Hacker News Reader

So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in residential neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called "assault rifles" for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood.

By "assault rifles" do you mean the colloquial definition of black semi-automatic firearms with pistol grips and detachable magazines? Or the technically accurate definition of select-fire automatic weapons, which this alleged killer's ar-15 was allegedly not?

There is very little functional difference between the ar-15 rifle used in this crime and rifles commonly used to hunt, other than hunting rifles for medium and large game are usually larger caliber and therefore usually more lethal.

Hunting laws prohibit use of higher capacity magazines in some situations. However, proper accuracy usually makes reloading time a minor factor in how quickly one can go through 100 or 200 rounds. If you make lunatics like this focus on accuracy rather than letting them think they're all set because they can show up with a drum magazine, more people would probably die or have life-threatening injuries, even if fewer people are hit.

The drum magazine used probably contributed to the shooter's S&W AR-15 jamming, possibly saving lives. They are not the most reliable magazines.

There are owners of assault rifles (in the colloquial sense, and possibly in the true sense) in my relatively safe neighborhood, and it does not concern me in the least.

As far as your reference to "young people", I take it that you want to create yet another age restriction, beyond the 16 years necessary to get a license, 18 necessary to vote and serve in the military, and 21 necessary to drink and buy a handgun from a FFL? 24 year olds are now not trustworthy? What age limit would you propose? 30? 35? Can someone be old enough to serve in the Senate or as President and still not be trusted with a rifle? Anders Breivik was 32.

Where in the USA can you hunt rhinos?

You don't use 5.56mm nato for deer either.

The point was suitability (for hunting) and relative "power" or "lethality" (as much as I hate those terms because they incite caliber wars) of the rifle Holmes used compared to what is typically used for hunting. Typical hunting calibers for medium and large game (regardless of whether the hunt is in the U.S. or Africa) are .308 or .30-06 on up. Some specialized .2xx calibers might work, but run higher risk of causing more cruelty to the animal (by not being sufficiently lethal). That's why hunting laws tend to dictate calibers, not because banned calibers are too lethal but because they're not lethal enough. Even .308 (7.62mm nato) is commonly eschewed for large game.

Anyone talking about a .223 rifle as high-powered or particularly dangerous relative to common hunting rifle calibers really has no idea what they are talking about.

I used a .270 for years hunting deer and elk. I can assure you they are effective for distances up to 400 yards. Also, read about Jack O'Conner who was a proponent of the .270 for hunting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_OConnor_(American_writer)

I don't doubt the .270 is very capable.

Here in the Yukon, it illegal to use anything less than 300 caliber for Bison.

For concreteness, is there any credible argument that the restrictions on gun availability that were put in place after the shooting incident in Australia in 1996 (which has not been repeated) have in any way reduced the freedom of citizens and residents of Australia? I know a lot of Australians, and they are very freedom-loving people, and I think if gun laws in Australia are different from how they are in the United States, one reason is that Australians like to be free of being shot to death by crazy people in public places.

These bad actors are so rare that pointing to lack of an event in 16 years in Australia (population less than 1/10 that of the U.S.) does not mean very much. There was a lesser event in 2002 in Australia: the Monash University shooting. [1]

The freedom to use firearms for sport or self defense is lost. Some people value that freedom more than you do. Aren't there still exceptions in Australia for members of gun clubs and for people who can demonstrate need for weapons (specifically, let's say in the outback)? What will your response be if one of them loses touch with reality and shoots people?

Gun ownership and availability may or may not actually lead to more deaths in mass killing events. China has strict gun control. What happens when people go crazy in China? Mass killing via tractor (17 dead, 20 injured). [2] Crazy people intent on mass murder find ways to kill people. I don't know how to prevent that without taking away their sentience.

There are plenty of other incidents [3] with higher death and injury tolls than this latest one. Arson, bombings, poison plots...

