Hacker News Reader

Comment by drhayes9 | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, this tool has only one use: it kills things.

Whenever I see arguments about how we should ban cars because they kill more people than guns per year, I always think about that. Cars are good for all kinds of things, and they happen to incidentally cause death. Guns are pretty much only good for killing things.

I live in the U.S. I'm not saying we should uniformly ban all weapons, period; I think the issue is more nuanced than that. But it seems hard to defend the fact that introducing guns into a dangerous situation would do anything other than make it more deadly.

View on HN

Yes, guns destroy human beings, that is their purpose. And it is difficult for a lot of people to grapple with the idea that such seemingly fundamentally, some would say, evil devices can be used for good.

The comparison with cars is a good one though. Cars are an example of how lethal power exists in the hands of many in society. And that's true to an enormous degree, not just with cars though they are a prime example. Most people have the ability to take the lives of others without a great deal of effort. Imagine what would happen if, say, 1ppm of humanity woke up and decided to do murder that day. There would be a lot of killings. And yet society is still largely peaceful. Because most people can be trusted with the lives of their fellow humans. And it's important to realize how deeply we take that for granted. Something as simple as riding a bus or driving in traffic represents a tremendous trust in our fellow citizens to not murder us, and they trust us not to murder them as well.

Firearms do not represent injecting a unique capability for death and injury into society, they're just make that aspect of daily life more blatantly obvious. But just as with cars, knives, fists, pencils, hammers, bricks, fire, and all that most people can be trusted with firearms most of the time. And indeed when firearms are allowed into the hands of citizens of good intent they can be used to thwart crimes quite often. Many rapes and roberies have been stopped by firearms, often just by the mere presence of a firearm (not even counting the deterrent effects). And in some spectacular cases firearms have been used defensively to stop mass murders in their tracks. But these examples tend to be less dramatic than successful mass shootings, so they tend to be less well known.

On the whole, the point still stands, it is safer for the average person to own a gun than to own a car. And that is a testament to the trustworthiness of the average citizen, and the degree to which many people take gun ownership seriously and solemnly.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment on a touchy issue.

That is a good point about the comparison with cars. I have been stepping neatly past the trust idea (which applies to computers as well, and I'm a coder). It's a very powerful idea that I haven't thought about enough.

But I think firearms do represent a unique capability: how many bricks per minute can you throw? From how far away could you snipe someone with a pencil? I think it's one of degree: assault weapons, high-powered sniper rifles, semi-autos that can be easily modified for full-auto fire... Those weapons are all over a boundary for me, a boundary that the U.S. is too lax with drawing.

Why?

I suspect that you believe that the potential for violence is something that can be separated from a peaceful society, but that isn't the case. More so, I think living within such a worldview is intellectually stunting. In practice we see that private gun ownership is not uniquely dangerous. We see that automobiles are far more dangerous, for example. We see that the overwhelming majority of gun owners are peaceful people, we see that the overwhelming majority of guns are never used for violence. Consider some other statistics as well, if you were a parent would you be afraid of sending your child to a house that contains guns? What about sending your child to a house with a pool? In actuallity the 2nd is about 100 times more dangerous.

More so, taking guns out of the hands of peaceful citizens has consequences. People use guns to defend themselves against others. Indeed, such uses are far more common than gun homicides. Banning guns means allowing rapes, murders, muggings, assaults. How can you be so comfortable with that?

As far as the lethality of mundane objects and activities. Consider how many people can be killed by cars by driving them into a crowd. Consider how many people can, and are, killed by arson. Consider how many people are raped by a perpetrator who has no weapon other than their physical strength. Violence and the potential for violence is part of society. Personally I think society is better served by peaceful individuals growing in maturity and responsibility and learning how to wield firearms in a way that supports a peaceful society by defending it against would be murderers, rapists, and thieves.

Thank you for insulting my intelligence. It's funny, I don't feel intellectually stunted. ( =

When I said that the issue was more nuanced, I meant that we shouldn't ban all guns in the U.S. Please do not represent my position as such or assume that I believe that responsible gun owners cannot provide safe play destinations for my children. I grew up in Texas and went on hunting trips every year growing up. Please.

