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Comment by ndsipa_pomu | Hacker News Reader

Guns are legal in almost every country - I think your problem is with countries that have almost no restriction on gun ownership. e.g. Here in the UK you can legally own a properly licensed rifle or shotgun and even a handgun in some places outside of Great Britain (e.g. Northern Ireland).

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Just because something is technically legal, doesn't mean it's in any way common or part of UK culture to own a gun.

There hasn't been a school shooting in the UK for nearly 30 years. Handguns were banned after the last school shooting and there hasn't been one since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:School_shootings_in_t...

Although that fact is sometimes forgotten by schools who copy the US in having "active shooter drills" though. Modern schools sound utterly miserable.

let us ban knives then...

got a license for that mate?

There's already a UK ban on carrying knives in public unless you have an occupational need and they're wrapped up or at least not just sitting in your pocket.

Licensing wouldn't be worthwhile as almost every household would want knives for food preparation.

This is a tired stereotype.

The US has more stabbings per-capita than the UK does, even on top of the shootings.

It would be a miracle if the US experienced mass shootings at the rate the UK experiences mass stabbings.

> It would be a miracle if the US experienced mass shootings at the rate the UK experiences mass stabbings.

It would indeed be a miracle as the US would drastically have to reduce their number of shootings to get down to the number of UK mass stabbings.

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

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

That is why I said that, as the comparison is pretty weak. The US' gun problem basically wouldn't be a topic of discussion if it was occurring at the rate mass stabbings do in the UK.

Yet the murder rate was unaffected by the gun ban.

Yet the USA's intentional murder rate per 100k population is 6.383 while the UK's is 1.148 [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

So it would be reasonable to assume there are other factors at play?

The first stop in such train of thought is the method of homicide, which guns make infinitely easier than virtually anything else.

correct however the simple existence of a weapon does not automatically mean killing. Other factors exists like the obvious rampant poverty and mental illness which gets ignored because it's not as easy to solve and political polarizing than simply banning something.

Why do people say such unsubstantiated nonsense. Places with guns have more death. And it's obvious to see why guns are a tool for for killing, and they're pretty effective.

Exactly. It's not the legality of weapons, but the easy availability of them that causes the issues.

It seems to me like victim blaming for U.S. schools to have active shooter drills - it makes more sense to have much better training and screening of gun owners than trying to train the victims. However, given that the NRA is excessively powerful in U.S. politics, I can see why they are necessary, but it just seems easier to me to stop kids from being able to get hold of guns (e.g. have some rudimentary screening for gun purchases and require owners to keep them in locked cabinets when they are not in use).

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