People are under increased social stress due to economics, perceived lack of bona fide political representation, among other things. Most people just complain to their friends or on reddit when they're frustrated. Very few people suffer a break from reality and go on a rampage, but unfortunately some do. It is not obvious that banning guns, if such a thing could even be done in the U.S. (it cannot be, without many more of these events) will substantially reduce death tolls, serious injuries, or numbers of mass-killing events.

Taking a page from Schneier's terrorist plot survey years ago, how many people would die do you think if some lunatic set about methodically trying to disrupt the power grid, in the middle of summer?

There are ways to kill lots of people without using guns, some more direct and gruesome than others, but all quite lethal. Most of the people moaning about how these things wouldn't happen if not for guns seem to forget that.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei_tractor_rampage

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#Other_n...

>China has strict gun control. What happens when people go crazy in China? Mass killing via tractor (17 dead, 20 injured). [2] Crazy people intent on mass murder find ways to kill people.

And how many more could that guy have killed with a gun? In any field of endeavour people are more effective when using better tools, and a gun is a tool designed and optimized for killing. Just because we can't make killing impossible doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make it harder.

Who knows? Maybe there were a few people he'd really like to kill that he couldn't kill with his tractor but could have killed with a gun, and killing them would have appeased his insanity (briefly, at least) so that there would have been fewer people dead.

Maybe if tractors were banned he would have built a fertilizer bomb and killed hundreds.

We can't know, and setting policy based on speculation is pointless.

Disingenous. We can't possibly be certain of the impact of any particular policy change, but that doesn't mean we should never change policy; we have to use our best judgement based on the available evidence.

Guns are weapons (duh) and killing is their raison d'etre; if they weren't more effective at killing than the alternatives, there would be no reason to ever produce them.

There are times when killing (or threatening to kill) is legally acceptable, and morally acceptable unless you're a pacifist.

By trying to restrict or ban firearms to prevent crazy people from carrying out attacks, you prevent everyone else from using, in self defense, what you just stipulated are very effective killing tools.

Maybe the population would be statistically better off (less likely to die or be injured in crimes or by accident) without a gun, but that global statistic does not apply to smaller groups or individuals. The relative risk to certain demographics it seems to me would go up.

Even discounting self defense, the problem remains. If someone values hunting or target shooting enough, they won't be willing to give those up to prevent (maybe) some criminals and insane people from getting guns.

>Maybe the population would be statistically better off (less likely to die or be injured in crimes or by accident) without a gun, but that global statistic does not apply to smaller groups or individuals. The relative risk to certain demographics it seems to me would go up.

Seems unlikely to my mind. People talk about equalizing the odds for more vulnerable victims, but if you don't keep a gun constantly on you and loaded then the attacker will have the advantage (even if you're talking young woman home alone vs. large male intruder, I suspect she's safer if neither has a gun than if he's carrying one and she has one in the safe); if you do there's a not insignificant risk of injuring yourself or your own family with it. And I cringe when I hear people talking about "home defense", as if property is worth getting into a shootout over. The overwhelming majority of intruders are burglars who will usually flee if a home turns out to be occupied. Where I live (with gun control laws) burglars don't generally carry guns, the regular police don't either, and everyone's safer for it.

>Even discounting self defense, the problem remains. If someone values hunting or target shooting enough, they won't be willing to give those up to prevent (maybe) some criminals and insane people from getting guns.

Yes, that's a legitimate argument to have.

Gun is also a tool designed and optimized for self-defense. You may be willing to accept being defenseless in order to reduce risk of very rare events but not everybody wants that. I, for one, would prefer to accept this microscopic risk and be able to defend myself if more frequent situation - such as home invasion, encounter with a violent criminal intent on harming me, etc. - arises.

  > Gun is also a tool designed and optimized for
  > self-defense.

So, how many shot back at the attacker in that movie theater?

None, because movie theaters are gun-free zones, so, naturally, the only person that had the gun was the criminal attacker. See also: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4465 Now compare to this case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sKQl-Qp5W0&feature=youtu... where somebody on the scene did have a gun.

