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Comment by anonu | Hacker News Reader

The right to bear arms in the USA is often most appreciated by citizens of foreign lands where life is lived on the precipice between democracy and tyranny. Gun deaths and mass shootings are horrible but the solution is not to abolish the 2nd amendment.

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> The right to bear arms in the USA is often most appreciated by citizens of foreign lands where life is lived on the precipice between democracy and tyranny.

It's very dramatic to say, but do you have evidence of that? It sounds like a fantasy of the American gun rights crowd (like most of this discussion).

> Gun deaths and mass shootings are horrible but the solution is not to abolish the 2nd amendment.

Is that the only way to regulate guns, to recind the amendemnt?

I would say there are a few events in history and in the geopolitical world that support my claim. The first is the recent spike in gun ownership in Israel following the Hamas attacks [1]. Similarly, you have militias such as Hezbollah who have refused to lay down their weapons post the civil war conflict and have retained a disproportionate amount of power over the citizens of Lebanon. In one example, they have built their own telecom network which, when the state attempted to remove it, Hezbollah fought back by terrorizing the population [2].

In the first case, you see the population seeking to arm themselves to bring the balance of power back inline. In the second case you see the balance of power already tilted towards an armed group.

I am not saying guns are the solution. But they are a deterrent. An aggressor will think twice before attacking.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/world/middleeast/israel-g... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Lebanon_conflict

That's a pair of events that are not about the 'precipice between democracy and tyranny'. The argument is a trope of US gun rights advocates but it's not really based on much beyond frequent repetition. I don't mean this as some sort of opening for a gun policy debate, just that this particular thing is largely a slogan, not some meaningful historical pattern. One of its forms has its own Wikipedia page:

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

Wow. Try studying all of human history, especially the past century. There's many thousands of books, as a starter. Look at the history of disarmament and why it's done by tyrannies. Do you imagine for one nanosecond that North Koreans outside of the government own guns, to take one solid example?

All the most free, prosperous, and safe countries in the world have many fewer guns, and gun rights, than the US. The US is the outlier, and it's even the outlier now for its own history.

The US in 2023 is the outlier in time and place.

Inconveniently, a lot of those places had all citizens turn over their guns to occupying forces between 1939–1946…

And that turned out really well. I’m unclear what your point is.

That doesn't seem like a solid example at all.

North Korea was quite capable of running a dictatorship since circa 1948. It seems from a quick read around that they brought in gun controls in 2009.

It sounds to me that it is perfectly possible to oppress a country with or without gin control.

> Wow. Try studying all of human history, especially the past century.

This has been done: surveying ~600 movements since 1900, researchers found those that used violence were successful about 25% of the time, while non-violent movements were successful over 40% of the time:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...

Further: movements that used violence, and happened to be successful, also were much more likely to become authoritative themselves, while non-violent movements were more likely to be non-authoritative.

The recent historical record shows that you're better off not using guns, the exact opposite of your claim.

There are an estimated 20,000 gun laws in the USA. Do you not consider that regulation? Why are noise mitigation devices regulated, often taking a full year to be approved? These are known as suppressors (silencers on TV and movies).

I don't like to use the acronym LOL on this site, but here I am. As someone from the Third World, where gun violence is a problem. The USA is still mocked for its rampant gun violence, mass murders and police violence. Let alone for being on the precipice of democracy and tyranny - as seen by Jan 6 and the possibility of Trump being re-elected. That and the USA being responsible for much of the descent from democracy into tyranny in so much of the global South. So there you have it LOL.

I do believe you are living in a bubble, whereby your viewpoints are selectively backed up by "world events" that actually do not walk the line between democracy and tyranny.

On the other hand, the issue is of grave concern vis-a-vis being on the precipice between democracy & tyranny... Maybe it's not the solution said people think it is.

Then what IS the solution?

Accessible healthcare, social services for the impovershed, accessible education, really anything that lifts people out of the despair or anger that drives them to committing crime.

So instead of just not letting literally crazy people have high mag firearms, you just want us to fix all of society's problems and hope such a utopian society cures all ills.

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