concerning ammo specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/ques...

TL,DR: One can buy ammo freely at ranges and with minimal permitting to take home. It sounds like maybe the Army wanted ammo stored centrally such that it would be in controlled environmental conditions, and not lost or accidentally used up at a Schützenfest.

Gun's per capita seems to be very high on that list?

Top 3 (all per 100 persons)

1. Switzerland 26.3

2. Norway 28.8

3. Finland 32.4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Gun control is pretty strict in Finland. In order to get a permit, you need to show that you need a gun for your hobby or your work and that you can handle it safely. (Self-defense is not considered a valid reason for a permit.) The permit can later be revoked if the original reason is no longer valid. Gun ownership is still quite high, because Finland is a sparsely populated country where hunting has always been popular.

Is guns per capita how you measure gun control?

- do you factor in urban vs rural gun ownership?

- do you factor type of gun?

- do you factor whether ammunition is available for those guns?

My earlier statement still holds true.

Ironically Switzerland is #1 on that list — a country with one of the most liberal policies on firearm ownership. This video shows what a typical store in Switzerland is like and what is available for purchase https://youtu.be/UOErri-3Z5E?t=538.

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