Originally Australian here; our gun laws are stupid and largely ineffective, there is currently a war between various outlaw biker gangs going on, they mostly use guns. The Port Arthur massacre actually used weapons that were already illegal at the time and not but a month ago an m4 with underslung grenade launcher was confiscated in a Sydney suburb by police.

No other reasonable interpretation of available data exists other than gun laws have only effectively disarmed the law abiding. Some may claim this alone as all the victory required, but the pretense that gun laws stop criminals from using or acquiring guns in Australia is completely false.

"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." A typical remark from gun-loving Americans. They seem to miss a couple of things: if guns are outlawed, and you catch someone with a gun, that indicates they posess the gun with criminal intentions (i.e., their objection can actually be an advantage); if lots of people have guns and normal people can buy them, it makes it that much easier for criminals to obtain them; and a gun in a home is more likely to be use to accidentally kill children than to kill a criminal intruder, which means there is a good reason to try to discourage regular citizens from owning guns.

I think there are compelling reasons to keep guns legal, and I could imagine circumstances in which I would buy a gun. If I have children, I will teach them to safely handle a firearm, as I was taught. But this NRA cliche about banning guns doesn't hold water as an argument.

It does to the extent that criminals are demonstrably perfectly able to acquire firearms despite firearms regulations. You could of course claim it would be even worse in the absence of strong firearms laws, but there are plenty of cases which contradict this position, also. Switzerland jumps to mind.

The key word there is if. If you catch a criminal with a gun, he'd usually be holding it illegally within pretty much any current US law. The problem is that catching those criminals before they do harm is problematic - because until they do, you don't know who they are. And doing random searches on law abiding citizens just in case they are hiding something would probably be too much even for Brady campaign.

Evidence shows that in countries where private possession of guns were banned - like USSR - the criminals did have guns and did use them to kill people. Government restrictions rarely make something wanted inaccessible - prohibition failed miserably, war on drugs did the same. War on guns would inevitably fail too, but would bring enormous amount of victims among regular citizens - just like the ones mentioned above did.

Australia is a very urbanised, and gun ownership rates were very low anyway. Recreational shooters feel the laws are unnecessarily restrictive. Most of the population doesn't care. A certain segment of organised crime still has guns, but I think most of the populations desire to be involved in shoot outs with them is pretty low.

I'd say most people who choose not to have guns in first place feel more free when others are similarly disarmed.

I'm not sure how you can even ask this question - obviously, restrictions reduced the freedom, by definition, that's why they are restrictions! You may mean Australians don't care about their freedom being reduced - or even gladly accept reduced freedom as the price of greater safety - but asking for some special argument for reduction of freedom doesn't make any sense - it's there by definition, you don't need any special argument.

>> one reason is that Australians like to be free of being shot to death by crazy people in public places.

Any statistics to back it up? Note that Australia has about 1/14 of US population, so if US had mass shooting every year - then same level of violence in Australia would have one incident every 14 years. Of course, since these incidents are random, that could mean with high probability there can be 20 or 30 year period where the same level of risk would produce no incident at all. That's of course not counting differences in population densities, etc. which also influence the data.

My girlfriend's younger brother was in the marines. He had to get his older sister to buy ammunition because he couldn't despite handling far more deadly firearms in the military.

"So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in residential neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called "assault rifles" for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood."

What about suspending the Fourth Amendment? Surely enough random house checks, possibly automated with cameras, could also detect possible criminal activity and save lives.

Traditionally, Americans are willing to pay something for their freedoms. Freedom always comes with both costs and benefits, and so long as the costs don't far outweigh the benefits, then (in my opinion) freedom should prevail.

If, in your judgement, the cost of allowing individual gun ownership outweighs the benefits so much that you think the freedom should be removed, so be it. But keep in mind that there are plenty of other freedoms that can be removed in the name of safety (e.g. 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendment).

