U.S. surgeon general declares firearm violence a public health crisis | Hacker News Reader

U.S. surgeon general declares firearm violence a public health crisis

washingtonpost.com

15 pointsnibab12 comments

I am going to try to stay as non political as possible as I know this is a sensitive topic for many.

I see gun violence as a more recent issue. We have had these type of guns, and the various weapons for hundreds of years. It is only recently that such issues such as school shooting became a thing. Mass shootings, and school shootings while a horrific incident, are not a result of access to guns. Back in the day, it was not uncommon for kids to hunt, especially if you lived in certain communities like the blue collar area. I think the reason we see such issues today is a large and complex issue. It's much easier to get to places, and people are more impulsive and social media and mental health are certainly contributing factors, but I can't really agree with people when they argue that gun control needs to happen. I agree their is a problem, and I also see signs that gun control dosnt work. I think its similar to banning cars that can go over 70 mph because speeding kills so many people and causes so much financial damage.

Yeah but those kids hunting had single shot or bolt action rifles with 4-5 round fixed magazines, with either .22 or full power rifle cartridges, a conventional stock, and a long barrel. An AR-15 with a pistol grip, 30 round detachable magazine, short barrel, and semiautomatic action is much more dangerous in a mass shooting attempt.

Pistols are also much more powerful. Instead of the standard 5 shots and slow to reload, modern pistols have 17-23 round detachable magazines.

All of these things have been available since the eighties, but now they’re the standard purchase and they’re in a lot of homes.

This may have been true in the 60's but the vast vast majority of rifle hunting happens with AR platform rifles. That being said, talking about rifles in the context of gun deaths is all misdirection anyway. Less than 400 people died to rifles in the last year that we have statistics for, 2019[1]. Banning them is not only constitutionally untenable, but wouldn't provide much at all in the way of decreases to overall gun deaths.

[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

Ok now do high capacity semiautomatic pistols.

Edit: also “only 400 people per year.” Great.

1. All pistols (except revolvers) are semi-automatic.

2. High capacity is not a descriptor of a gun, but of the magazine holding the bullets.

3. The stats are all right in the link I posted. Handguns account for the vast majority of gun deaths, but gun control debates are dominated by talking about regulating rifles.

4. Sub-400 people per year in a country with 14,000 killings that year is a negligible number, regardless of any eye rolling.

High capacity is a descriptor of a gun in terms of what magazines it can accept. Prior to the 1980s, pistols were generally single stack low capacity like the 1911, 7 rounds or so, now they’re double stack and around 20 is common. This is extremely relevant to all kinds of gun violence because the vast majority of shots in real gunfights are misses. Revolvers were also much more popular than pistols prior to the late eighties or so when the Glock and competitors came out.

The AW ban that limited these to 10 rounds expired in 2004 and people have bought a lot of these guns in the last 20 years.

Last week it was social online networks. Maybe someone asked for status report on his work so far.

Because a disarmed public is easy to oppress

Strikes me more as a policy crisis than health crisis.

This isn't about public health or stopping violence. This is about disarming the people. Can't have full government control as long as the people are armed. Blame the gun, not the perpetrator.

Is this still a valid argument in an age where even (especially?) small town police departments have absolutely incredible stockpiles of weapons and people at their disposal?

Cat's outta the bag, welcome to the Wild West v2.0

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