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Comment by Simon_O_Rourke | Hacker News Reader

I lived out in Berlin where basically nobody except the police and the (really) bad guys are armed. Sure, there's burglary, but much more likely was bicycle theft... I had three stolen in one calendar year.

To be honest, I was more comfortable that none of my a-hole neighbors were armed, because they would have pulled a gun on you for leaving out the rubbish an hour too early or talking to loudly after 8pm.

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Pointing a gun at someone is generally a crime in the US. No need for the hyperbole around gun ownership and people's behavior

https://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/man-sought-in-murder-of-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2018/09/21/you-pull...

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/crime/2022/03/04/three-charge...

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/lake-county-man-shot-kille...

https://www.waaytv.com/news/update-man-shot-accidentally-in-...

Etc.

Unholstering it and holding it down at your waist is still very threatening. And while it's not common, it definitely happens here in the US.

That’s called brandishing and it’s still illegal

Also could be civil assault

There’s a wide misconception that assault is an act if violence but legally it’s merely the unlawful threat of violence, which is of course implied by actual unlawful violence.

Unholstering or otherwise displaying a firearm is assault by definition unless there’s a justifiable reason to do so.

Edit: re: assault: https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/assault-an... “In most states, an assault or battery is committed when one person physically strikes or attempts to physically strike another, or when they act in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm.”

Maybe. Depending on the state I’d bet there’s common law saying otherwise.

Re: your edit, point is that doesn’t necessarily mean unholstering a weapon is assault as a matter of law.

Depends upon the jurisdiction. For instance, there was a bill in Massachusetts in 2013 that had a provision making brandishing illegal, but the bill did not pass. There are no current statutes that I am aware of making brandishing specifically illegal in the state. Case law does reference brandishing quite a bit (mostly with a knife) and is used most often to show intent or where an assault or other crime has also taken place. (e.g. a perpetrator brandished a knife and then ordered a victim to perform an action against their will, or a perpetrator brandished a firearm to win an argument and was then found not to have a license for it).

Brandishing alone could be considered an assault I suppose, but I don't really see that much in case law. I think because its pretty rare for somebody to brandish a weapon with intent to harm and then not follow up with further criminal actions.

I have heard some people say this - and I am sure you may find some that wanted to charge it that way.. but I'm not sure that holding a firearm at your waist pointed toward the ground is necessarily brandishing or illegal.

Surely other factors could contribute to make such a situation more or less a threat - things said, or even a particular location compared to another.

I understand the GP comment person feels that such a thing is threatening, but I disagree with the blanket statement there too.. someone holding a firefarm does not mean they intend to, or are threatening to use it, imho..

just like someone pulling a phone out of their pocket and holding towards the ground does not mean they are going to call 911 - now that would be different if they pulled it out and said they were going to call.. but the act of pulling it out of one' pocket and holding it doesn't not imply they are going to use it for nefarious purposes in of itself.

Although I would consider them more ready to - and therefor deserving more acute attention and awareness.

Not a lawyer so I don't know for sure.. I just feel that someone holding a firearm in a downward position is not a direct threat like someone pointing it at a person - which then becomes brandishing / illegal in most circumstances afaik.

At least in California, just touching holster is considered brandishing. Not sure it's the same in Texas though.

Yeah:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saQ72NZtrS0

Never ending:

* https://twitter.com/well_regulated_

> Pointing a gun at someone is generally a crime in the US.

I thought the major pro-gun argument was that criminals don't care for law? You know, the whole "If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns" thing. (Which is also patently false, by the way. Criminals in Germany usually don't have guns.)

> Which is also patently false, by the way. Criminals in Germany usually don't have guns.

Um, that doesn't invalidate "If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns".

   ∀ gun-holder | gun-holder ∈ criminals

But you're suggesting that:

   ∃ criminal | criminal ∉ gun-holder

... and that is not in conflict with the above. Your evidence only invalidates:

   ∀ criminal | criminal ∈ gun-holder

... which no one has claimed.

BTW in general I think we should have some saner restrictions on firearms in the US even if we have to amend the BOR to do it. But I will concede that the abundance of legal firearms will be challenging to suddenly prohibit and could certainly flourish among criminals. I'd like to consider your argument but "Criminals in Germany usually don't have guns" doesn't help much.

you actually made the point of it.. when the populace is unarmed, the thugs can bully / rob / coerce just using muscle and knives, which makes the law abiding citenzry less safe imho.. but of course some will see it that way and some will not - much of individuals view point depends on where live / work.. people in nice places, surrounded by other nice places are more insulated from the more prevalent daily violence of the less nice places - the people who live and work in thos different places often see it differently.

anyway the saying is still true - outlaw X and only outlaws will have X - just like we outlawed drugs and have had a big expensive war on them for a long time - they are outlawed and wow, outlaws have them.