I'd also like to point out that violence is low and decreasing[1]. So, the case to restrict freedoms is weakening. The newsworthiness of a particular event doesn't change that fact. Also, removing a freedom is no guarantee that you'll actually get the safety you seek; it's only a guarantee that the freedom is gone.

[1] See Steven Pinker's new book, "The Better Angels of our Nature"

Look up "straw man argument" or maybe "slippery slope." Then, make a better argument.

Actually, people often underestimate the power of a "slippery slope" argument.

To me, it looks more like reductio ad absurdum. If we accept curtailing the 4th, 5th, or 8th amendment as an absurd outcome, and a parallel argument to token's supports that absurd outcome, then there must be a flaw in token's argument.

The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. That means it's only a fallacy in the context of dealing with logical entities. Can humans, and their governments, be assumed to act as logical entities?

The thing is that the second amendment appears to be fundamentally different, in terms of human rights, from the rest. There are a lot of good arguments as to why allowing free speech, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizures, and other such things is a good thing in general, and are fundamental issues of human rights and freedoms. There are substantially fewer arguments as to why gun ownership is important to freedom in general.

If one were drawing up a list of fundamental human rights today, and were somehow completely ignorant of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, what would it include? Would someone ignorant of the Constitution, but otherwise familiar with government, law, and freedom tend to include gun rights on that list?

The second amendment really seems like the odd man out. (Well, the third amendment is pretty odd too, but nobody cares about it these days.) Freedom of speech is important because the only reason to deny it is to oppress people. Due process and requirements for warrants are important because it keeps the government honest, and suspending them would cause more government abuse than it would stop crime.

But what makes a right to gun ownership important? What does it protect against, and what makes it better than not having that right?

I understand that reasonable people can disagree on this matter, and I hope we can have a reasonable disagreement here. What I'm trying to say is that the fundamental divide here is, as far as I can tell, precisely whether the second amendment enshrines a fundamental human right, the way we feel much of the rest of the Bill of Rights does, or whether the second amendment is out of place and does not describe a fundamental human right. To argue by saying that the other side's attitude would not play well when applied to other amendments in the Bill of Rights is to miss their motivations entirely.

The important thing to realize is that there are people who would ask the same questions and harbor the same doubts about those other amendments that you have about the second.

The second may seem like the odd man out to you, but that's to you, not to everyone. Others may well (and in fact do) believe that others are the odd man out.

I understand that, although the quantity and level of argument with the others doesn't appear to be anywhere near the same. My point here is that, if you think it is indeed a fundamental human right, you have to actually demonstrate that, not just say that any attempt to take away the second amendment is no better than taking away the fourth.

Well, no, actually, I don't. Since it's part of the Bill Of Rights, it's not on its supporters to show why it's a fundamental right, it's on its opponents to show why it isn't.

The whole point of those rights being in the Constitution is so that you don't have to endlessly justify those rights later.

And, again, it doesn't appear to be anywhere near the same to you. That really is an important part to grasp.

There are people who can make quite a strong case for restricting the First Amendment for reasons that have nothing to do with oppressing the people, but for reasons of protecting the fabric of society. I don't agree with them, but that doesn't mean their points are of lesser quality. It means that the damage to society is a price I'm willing to pay to enjoy the freedom that comes with it.

I think I've sufficiently argued for why I think the second amendment doesn't belong with the rest. I've also repeatedly stated that I realize this is not a universal view. I don't know what more you want me to do, here, since I seem to already be doing everything you're criticizing me for failing to do.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see that you have.

All you've done is say it's the odd man out and then ask what it protects. I just can't see that as anywhere near a sufficient argument. Or even an argument at all. It's more of a statement of your thesis without support.

It's a rhetorical question. I don't see that there is anything which makes gun ownership important, I don't see that it protects against anything significant, and I don't see it as being better than not having that right.

It's kind of hard to support a negative claim like that. It would be nice if you could kick in a bit of your side instead of just complaining about how I say things. And no, "it's in the Constitution so it's automatically true until disproven" does not work.

