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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

My take is that gun violence has several different categories, and gun control only helps some of them (such as accidental, or emotional, spur of the moment shootings), but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones.

It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly.

The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist.

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In the school shootings, at least, there is always some unhinged person behind it. Deeper mental health checks before purchasing a gun (like as is required in Germany) could be very useful. Also, rules in place that your gun is stored securely in a safe, and spot checks to verify such (again, in Germany) can help with guns making their way into other people’s hands either by being given or by being taken. A friend of mine in high school killed herself with her father’s gun…she might have not gone through with it if the gun was locked up and the suicide wasn’t so easy.

Think of gun restrictions and bans as friction. They act to reduce bad events, they don’t eliminate them. If you just make getting a gun harder (by legitimate and illegitimate means), that will have a marked reduction in gun deaths (and violent deaths overall since other methods require much more work/willpower/skills).

That is a slippery slope to every state having restrictive NY-like gun laws.

I don't care about legal or cultural precedent in germany or the EU. This isn't germany. The US plays a far more important role in global affairs, and as such must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime, those measures include the right to bear arms as well as freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

> must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime

the pen used for voting has more power than a gun to prevent the US from falling into the hands of "some regime".

One could argue the US has already fallen, and guns are the only way we are going to get it back. Of course, that’s not a popular opinion, but try to take guns away from the citizens and it will be.

"The pen is mightier than the sword" is a stupid idea. The pen has no power on its own. A regime will throw out your ballots.

The full context of the line is:

Beneath the rule of men entirely great

The pen is mightier than the sword.

That is, the power of the pen is premised on power in arms being equal.

The line comes from Edward Bulwer-Lytton, of "It was a dark and stormy night" fame. It appears in the play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, about Cardinal Richelieu a/k/a a/k/a Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac, who may have a line or two on the power of words to his fame (or at least ascribed) as well.

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

The guns are for when the pen doesn’t work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War

“The situation reached a climax in 1970, when the Bangladesh Awami League, the largest East Pakistani political party, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a landslide victory in the national elections. The party won 167 of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan, and thus a majority of the 313 seats in the National Assembly. This gave the Awami League the constitutional right to form a government. However, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (a former Foreign Minister), the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, refused to allow Rahman to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.”

From the wikipedia link:

>The Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence was broadcast from Chittagong by members of the Mukti Bahini—the national liberation army formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians. The East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles played a crucial role in the resistance. Led by General M. A. G. Osmani and eleven sector commanders, the Bangladesh Forces waged a mass guerrilla war against the Pakistani military.

The Bangladeshi military organized the resistance. It was not a simple civilians-with-guns-rising-against-tyranny scenario.

Lol the fact that random people have guns has nothing to do with US dominance, and it’s not random people with guns that will protect the US in an exceedingly unlikely armed conflict on US soil, it’s the army - which has no shortage of funding. Unless you’re saying that random armed people are going to defend against a coup from our own army - doubtful. Hypothetical “defense” at what cost? Mass shootings every week is worth it?

>Lol the fact that random people have guns has nothing to do with US dominance

It's no laughing matter. It has more to do than you might think.

>Unless you’re saying that random armed people are going to defend against a coup from our own army - doubtful

Think again.

>Hypothetical “defense” at what cost? Mass shootings every week is worth it?

Yes. Those who trade their fundamental freedoms for a little greater safety will eventually have neither.

I constantly argue with people like you, feel free to read some of my other comments to see why you would do precisely nothing to a major armed force and would actually rationalize their targeting of civilians in your make believe Red Dawn world. (No, Vietnam and Afghanistan are not appropriate parallels).

PS: you also entirely fail to provide counterpoints to any of the points the person you are replying to made, only vague and nonsensical implications.

I agree that random people with guns has nothing to do with US dominance globally, but you're wrong that the US army would win versus the armed civilians in the country. There are only 1 million US army soldiers and over 81 million armed civilians in the US capable of fighting a sustained guerilla war. You only need to look at history to know that's a bad scenario for any armed forces trying to take and hold control of a region. I agree the cost of mass shootings and also just regular daily non-mass shootings are not worth it in modern society.