Sure you'd see some street crews using guns less if very few people had them, but you'd defeinely have gangs that had guns, there's just too much money in the game, and you already have supply chains getting kilos of other things to you that are not supposed to exist in the country.

Also if the criminal groups in Germany had Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador and their neighbors a train ride away, they would absolutely be using guns more imho.

Every place on earth is apples to oranges when trying to compare the situation in the US in regards to these interconnected issues.

When the thugs actually use their muscle to rob you, you get a twisted arm. When the thugs actually use their gun, you get dead. One is less healthy than the other.

Well for me that twisted arm would likely lead to a slow painful death (maybe 70/30 chances).

There is a chance I could beg for charity at Vanderbilt to donate $10,000 hemophilia treatments (of which it may take several for days) to keep me from nonstop internally bleeding to death - and there is a chance it would prevent death and just keep me in excruciating pain physically, mentally and emotionally instead of complete death.

There is a chance I could get charity to live through it, although I put the chances at less than 50%. There are other possible outcomes - partial treatment, and lawsuits over the hospital bills, and doctor bill. I would likely try to skip the hospital, apply ice every other 10 minutes and try to meditate my blood to flow slower. This could lead to nerve damage, and PTSD plus, but maybe not death.

Frankly I'd rather them have a gun or knife and let things get decided faster.

Many of the women I know would rather have the option to be armed to prevent twisted arms, and threats of severe violence.

However I can understand that there are people int he world who would rather be at risk of mugging via force to prevent their neighbors from having firearms. I do think this varies much depending on the amount of localized violence and is likely different for the folks living in nice parts of the world then people who live in cheaper parts of the world / cities.

I've also never thought when walking through New Orleans, SE D.C., or Memphis or St Louis that if one was to engage in a physical altercation with 'thugs' - that a simple 'twisted arm' would be the result.

Wish I had the resources to poll the locals to know how many of them think that would be a common result.

I understand things are different in different places, maybe parts of Germany and Russia have strong guys that twist arms and they get compliance. I would not expect that around here.

What about your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, or Norway? Because tons of those neighbors also own guns, but you aren't really any more likely to get shot there than you are in Germany (all of those countries have less than 3 deaths by firearms per 100k people). And if you're just looking at crime that is not intentionally self-inflicted, you're looking at less than 1 death per 100k.

Almost all international statistics on gun ownership and gun violence in developed countries show a direct relationship between the two...at least until you take out the largest outlier, the United States. Then that relationship completely disappears.

Because you aren't more likely to die because more people own guns. You're more likely to die when your neighbors are poor. A more rigorous approach, which keeps the US "outlier" but also doesn't discard developing countries shows an extremely strong relationship with crime: poverty. Specifically the number of people living below the poverty line. The US, despite it's level of wealth and development, has a huge poverty problem, and that poverty problem turns into violent crime problems in the US just like it does literally everywhere else in the world.

Your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Norway have figured it out: actual functioning gun regulation that still liberally allows for gun ownership (even scary assault weapons!), but stronger emphasis on a well functioning economic society. It's quite a bit ironic that the gun control policies that the US left so vigorously pushes for won't really have a measurable effect, but the poverty-reduction measures that they have all but abandoned actually would. I really wish they could be steered in the right direction, but I've given up hope.

gun laws across the EU are pretty similar because they are all based on the same EU laws. switzerland is actually the most liberal and it doesn't have more guns either.

there are no more guns in austrian cities than there are in germany, or as far as i could tell, anywhere else in europe. maybe more people in the country side have guns because they use them for hunting. a lot of guns are also used for sport. you would only see those on shooting ranges. otherwise they are locked away.

i do agree with the idea about poverty. that makes a lot of sense and is sometimes that can and should be addressed.