You're the one who is making the case that the second amendment is distinct from the others. Give him something to respond to.

I'm not sure what else I can give. The second amendment doesn't work against government abuses of power, nor does it provide for anything that humans need to live a fulfilling life. That's about it. What else are you looking for?

Maybe respond to the obvious objections to those two assertions? For starters, what would be your response to: "Yes, it does."

Which part? If it's that gun rights are fundamental to living a fulfilling life, well, lots of people live good lives without them, so that seems unlikely.

If it's about gun rights preventing government abuses, which seems like the more likely objection, well, how? I don't see government abuses being stopped or even slowed down by gun rights. When faced with a gun owner, police seem to simply shoot first and ask questions later. If they have even a hint of being outgunned, they call in a SWAT team or similar.

Ok, now we're cooking.

Is not being compelled to testify against one's self fundamental to "living a fulfilling life?" Since when has that been a qualification for a right? This is a True Scotsman minefield - beware.

Can you imagine a case in which gun rights could protect one from government abuses? Why would you think that the abuses that the right to bear arms are meant to prevent are confined to government ones?

These are obvious questions to ask simply based on the structure of the assertions. They are the type of questions that you should ask yourself before beginning a discussion in order not to waste everyone's (including your) time. Without that type of preprocessing, you're not going to convince anyone of anything; if you haven't done that preprocessing you don't really even firmly believe what you're saying yourself.

Really sorry if that sounds condescending. I'm just trying to explain myself clearly.

Sorry I'm unable to read your mind. I thought that maybe we could both state our positions and then discuss them, rather than me stating my position in more and more detail until at some point you are finally satisfied and find me worthy of being graced with your learned opinions.

Please consider the possibility that questions are not nearly as obvious when outside your head. I really don't know how I'm supposed to pick your own personal objections out of the roughly ten billion potential objections to what I've said. Your questions may be "obvious" in some sense of the word, but I don't know that they're any more obvious than the innumerable others that are out there.

To respond to your supposedly obvious questions: no, I really can't imagine gun rights protecting against government abuses, not today. At any sign of armed resistance, the government will bring increasing force to bear until they subdue you. If you survive the event, you may be vindicated later, but at no point does being armed help you. As for non-government abuses, there may be some utility there, but if you're having to carry firearms to protect yourself from your fellow citizens, I believe that's a more fundamental breakdown in society and government, and being able to carry guns is just a minor patch on the symptoms. Better to address the root cause through better policing.

If gun-owning citizens get aggravated enough at a tyrannical government, they can start an asymmetric war. How did that go for the British? How is it going for the U.S. military in the middle east?

Keep in mind that both of those scenarios were or are environments where the rebel forces and the citizenry they belong to do have the same level of constitutional protections that U.S. citizens do.

The only way to win against rebels armed with firearms is if they are not motivated enough to take up arms, or if the government takes off the kid gloves and engages in war with little or no regard for collateral damage. Neutral citizens rapidly turn against the government in that scenario.

As a aside, I think the American founding fathers' views of human rights was more that anything and everything is a fundamental right whether it is free speech or, on the other extreme, murder. However, since people have banded to form "society", to join society, a person would have to give up certain rights, e.g. the right to murder. So, depending on where you stand with respect to human rights, who should defend the right to bear arms, a person or a government?

What's a right? Isn't it something that no one can murder you from doing (or in general, use force to stop you from doing)? If murder is a right, isn't nothing a right, since anyone can murder you in response to anything?

If murder is a right, isn't nothing a right, since anyone can murder you in response to anything?

That's kind of the idea. What actions are you physically capable of? Once again, in the context of absolute freedom, what are you allowed to do (i.e. a right)? The thing is absolute freedom is a bit complicated especially given individual differences. Order/laws develop to facilitate interactions with other people.