It really depends on how vicious whatever commanding force controls the army would want to be.

If they're willing to rule over a country of bones, the asymmetric warfare resources the United States has available are sufficient to put down any rebellion. How much fight do you think 81 million armed civilians would keep in them if cities just started vaporizing?

A hypothetical American government with open rebellion wouldn't need to take and hold territory... It could decide specific chunks of the country are worth saving and nuke vast quantities of the rest.

I'd say that scenario is impossible, but this is America we're talking about... If there's one thing the history of American warfare teaches, It's that you can't apply the rest of the history of war to the way America fights wars. This is the country that gave us, in modern times, ending a rebellion by putting civilian cities to the flame until the civilians became too tired and hungry to support the war.

I think you will see a right wing government using weapons of mass destruction on cities like NYC in our lifetime

The question was simply “can something be done?” Not if it could be done in the USA. Of course, we have to put up with more dead classmates because someday we might use those guns to defend ourselves from a tyrannical regime (or much more likely, a civil war amongst us, like almost happened on 1/6/21).

It explains so much that many Americans are still dreaming of a Red Dawn scenario.

Sorry pal, it'll be a bright flash and then no more. Your guns aren't going to do shit.

The sad part is that it’s much more likely Americans would turn their guns on each other in some sort of civil war type situation; eg the Democrats/Republicans think the Republicans/Democrats stole the election, and an armed uprising is the only way to give power back to the right party.

That’s the whole problem behind the right to bear arms. One person’s fight for liberty is someone else’s coup.

That's also the whole point of the right to bear arms.

a slippery slope to significantly reduced gun deaths

oh no

The places in the US with the tightest gun regulations have the most gun deaths because it's the people, not the guns, that cause the problem.

> and as such must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime

Yet funnily when that was in the process of happening (Trump's failed coup attempt) not only were there no "good guys with guns" against the regime, all the guys with the guns were for the regime trying to make a coup.

Because the leftist opposition (like you) are anti-gun

Pardon me, but lol. I'm nowhere near the US, and indeed I'm further to the left than both of your right parties, even if I'm center/right of center for my country.

And there are plenty of US "liberals" who are "pro-gun", whatever that means.

Serious question (I also highly value personal freedom):

Isn’t the freedom to walk down the street or go to school without fear of a deranged shooter or accidental firearm discharge an important freedom too?

sounds like socialism to me

>Isn’t the freedom to walk down the street or go to school without fear of a deranged shooter or accidental firearm discharge an important freedom too?

No. You have no right to not be in fear.

And even using your argument, I feel less in fear walking down the street with "protection" than not, which by your argument strengthens my right to carry.

> No. You have no right to not be in fear.

Strange conception of rights / freedom

> freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Lol. Just look at american media. And religion ? You mean baptist religion ?

Lmao "the right to bear arms" domestically is going to what, stop a land invasion by Russia or something to the tune of that?

Somehow, I don't think so. Instead it's just allowing you and yours to kill each other. As a Kiwi living in the UK: gun control works, it really does.

Also, falling into a regime? Your current political atmosphere is that a regime of extremely conservative people who are pretty much the major group to own guns in America are trying to devolve human rights in your country. So really, in a way, you already have a regime trying to take over and _they_ have all the guns already.

This is basically a good take. The intent of the second amendment was multifaceted, but the most important aspect of it was probably that it allowed for a state level check on power of the federal government. Remember, all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights were originally checks on federal power only. The second amendment was a distribution of the capacity for violence from a federal government that would need it (the Founders believed) occasionally for country-level protection to the individual states that were still extremely responsible for their own affairs and may not have ratified a Constitution that stripped them of the ability to defend themselves from threats.

But almost a hundred years later, the calculus changed when several States banded together and tried to dissolve the country by violence. As a consequence of the 14th Amendment, rights previously recognized only at the federal level became enforced at the state level as well. This creates a bit of a philosophical contradiction in the original intent of the Second Amendment to provide citizens States the capacity to defend themselves from overreaching federal power, and evolution of that contradiction is how we eventually got to the notion that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms independent of any particular military application of those arms, despite the word "militia" being in the amendment itself.

exactly this, the right wing are truly dangerous, we will see how it plays out

School shootings are an extremely tiny minority among shootings in the US. They just get a lot of attention.