"sometimes" was meant to be "something". i blame a slip on the word suggestions from my keyboard

Just so I understand: while those countries you named try to solve poverty (and thus protect the richer) on the state level, the US leaves this responsibility to the riches themselves - which will have to stock on weaponry obviously. So basically pushing for more personal freedom brings as a collateral those street wars. Another example where applied philosophy fails (thinking about communism as well)

Eh. I live in a state where a lot of people own firearms, myself included, and have open carry laws as well as concealed carry permits. It really isn't a big deal. Unfortunately humans are humans and, worse, Americans are Americans, and crazy people go crazy and do crazy person shit with a lot more regularity than we'd like, which is only compounded by easy access to firearms. But I'm willing to bet most of my neighbors own guns, including the right-wing troll[0] living up the street. I have no real fear that any of them are going to pull a gun on me.

[0] No seriously, this guy puts up intentionally inflammatory yard signs.

I grew up in a place where gun ownership was the norm, and I have had a gun pulled on me in anger following a mutual fault car accident. People fuck up and get mad, confrontation happens. It is better for everyone if having firearms at hand is not the norm.

Aside from that I also caught a stray bullet in the hand when I was 15. I was in the woods, it was hunting season, I should have known better, etc etc. Hundreds of miles of beautiful nature that it was my fault I was injured while exploring.

The rural american attitude towards guns is indefensible. It just is. I'm as much a product of that culture as anyone, and in some ways as country as they come. But the problem isn't "crazy people" it is the guns.

>The rural american attitude towards guns is indefensible. It just is.

Case closed! Damn, all that time wasted arguing. lol

How you feeling about this one today?

I know you’re being sarcastic, but it most definitely was the fault of the shooter who did not follow basic firearm safety rules (either not knowing what they were shooting at or what was beyond what they were shooting at). Firearm ownership is a right, but also must be taken seriously and responsibly. Regardless of the “mistake”, the offender should have been charged (hopefully with a felony).

If there are say 1% stupid people who won't follow safety rules, the sheer amount of personal danger is quite different if you have 100 gun owners or 10.000.

And thankfully that number is far, far below 1%, more like 0.04%. The US has by far the highest number of guns per capita, but no where near the highest number of gun deaths.

Like where you stand on this one this morning?

>I grew up in a place where gun ownership was the norm

Same here, rural America Deep South: Most people I know are armed and concealed carry almost all the time. In over 4 decades here, I have never seen a person even brandish a weapon.

How's this comment sitting for you a couple days later?

If you were armed too they probably would think twice.

I really doubt the narrative that someone who would pull out a gun over trash would spare the time to think twice.

so we can speculate far enough to imagine this person into existence, but no further

The pull a gun over trash scenario is kind of ridiculous because the gun puller would be arrested. And it just doesn’t happen.

It would go like this: 1) I leave trash out 2) Neighbor yells and pulls out gun 3) I put up trash 4) I call police, neighbor is arrested and gun is taken away forever.

I think there’s a perception of “crazy people owning guns” means they are just randomly doing things. Gun owners are typically pretty responsible or self-destructive.

Half the US owns guns and there aren’t many crimes percentage wise. So the vast, vast majority just never do stuff with their gun.

The actual argument is about the extreme outliers who murder people and commit mass shootings. There’s 20M firearm homicides [0] so that’s still super rare as a rate but the impact of each event is super impactful.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

> The pull a gun over trash scenario is kind of ridiculous because the gun puller would be arrested. And it just doesn’t happen.

"Doesn't" is a strong word:

* https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/colorado-cop-who-pulled...

* https://www.fox4now.com/news/local-news/cape-coral-resident-...

> I think there’s a perception of “crazy people owning guns” means they are just randomly doing things. Gun owners are typically pretty responsible or self-destructive.

The problem is there is no filter in the US for the people that are not "pretty responsible or self-destructive." Just about any rando can get a gun in many states.

> The actual argument is about the extreme outliers who murder people and commit mass shootings.

No, it's about the 'background noise' of destruction that is on proverbial page 17 of the newspaper:

> A member of our well regulated militia allows a juvenile access to a loaded gun. The juvenile brings the gun to the home of a 14 year old friend, who shoots himself in the head unintentionally. He doesn’t survive.

* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15183659425894113...

> A member of our well regulated militia moves a loaded gun from a bedroom to a bathroom, then leaves it there. Her 6 year old son finds the gun when he goes to take a shower and shoots himself in the head. He does not survive.

* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15229931050662502...

> A (drunk) member of our well regulated militia spots her neighbor grilling burgers, so she walks over and points a handgun at his face and says "bang bang." When police arrive at her home, she points a cane at them and pretends it's a long gun.

* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15158166918082273...