I'm not sure how well I can explain this, so here's a link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

You have the right to find it interesting, a right to find it horribly stupid, or a right to find it _________________.

2nd amendment is important because it makes it harder for people to ignore the other 9.

This is why Iraq/Afghanistan have bothered me so much, the US military has greatly enhanced their ability to fight a war of attrition against a civillian population with rifles and IEDs, which is exactly the sort of resistance they would have in the event of a popular revolt.

Probably more disturbing is the modern law enforcement emphasis on militarization and crowd control. Witness the response to OWS. Imagine if they were actually attempting to overthrow the government.

"Due process and requirements for warrants are important because it keeps the government honest, and suspending them would cause more government abuse than it would stop crime."

That's fairly vague. I'm not sure what clear distinction you are trying to draw between the 2nd and 4th Amendments.

"But what makes a right to gun ownership important? What does it protect against, and what makes it better than not having that right?"

It can be seen as a right to self defense.

First, consider that your life, or at least your quality of life, depends on the police doing their jobs. To destroy you, the police merely need to make it known that you won't be protected.

There are many examples of this for many different reasons. It could be some political reason why the police chief doesn't want to enforce order in a minority neighborhood. Or, it could be more personal.

Even if the police do make a reasonable effort to protect you, it might not be enough to deter a stalker or someone that you're afraid of. Police generally react after the fact to punish a perpetrator rather than actually protect you, anyway.

You seem to be turning the burden of proof around, to ask why I think we should be allowed a freedom. The social contract says otherwise: we must agree together that a freedom is so dangerous that it should be outlawed.

Honestly, I think you should carefully evaluate whether you think that we are really better off with severe restrictions on guns[1], or whether you are just reacting emotionally to the thought that someone on your block owns a killing machine (which is what guns are, really).

But there are 200M+ guns in the US (numbers aren't precise, but it's about 2 guns per 3 people -- men, women, and children), and we aren't dropping like flies, so you have to look past the emotion. Most gun deaths in the US are suicide, by the way[2] -- and some people argue that is a human right.

[1] The research is mixed on the subject, and I imagine it depends on a lot of factors. To really have an opinion that the right should be removed, you would need to put in a lot of serious effort to research the numbers and convince yourself that people actually would be saved. I have the advantage that I win by default -- I don't need to prove that gun ownership increases safety to hold my opinion, I just need to convince myself that it doesn't increase danger enough to justify restricting it (which is pretty easy considering the low number of gun homicides overall).

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat...

> That's fairly vague. I'm not sure what clear distinction you are trying to draw between the 2nd and 4th Amendments.

The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information. Without that freedom, they could basically take what they pleased when they pleased.

There is no equivalent situation for the 2nd amendment. Without gun rights, we lose nothing that isn't related to guns. Government's power remains the same with our without the 2nd amendment, other than the ability to regulate guns.

I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended that you just assume I'm probably taking an emotional position here, and don't think that will make for a productive discussion.

I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses. (Sport etc. are not useful, although neither are they bad.) Self defense is the one exception, but it's not clear that guns are particularly useful for self defense, let alone that their utility for self defense outweighs the potential benefits of stricter controls on them.

If you disagree, that's fine. I welcome the discussion. But please refrain from any insinuation that you're the only one thinking rationally here.

"The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information."

I think you're interpreting the 4th Amendment kind of like the 5th Amendment prohibition of depriving someone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

The part of the 4th Amendment that's interesting to this discussion is the prohibition on unreasonable searches. You haven't really offered any reason that should exist (information can't be seized, by the way, because the original owner still has it).

"I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended..."

I got you confused with the person to whom I originally replied, who said: "I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood." That's clearly an emotional reaction, but I apologize for attributing it to you.

The only rationale I can imagine for restricting gun rights is to preserve some proportion of lives (or maybe an absolute quantity). I would still like to see your argument framed that way. It's unreasonable for me to ask for a specific number, but it seems like you should have some order-of-magnitude percentage in mind -- e.g. A% of the population were violently killed last year; restricting gun rights will reduce that to B% in Y years, thereby saving (A-B)% of the population per year.