That’s true. But high school student suicide by gun is much more common.

If kids are trying to kill themselves it's not the guns that are the problem. I'd argue telling them constantly that they're horrible or incapable for being their race is probably closer to the real problem since that seems to cause a lot of other mental illnesses as well.

Guns make it really easy for kids and adults to make split decisions and follow through with it without making a mistake. They make suicide incredibly accessible, where otherwise committing suicide would be much more difficult in terms of skills, effort, planning, etc…

The same people who are against gun control are also against social spending on mental health. So it’s not really a problem they want to focus on, even though it disportionstebly affects them (Wyoming is number 1 or 2 for gun violence, but it is almost all suicide).

If the gun control people were to make this their foundational argument/prevention goal, I would be way more inclined to consider their suggestions.

As it stands, they're burning all their political capital on trying to ban high capacity semiautomatic rifles. Even if they were to succeed, which they won't*, it wouldn't even dent gun deaths in the US. I really can't wrap my head around why that is the basis of the gun control platform. It makes every point they make seem manipulative and disingenuous. What are their goals? I can hardly think of any without looking toward borderline conspiracies, which I refuse to do.

Are you* gonna sign up for confiscation detail? I bet the SWAT guys aren't.

> It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly.

You sure about that? If we had an aggressive gun buyback program and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld. However, if you have the disposable income to be able to afford to pay >$20k for that gun...you've probably got your life together and aren't going on shooting sprees.

Guns, but only for criminals and rich people? No thanks.

Better than having guns for criminals, rich people and unhinged teenagers looking to shoot their school.

The largest demographic (hundreds of millions of people), which you seem to have left out, is law abiding citizens looking to protect themselves and their families.

Protect themselves from what? Unhinged people with guns? Seems like recursion.

People in other countries where guns are illegal seem to do just fine without having to protect themselves using their own firearms.

People in unarmed countries get stabbed/beaten/shot if their attacker is larger/stronger/younger than them. Here, older/weaker people have a chance to protect their lives. Firearms are frequently used defensively to stop attacks.

Here's a couple from the past 2 weeks:

https://abc7.com/moreno-valley-intruder-shot-homeowner-inves... https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/man-fatally-shot-a...

Anecdotal evidence is great for appeals to emotion, but the data tells a different story[1].

[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-thr...

I can show you hundreds of news stories of defensive gun use from the past 6 months, or you can be satisfied with a single study, which also claims:

>women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault

I don't know why anyone would choose to believe something that is so easily falsifiable with a 2 minute google search[0]

0. https://www.kfvs12.com/story/9273275/accused-rapist-shot-kil...

As the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. It's great that you read the page I cited, but you cherry picked your quote. Here's the full section:

> 11. Self-defense gun use is rare and not more effective at preventing injury than other protective actions

> Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no less likely to be injured after taking protective action than victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss.

> This article helps provide accurate information concerning self-defense gun use. It shows that many of the claims about the benefits of gun ownership are largely myths.

> Hemenway D, Solnick SJ. The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007-2011. Preventive Medicine. 2015; 79: 22-27.

Emphasis added.

>(in more than 300 cases)

Yes, this shows the bias of the authors. They come to a conclusion that is only supported by undersampled data, yet their language is strongly biased towards that specific conclusion ("women never..."). Unbiased language would not read that way. I suspect the language flies under your radar because you seem to agree with the conclusions. But its a huge red flag that the authors are not approaching the subject in good faith.

Studies on DGU is an oft-treaded subject. I've looked at quite a bit of data, and if you have also, you would also know how and why it is so difficult to compile reliable data on the subject. Which is why I find it nearly futile to throw studies at each other.

>Protect themselves from what?

Bears, wolves, mountain lions, elk, moose, bison are some of the things.

>Protect themselves from what? Unhinged people with guns? Seems like recursion.

