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Comment by chmod600 | Hacker News Reader

Long guns (rifles and shotguns) account for something like 2% of gun-involved homicides.

People use them for mass shootings, but they also use pistols, and there's not a huge difference in the outcome.

Your proposed law would have very low effectiveness, but impact millions (maybe tens of millions) people who want to buy rifles.

Maybe you don't care about those people, but maybe that's part of the problem? They are fellow citizens, they can vote, and they have rights. And they know you don't care about them and they will resist your proposals because they don't trust you.

You can turn that around and say that they should care more about you, and maybe they should. But at some point, we have to communicate, because we (collectively) aren't making good policy any more.

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Notwithstanding "because", why does a civilian gun owner need a firearm with more than (say) 5 round capacity?

The same reason that the FBI (and other policing administrations) did away with the service revolver. There's actual a distinct tragedy where some FBI agents died in a firefight that spurred this, apologies for lack of citation - it is late.

It is scarily easy to miss, even at physically close distances, when fighting for one's life.

I feel most people that haven't shot a gun, or have only shot a gun while sitting perfectly still and undistracted, underestimate the above fact.

If you do have access to guns and the ability to test this, do some sort of exercise to get yourself breathing heavily before shooting, you'll see the difference.

All of this presupposes that we agree the average citizen has the right to defend their life with adequate tools. Some may, with good statistical arguments at hand, determine that the likelihood of being a victim of violent crime does not meet the threshold for allowing this level of self defense.

I hope that partially answers your question

> It is scarily easy to miss, even at physically close distances, when fighting for one's life.

In my state it's required to qualify at a gun range in order to obtained a concealed carry permit. When my turn came I experienced a huge adrenaline rush. I did hit the target adequately but was surprised at how difficult it was under pressure. I've never experienced this before when going to the range and casually shooting.

I expect in a real world scenario where the assailant is not a static paper target, you're more likely to miss than not.

> There's actual a distinct tragedy where some FBI agents died in a firefight that spurred this, apologies for lack of citation - it is late.

I think this is it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

How many firefights do you expect a civilian gun owner to get into?

Statistically, around 0.005 per year (note that there's a HUGE range of estimates for how common defensive gun use is, so there's definitely some error bars there). However that's still many orders of magnitude more than the average number of mass shootings that the average civilian gun owner is involved with.

So realistically the actual need for a large capacity magazine is zero?

I think part of the intention of the Second Amendment is to have a well-armed population that has the capability to push back against a government that has overstepped. Five or ten rounds isn’t going to help much there.

The need for a magazine is close to zero, but if you need one, you probably need, or would have a significantly improved outcome with, a 10+ magazine.

The number of people who have used 10+ round magazines for self defense is greater than zero.

Used, or needed?

Both

Who cares? It is a foundational human right. I don't have to prove my "need" for freedom of religion or speech, or right to bear arms.

Why is it a foundational human right? Who decides that? It seems to me that a lot of people disagree.

Human rights only exist because enough people believe in them. All of them, including free speech are up for debate and constantly need to be defended.

I don't know anyone whose house has burned down. Should I cancel my home insurance?

Do you know how many shots on average it takes to take down a single assailant? I'll give you a hint: more than 5.

This includes the fact that, when you are firing under pressure, you will very likely miss or not hit critical areas. Most assailants don't stop because you've hit some vital organ, they stop because of blood loss. That takes time. Bullet wounds aren't typically huge (like knife wounds can be).

And let's be clear: the onus is on you to justify denying a law-abiding civilian the right to possess such a weapon. Given that we are talking about a constitutional right (one which the text clearly states "shall not be infringed") you would need to show a standard of strict scrutiny to justify denying those citizens their right.

>Given that we are talking about a constitutional right (one which the text clearly states "shall not be infringed")

It also says "well regulated".

>Bullet wounds aren't typically huge (like knife wounds can be)

Someone's not seen the mess a 5.56mm round makes.

Regulated in the 2nd definition sence of the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regulate

> to bring order, method, or uniformity > to regulate one's habits

That being said, we should make gun safety classes low cost/ free for all interested citizens.

> It also says "well regulated".

Which, at the time and in context, meant "properly trained". The point of the text was that an armed and trained society was necessary to preserve freedom, which is why the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

> Someone's not seen the mess a 5.56mm round makes.

Sure, it's not going to be pretty. Even a 9mm (or a .22) is not going to be fun. Let me put it a different way: I've heard multiple knowledgeable people say they would rather get shot than stabbed.

Modern guns are not designed to have that low capacity or non-removable magazines, so regulations like that force dead ends of (mal)compliance items that aren't necessarily safe. Authority personnel with domain knowledge also tends to sympathize with owners and could borderline sabotage regulations.

Trigger cranks, folding braces, "forced-reset" triggers, tac-sacs, CA compliant mag releases, featureless grips, they come up with lots of those stuffs.

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