The problem that this line of argument faces, of course, is that the percentage of people killed by guns is already quite low. And more than half of those are suicides, which probably wouldn't be prevented by gun restrictions. Some other fraction would still be killed by other means. And, unless Y is a very large number, then you still may have many gun deaths simply because there are still so many guns around.

When you actually work out the numbers will all of these things accounted for in a realistic way, I suspect that (A-B)% will be a small number (or negative), and Y will be a large number. In other words, a small (or negative) benefit after a lot of waiting (and possibly bad consequences during that transition).

But it would still be perfectly rational for you to say that you believe it will save a single life, and that's enough of a benefit for you. You'd probably want to take some risk into account though, in case you're wrong and the life isn't actually saved.

"I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses."

You assume that the guns must be used to be useful, which is false. In fact, the presence of guns may reduce the frequency with which they are used[1]. Even police in a lot of areas have probably never fired their weapons at another human.

[1] I have no numbers to back this up, but again, my argument does not depend on numbers.

I'm curious as to why you think that suicides would not be affected by gun restrictions. Most suicides are not people who are bound and determined to kill themselves by any means possible. Rather, most suicidal people are extremely troubled in general and may change their mind quickly. Making it more difficult for them to get ahold of the tools with which to end their lives could make a substantial difference.

As for the rest, you're absolutely right that it comes down to a potential net gain in lives saved versus lives lost. I think that it would be a net gain, simply because guns in private hands aren't saving a whole lot of lives. The potential downside is relatively low. The impact may not be large, but it does seem to me to be almost certain to be positive, so why not?

I think there is merit to the idea that a heavily armed society would deter crime. But you'd need gun ownership to be far more pervasive than it is now for it to work, I think. The chances of a criminal running into a private citizen with a loaded gun are pretty low. If nearly everyone had one, that would be different, but I don't think we're anywhere close. From where we are right now, reducing gun ownership seems to be a more productive and realistic direction.

"I'm curious as to why you think that suicides would not be affected by gun restrictions."

Conjecture. I have no numbers to back it up.

"The impact may not be large, but it does seem to me to be almost certain to be positive, so why not?"

Your stance seems perfectly rational, and based on two things:

(1) The belief that stricter gun laws will save lives; and (2) The right to own firearms has a negligible value.

I am ambivalent about the first one -- I simply don't have detailed numbers to back it up either way. I am skeptical that any savings would be worth the risk that it gets worse (being fairly low already, the potential downside is greater than the potential upside).

The second one I simply disagree with. It's a personal value and there is no real way for one of us to convince the other. I would be interested to know what fraction of Americans share your opinion here.

"But you'd need gun ownership to be far more pervasive than it is now for it to work"

An interesting point. It would be hard to imagine gun ownership being much more pervasive than it is now, but I agree that so few people carry guns that criminals have little to fear from public places.

I don't personally know anyone who owns a gun. Gun ownership could be far more pervasive than it is right now. According to random Wikipedia statistics, only about 40% of US households have a gun, and I imagine they're really unevenly distributed. In any case, as you imply, it's really the pervasiveness of carrying that matters, not simple ownership.

You are missing the point of the second amendment. The second amendment isn't about making sure we get to keep firearms for the sake of having them.

The purpose of the second amendment is to protect the right of a free people to protect themselves. This includes self-defense, but is not limited to it. Understand the context in which the Bill of Rights was written. We had just fought a long war to overthrow British rule. This meant ordinary people, farmers and craftsmen, took up and used their personal firearms.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In the language of the day, a well regulated Militia means a well prepared body of men 18-55.

What the founders were saying was that for this country to remain free, all able-bodied persons must have access to a means for the personal defense of their freedoms: firearms.

The second amendment is critical to freedom because it enables free people to defend individual or collective freedom from tyranny. It enshrines a method of last resort when all else fails (as it did in the American colonies on April 19, 1775).