Protect themselves from larger people with other weapons. Protect themselves from unarmed people who want to kill them. Protect themselves from crazy guy who made home-made shotgun with home-made gunpowder and home-made projectiles. Protect themselves from cartel members who smuggle weapons channeled by foreign militaries. Protect themselves from wild animals, including grizzly bears that inhabit the US and Polar bears that inhabit places like Svalbard. Protect themselves from rabid or poorly trained aggressive domestic animals, such as the many dogs that attack and even kill children annually.

I've never seen anyone argue against this that wasn't essentially, "oh well, deal with it I guess." The police can't make it in time, and have no duty to protect you. Any other weapon that doesn't provide distance and lethal force is a liability. So what is the expectation for innocent victims, especially the smaller or weaker ones? Just get beaten/killed? I've never seen a real answer to this.

> So what is the expectation for innocent victims, especially the smaller or weaker ones? Just get beaten/killed? I've never seen a real answer to this.

Pepper spray is pretty great. You don't have to worry about killing someone, so you can use it with a lot less hesitation. I've been in a situation where I was in physical danger, but from someone I didn't want to kill, and pepper spray immediately ended the danger for me and allowed me to get away. A gun would not have done that because I wouldn't have used the gun.

I agree there are situations where nonlethal force is appropriate, and it sounds like you were in one of those situations. There are other situations where someone wants to and is trying to kill you, and pepper spray does not incapacitate that kind of aggression reliably. It also does not work well on drunk people or people with a high pain threshold tolerance.

In my case, the person was drunk, very strong, very angry, had quite a high pain threshold, and the pepper spray was shockingly effective. In about five seconds they went from screaming threats and swinging a 2x4 at family members to crumpled on the ground crying.

That’s not how gun buy back programs work. Hint they don’t and never have. It’s the same as what happened to that town that tried to solve their rat problem by paying people to bring rat heads. Some enterprising townsfolk started breeding rats.

You have to ban them _and_ buy them back at the same time. You make them illegal to have, then you compensate people for the economic value of the property they now need to surrender for destruction.

That is in fact how buyback schemes work in countries that aren't totally irrational about guns.

I clearly should have clarified. They don’t work in America where private gun ownership does not look like it’s ever going to get banned.

Also America isn’t land locked like Australia. The black market will have an easier time transporting the goods through South America. If that wasn’t the case, then drugs wouldn’t be as accessible here. And given US is the arms capital of the world (American manufacturers supply a significant amount of the arms used in conflicts), those guns will inevitably find their way back to America (conflict stops, owners need money more than weapons, etc). The bigger the conflict the cheaper the guns become.

Finally, Australia had a national moment of unity when they banned guns and so giving up your guns was a collective activity. That’s not the case in America.

You're deeply wrong about that. Gun buybacks have worked and do work everywhere that they've been conducted.

It's not a buyback since the government never owned it. It's coerced confiscation.

So if you sell your house, or sell your car, or sell a loaf of bread, is that also coerced confiscation?

If the government says "we're taking your house for %x percent of the value" then yes, it is.

Is extremely disingenuous to suggest that a gun "buyback" is voluntary. You either do it or you're a felon.

Gun Buybacks were incredibly successful in Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre and now we have f*ck all gun violence. Funny that.

My home country has scrict gun ownership laws. It is almost impossible for a citizen to get a gun and even when he does other rules applies to carrying and loading.

Last time I've checked we had around 60000 gun related deaths every year.

If you were less obscure about which country that was maybe we could probe into why those deaths happen but you weren't so we cant.

It's Brazil, no other country in the world has more than 40,000 firearm deaths per year.

Yeap. News about people getting killed during a robbery even after passively handling out their belongings without resistance are common occurrence.

Criminals still with plenty access to guns after 20 years of strict control regulations are emboldened by the fact that nobody can offer resistance.

It seems obvious that firearms deaths are a multi-cause issue. If you have a highly developed country (Finland, Iceland, Switzerland...) you can also have lots of firearms without fearing also massive killings. But if half your society is born and raised under violence (El Salvador, Venezuela, Honduras...) + easy firearms + raging black markets operating freely, it's a recipe for disaster. I wouldn't expect less deaths in Brazil by getting more guns in the streets and encouraging resistance: Venezuela is already there (more than twice the guns of Brazil, handguns and semiautomatic are more or less allowed, you only need a license), and their death rates are the worst in the world.