I don't think that it's naive to hope that we can curb our species' trend for violence, and I don't think that the threat of more violence in retribution is that solution long-term. You have a narrative about trusting people with lethal power, but then speak of tides of "murderers, rapists, and thieves" that you want to defend yourself with. It feels like your solution, a well-armed society, is merely stemming the symptom rather than trying to find or address any specific cause. I'm not satisfied with that.

I am not saying that it is guns' fault, by why does the U.S. have one of the highest rates of homicide of any country in the industrialized world?

> To be fair, this tool has only one use: it kills things.

I disagree. A gun's primary use for law abiding citizens is that it intimidates things. The most effective way to use a gun is simply to deter crime.

You wouldn't say that the reason the United States and the Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons was because they wanted to level each others' cities. It was simply deterrence.

Only with open carry.

It's possible that pulling out a gun may defuse a situation, but lots of people seem to think "I'll just wave my gun and it'll stop the people harassing me."

You should only pull out a gun if the situation, at that time, is dangerous enough to warrant pulling the trigger.

A gun doesn't have to be visible to deter crime. Just the possibility of a victim having a gun is plenty of deterrence. I'd much rather burgle an Australian or English home than one in the US, given how many homes in the US have guns.

This is true. I like people not knowing whether or not I have a gun. It lets me free-ride on other people while greatly reducing the risk of a gun accident in my house.

If you know a home has guns, aren't you just as likely to burgle it while the occupants are out, probably in order to steal the guns?

Yes, but less likely to burgle it while the occupants are at home. Insurance covers stolen possessions, but you can't replace lives lost in a botched burglary or home invasion.

> A gun's primary use for law abiding citizens is that it intimidates things. The most effective way to use a gun is simply to deter crime.

A purpose they are quite clearly failing at. So the question is what, if anything, citizens of the U.S.A. wish to do about the fact that, empirically, legality and availability of guns has not resulted in crime rates comparable to comparable states.

That doesn't follow. There are no comparable states with a comparable history, demography, economy, and culture.

It's possible that gun ownership deters crime, but that something else unique to the U.S. is causing more crime than gun ownership is countering.

The only thing you could possibly do is to compare parts of the US to each other, and in that case you'll find that locations with stricter gun laws have more gun violence.

You could conclude that gun laws cause gun violence, but that would be stupid because many times gun laws exist because of gun violence. What's the difference between my conclusion and yours?

Concluding that guns cause violence without real hard evidence and subsequently banning them is like using the unproven gateway drug theory to justify locking up people for smoking pot.

Ah, yes, the U.S. exceptionalism. No other country like it! No one else could have an invasive dominant culture, a disadvantaged minority group, large prosperity divides, and a God-given fear of groups of other people (you call it "government").

Oh well. It's no water off my back if you guys are fine with answering my original question with "nothing" and continuing shooting each other up as price of freedom.

It sounds like the prevalence of gun violence in the US has been significantly overstated in whatever news you have been reading. Taking guns away from communities where violence is rare will not solve the problems with those in which violence is common.

As for US exceptionalism, you left out all the pent up emotional and cultural baggage held by some communities that makes them significantly more violent among themselves than the vast majority.

>There are no comparable states with a comparable history, demography, economy, and culture.

American exceptionalism refers to the primarily used meaning of exceptional as "unusually good." I never remotely said that.

America is different, not better. I'd also argue that you can't compare Germany to Spain. Does that mean I think Germany is better?

You also didn't answer my argument. Can you point to another country with comparable history, demography, economy, and culture that has passed a gun ban. Or should I just go ahead and hand over my gun, based on your unsupported fears?

> American exceptionalism refers to the primarily used meaning of exceptional as "unusually good."

I am aware. It's fun to use terms outside of their usual meanings sometimes.

I am not supporting a gun ban in the U.S. I'm asking what y'all wish to do about your crime rate.

>I'm asking what y'all wish to do about your crime rate.