I believe I understand fairly well the original point and intent of the second amendment. I just don't think that original point and intent are useful anymore. In the 18th century, organized private citizens could defeat world powers in open battle, properly organized (and with the world power properly distracted elsewhere). That's no longer the case today, by a wide margin. There will be no repeat of the American Revolution. The success of any attempt to resist the US government by force will basically come down to whether they can get enough of the US military on their side, or at least prevent the military from acting. A population carrying handguns and hunting rifles won't, as far as I can see, make any difference one way or another to this.

If an armed revolt does break out, it's going to need a lot of illegal weapons and support from a lot of military units who have switched sides, regardless of whether the second amendment is in place or not.

Take a look at the war in Iraq and the Russian war in Afghanistan. I think people nowadays really underestimate the power of a group of armed people that don't want somebody present. The US population is much more heavily armed than any other country in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...

Over 250% more guns per capita than Iraq, and it took us over 8 years of fighting in that country to get anywhere.

The theory is that certain risk-reduction measures work in general, minimizing the chance that some individual will engage in any kind of incident like the one in Aurora, Colorado. Gun control is such a sensitive issue in the United States that it is barely being discussed yet by politicians in connection with the incident this weekend, but differing national patterns of gun control have been mentioned by commentators who point to the example of Australia's response to the 1996 Port Arthur, Tasmania shooting

The thing is, gun control is a feel-good measure that does nothing. It's no different from "video game control" or "Internet filtering."

What do all of the following events have in common?

* The Virginia Tech massacre

* The Dunblane massacre

* James Holmes's movie-theatre attack

* The Columbine massacre

The answer, besides the fact that they were all committed with guns, is that the total body count in all of these incidents still falls short of what one guy with a can of gasoline was able to do at the Happyland night club. How many more gasoline-fueled deaths are we going to tolerate as a society before we require licensing and registration of gas cans?

If you want to solve the underlying problem, which is nothing more or less than catching undiagnosed mental illness early, you are going to have to do it some other way besides banning inanimate objects and tools.

Finally, your opinion as to what I "need" or "don't need" is not of any particular interest. History suggests that if you really want to maximize your odds of a violent death, you should let the police and military have a monopoly on violence.

I guess the thing is that gasoline has many non-killing uses, whereas guns don't. I live in a country where access to guns is much more tightly controlled than in the US, and I'm glad of it. Sure, under some circumstances a can of gasoline can be more lethal than a gun, but the prospect someone chasing me down the street at 3AM with a can of gasoline doesn't scare me nearly as much as someone chasing me with a gun. Think of all the lethal scenarios that a gun can be used, replace with "can of gasoline" and see your straw man go up in flames.

It would only be a straw man if arson weren't a good way to kill a lot of people at once. Events have proven otherwise.

This particular assclown had the smarts to do a lot more damage than he did. If he couldn't have put his hands on firearms, who's to say what he might have done instead? Turn himself in peacefully? I'm guessing not. He might have gone full Aum Shinrikyo on the theater full of people.

Under a certain set of circumstances almost anything is capable of killing a lot of people (ice build-up on some piece of hydraulic equipment, corrosion, a screw-driver, some inconclusive scientific data). However for killing in a broad number of scenarios the thing that is going to be most effective is a device that is designed for killing.

If, as you claim gasoline is, in general, more lethal than guns (and thus in need of regulation) why don't we start issuing police and soldiers with cans of gasoline?

Because guns are better for self defense. That is why police need guns. Their task is to investigate crimes and apprehend suspects. It's not to shoot people.

What does it matter how many fewer ways there are to kill a lot of people with a can of gasoline? A mass murderer only needs one way.

I'd argue that prosecutors pandering for votes are worse than the cops in terms of information leakage.

And while laws limiting access to firearms may be part of a longer term solution, we should be exploring limiting the celebration of sadism that modern Hollywood has become.