> I wouldn't expect less deaths in Brazil by getting more guns in the streets and encouraging resistance

in this sort of situation, i'd rather die resisting than die placid and unable to fight.

Gun violence from criminals can't be solved via gun control.

It's quite difficult to breed guns.

>”and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld.”

Might still? It would kick the underground firearm economy into overdrive. It’s also the case that the United States has a mind boggling amount of guns, more than any forced confiscation program could hope to put a noticeable dent into. “I lost my gun in a boating accident” is already a meme in gun culture. The black market would be well supplied.

> but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones

Not all premeditated attackers are equal in motivation and ability. Make the obstacle high enough, some people will still make it over, others will either lack the motivation to scale it or the ability to do so. Lower the obstacle, and suddenly that later group gets over it too.

"Premeditation" just means the attacker intended to do the act before-hand. The degree of preparation involved varies widely. Some premeditated attacks are the fruit of weeks, months, even years of preparation. Other premeditated attacks are triggered by a recent stressor, sometimes only days old. Gun control can make a big difference to the odds of the later kind of premeditated attack, but makes little difference to the odds of the former kind.

Strongly disagree.

Access to powerful firearms vastly increases how damaging shootings are.

Compare the single death in a decade for Japan to the hundreds, if not thousands of deaths per year from gun violence in the US[0] [1]. Keeping guns out of circulation reduces gun deaths.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

"It's the exception that proves the rule".

In this case, it proved both rules.

One of the ostensible purposes of the Second Amendment is for Americans to be able to hold their own government in check via the private capacity to cause violence.

Well, lacking anything even approximating a Second Amendment, an individual Japanese citizen just forced leadership change.

You think in America citizens should shoot Bush or Obama to "hold their own government in check"? You think that's a valid exercise of the second amendment?

Are you asking me or the Founding Fathers?

I think it's a terrible and apocryphal idea and America would be well served by repealing the Second Amendment. The perpetual loss of civilian life to violent urges consummated by easy access to deadly firearms is in no way worth the possibility that Americans may need to rise up and shoot a bunch of their own politicians someday.

But among the reasons that it was put into place is definitely the idea that you must arm the citizenry because a government that disarms its citizenry is a tyranny. The US had, in living memory of the people who wrote the Constitution, just fought a war against their legitimate government and won it because, among other things, colonial life had made the average American familiar with a gun. They saw that as a useful facet of their culture to preserve.

I don't think "you can just shoot anyone for whatever deluded reason you want" is a valid rationalisation of the second amendment, or a reason to have a gun.

Not for any reason, but make no mistake: the militia was argued to be a check on tyrannical abuse.

"If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people?" ~Alexander Hamilton (as Publius)

I should perhaps clarify: the main purpose of the militia at the time of the Constitution's creation was to serve as a check on Federal power by providing the States with control of their own instrument of violence. But after, well, the states used that power to rebel against what they saw as a tyranny (the imminent end of slavery and therefore loss of what they perceived as their legitimate property in the form of other human beings) and the government crushed that rebellion, the Fourteenth Amendment pretty much extinguished that purpose for the Second Amendment. So the only aspect of this justification for its existence that remains is the individual conscience of the American citizen on whether their government is tyranny that should be opposed with violence. Every other check-on-tyranny purpose was nullified by the Fourteenth Amendment after the 1860s.

... And if that means 2A sounds stupid to keep around in 2022, we are in agreement and I would support repealing it.

Japan's death rate seems higher than the US by quite a bit (14 vs 10 per 1000). I believe this is because they have far greater violent death than the US, but don't call most killings 'murder'. E.g. a person that owes money is found hanged in a Japanese park, it's suicide even when it's obvious they cannot have hanged themselves.

Culture plays a large role in statistics. It's hard to interpret from outside. But surely the choice of weapon is less meaningful than the outcomes.

The term 'gun violence' is designed to cherry-pick numbers out of a whole landscape of social problems and argue toward a point.