End drug prohibition.

Would be a start!

> There are no comparable states with a comparable history, demography, economy, and culture.

To be fair, Canada and Australia are pretty comparable on all counts. The main thing that distinguishes the US from them is scale, and scale has qualitative consequences, among which are the incidence and effects of criminal activity.

As a poster above said, much of the gun-related violence in the US is connected with criminal gangs, particularly those involved in drugs. And the scale of the drug market in the US, combined with the aggressiveness employed by state and federal governments in fighting the 'drug war', accounts for a substantial portion of the gun violence that occurs here.

It's worth noting that despite stereotypes, Canada does have a high rate of gun ownership - ranked 13 in the world, compared to the US, ranked first [1] - and the level of violence there isn't proportional.

[1]: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/200... (PDF link)

Good points, I agree that the drug war alone is responsible for a large percent of gun violence.

Also our massively larger per capita prison population probably has something to do with it. I doubt people are coming out of prison less violent.

Just a glance at the link you provided, I can't see a link between high gun ownership and murder rate at all.

>Canada and Australia are pretty comparable on all counts.

--comparable history, demography, economy, and culture.

Ignoring the economy, and population size.

Neither one had to deal with slavery on the scale America did.

Neither fought a war for independence or a civil war (the effect of the Civil War and the * massive* death toll can't be discounted. Not to mention the huge increase in gun ownership after the war).

The demographics of both are completely different.

Australians of European descent make up 93% of Australia, according to wikipedia.

As for Canada, they have more asians, who in the US commit less crimes and make more money than average. And they have significantly fewer blacks and hispanics, who in the US commit far more crimes and make less money than average.

Neither risk can be realistically eliminated regardless of your personal assessment of what they're good for. The question is simply whether or not we've reduced the risk enough that society finds the current level more acceptable than the marginal costs of attempting to reduce it even further. The car argument is saying that the risk of guns is already so much lower than cars that it seems unreasonable to think the former is still at an unacceptable level, but not the latter.

Sometimes the only way to stop a criminal trying to kill you is to kill him or her first. To do that you'll need a tool designed to kill things.

Have you considered that the criminal usually has no interest in killing people, and may only be armed because he knows that you may have a gun yourself?

No, I have not considered that, because it makes absolutely no sense.

Criminals use guns during crimes because of the power it gives them to subdue and control their victims. Guns also allow them to easily dispose of witnesses after the crime is committed.

If the non-criminal population just decides to give up their guns, in hopes that criminals will do the same, the criminals will simply say "thanks".

Soon enough you're going to need a nuke if you keep follow that reasoning.

My weapon of choice is the AR-15, a design that hasn't changed much in almost 50 years. It isn't any more deadly now than it was then. Your comment imagines an arms race that doesn't exist.

> To be fair, this tool has only one use: it kills things.

If you ignore all of the other recreational uses, sure; you can also say that motorcycles only have one use: To kill people who ride them and the people those riders hit.

Are you lobbying for the restriction of vehicles? Or are you making a point by analogy with guns that I'm missing?

My point is, once you try to determine the primary uses of certain things, you come to the conclusion that certain popular items are primarily useless and serve mainly to keep emergency rooms in business.

Well, I was limiting this to guns, but okay, sure.

I'm not sure what your larger point is, though.

What is the primary, if not only, use for a weapon? That's hurting, killing, and threatening. Goals can be eating, revenge, crime deterrence, whatever. But the primary use of a weapon always did come from its ability to harm and kill.

I bet most pro-gun Americans would agree with me. They want a weapon to defend themselves. How? By threatening to hurt or kill, of course. They're not going to propose a foam sword contest to someone they deem dangerous to their property, their lives, or their families.

Recreational use? It sure counts. But if we suddenly ban weapons in the US, there won't be riots over a hobby. It will be over the ability to threaten with death when you need it for self defence.

> What is the primary, if not only, use for a weapon?

What is the primary, if not only, use for a really fast motorcycle? Separating morons from any organs that can be salvaged after that final crash.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com