Japans death rate is ~11, not 14.

But regardless, no, there is nowhere near as much violent death here in Japan. It is one of the safest countries in the world. The high death rate is due to the aging population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/death-rate

I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. How many school shootings happen in China or India? I am taking china and india because they are populous and don't have gun distributed freely like in US.

The fact is quantity matters in such cases. Having 1 incidence vs 10 or 20 is a huge difference.

> I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people.

and i do believe that this idea doesn't fly in the USA. The culture doesn't allow it. Gun control in the USA can, and will, only ever go as far as checks and registries. It will forever remain a place where anyone, after passing checks, will be able to acquire a gun.

There are countries with large gun ownership rates too - finland comes to mind. Those countries have good education, social safety net, healthcare, and other societal support, such that people don't become deranged or fall into crime (as easily).

Of course, having some gun control laws will help - i am all for a complete registry of guns (which doesn't exist in the US - and fuck those who are against it). But it's not a panacea. Effort and political capital spent on trying to get gun control means effort not spent on social progress, which is a deeper root cause of the problem.

There are hundreds of millions of americans. These mass shooting events are insignifigant in the grand scheme of things. I don't think we should give away our essential freedoms just so we can live in a "safe" country like... China and India?

Surely there are more palatable examples of countries without guns than China and India.

> our essential freedoms just so we can live in a "safe" country like... China and India?

India has zero to no gun violence. Sure, there's a lot of petty crime, and there are enough murders happening - and the last thing we want is to arm those murderers with guns.

Your sentence seems to argue that the (much higher) degree of free speech enjoyed by Americans is owing to civilian gun ownership, which I don't think is true (though I don't have the data at hand to back up my claim).

>There are hundreds of millions of americans. These mass shooting events are insignifigant in the grand scheme of things

It's not just the number of people who get shot - it's this idea that a road rage incident _can_ potentially end in you getting shot, if the other person is deranged enough. Not to mention the amount of American tax dollars that go into ensuring that the police out-gun the civilians.

There are something like 130m people in Japan and yet firearm homicides appear to be at least a couple of orders of magnitude less frequent:

"A 2022 report from the University of Washington revealing that, while the US had more than four firearm homicides per 100,000 people in 2019, Japan had almost zero. Comparing high-income countries in the World Bank with the rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 people, the US had 4.2, Australia had 0.18 and Japan 0.02, the report found."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/08/abe-shooting-w...

In my opinion, of all the things that count towards a society being considered more civilised than another, not shooting each other is right up there.

> I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. How many school shootings happen in China or India?

I don’t know about school shootings, but guns are banned in Puerto Rico and the island has 4 times the homicide rate of the US and 6 times the homicide rate of India. Pakistan has way more guns than most Latin American countries but much lower homicide rates.

Homicide rates in the new world have been vastly higher than in Europe and Asia for hundreds of years, long before modern gun control. At the turn of the 20th century, the homicide rate in the US was 10x higher than the UK: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/images/11217607.0002.206...

Pop quiz: from the chart of homicide rates in the UK, tell me when the major gun control legislation happened.

There are occasions it happened in India. In fact, it happened in my city, I think I read of one happening 8-10 years ago. Could be more recent, I don't really remember, but it was a big deal back then that's for sure. Some bully kid shot some kid with his father's pistol. But it isn't as widespread a problem as in America. I personally had more things to worry about, like casual racism and bullying.

Considering the cultures of these countries are vastly different, not even just on the topic of gun control, I'm not sure you can make a good-faith comparison.

> The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist.

We have what, near 200 examples of other countries who are able to do better? It's almost like it doesn't require a society with no (vaguely alluded to) issues to prevent many gun crimes and mass shootings, and it's more about being able and willing to add common-sense restrictions instead of being committed to an extreme "no restrictions" policy.

> will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly.

The perpretator of that attack had the biggest of red flags for a long time. He should _not_ have been able to legally purchase a firearm.

One very concrete action that requires no political will, would be for the media to stop giving a platform to the shooters.

If any would be shooter clearly sees that their message will go unheard, that they will die in anonymity, I think that could deter at least some.

Your point stands though, that the issue is societal.

yes, media has a huge role in aggrandizing the shooters, even if inadvertently. Unfortunately, due to the profit nature of most media, they gain clicks/views when such events happen. Political will - which might in this case be synonymous with profit motive - is definitely lacking.

Yeah, school shooters should just be described as "Anonymous Coward {$serialnumber}", with no picture shown or anything.

Sorry, but why would a complete ban on citizens owning guns, unless for very special cases not severely curb gun violence?

Japan has 9 cases of gun deaths, the US had 35,000. You’d almost think it has an effect.

You are including suicides in the US gun deaths which makes it a bit of weird comparison.

No? I’m including suicides for Japan as well.

I wasn't clear. What I mean, is a huge number of the gun deaths in the US are with guns. Suicide in Japan is usually not with guns.

it would curb spur of the moment shootings, and may be accidental, or simple premeditated ones. It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned.

Plus, a complete ban on civilians owning guns is very unlikely to ever happen in the USA.

> It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned.

That's also the case in every country where guns are illegal and yet in practice it remains a very rare occurrence.

Why do you need to "stop" it? Why not just "lower" it? Like lower it with 90%.

And the fanatic, practice shows that a lot of times they take the easy road by using a knife, axe or bow.

Very insightful and refreshing to see a nuanced take like this. I agree, it's a sick society problem, and blaming just guns or just "mental illness" (as if that's somehow unconnected from society as a whole) misses the bigger picture.

This was even more wild because of the guns involved were somewhat complex homemade guns.

Belgian gun owner here, so let me give you my take on this.

> It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings.

Proper gun laws could definitely prevented the 4th of july shooting. Have you seen the guy's picture and background? No way in hell that he would have gotten a legal gun in Belgium. Same for most school shootings.

The solution is very simple: don't let aggressive and crazy people buy guns.

> Solve those societal issues

Or you need to accept that your society will have aggressive and crazy people, and make laws accordingly.

US always thinks black and white. Either everyone can buy a gun, or nobody can buy a gun. There seems to be no grey zone in between? Same for mass shootings, either you have them or you have 0, also no grey zone. Maybe you could try to prevent most of them? Like most sane countries?

You need a driver license to drive a car, seems logical. But in US, anyone can walk into a store and buy a gun with bullets. Absolutely bonkers in these times.

Like I said, I'm a gun owner. So let me tell you what I have to do to get a gun, to give you an idea how other countries work.

First of all I need a reason to own a gun, and "defend my home" is not a valid one. "I shoot for sports" is a valid one. In that sense, we don't have an NRA organisation, we have a Sport Shooting Organisation, which actually wants to have proper legislation with restrictive licenses.

So first I need to subscribe myself into a shooting range. I can't have any convictions, my doctor needs to approve I can handle guns. The shooting range itself also judges if they want a person like me in their club (=is this person going to be handling guns safely?). I can tell you there are no members in my club who have tattoos in their face.

For 3 months I can only shoot air guns. After 3 months, I can apply for a firearm. Again, no convictions, doctor needs to approve, all adult people in my house need to approve. Then you need to pass a theoretical and practical exam. Theoretical also includes gun laws, where to store guns, how to transport them, etc. After that is done, you can send the documents to the government, they have to approve it. After they say yes, they send your dossier to the local police, and a cop will come by to check where and how you store your guns (stored away from kids, bullets separate, not easily accessible, ...). After that person approves, it goes back to the government and you get your license. If any of the people in those steps says "no", you don't get your firearm. This application takes months.

Then, once you have your firearm, every year you need to prove you at least went 12 times to the shooting range, and have a clear criminal record. Every 5 years your doctor needs to approve. When you want to buy another firearm, do the whole thing again. Also, cops can come by any time and check where your guns are stored.

Do I like to do all of this every year? No. Do I prefer that over my neighbour owning a gun and no clue how to safely use it? Yes. Do I prefer that over any crazy idiot going to the shop and buy a firearm and bullets? Hell YES!!!!

What is the result? Compare the gun violence results of Belgium with any US state the size of Belgium.

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