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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

The US is vastly larger and more populated and more diverse (in terrain, culture, life, etc) than any other 1st world country. There is no meaningful comparison.

Only criminals engage in crime, by definition. You are essentially asking why the US has more criminals than other 1st world nations. Making a law that prohibits a specific tool (ie. a firearm) does nothing for the crime rate.

Regardless, the constitution specifically affords citizens a right to defend themself using a firearm. That's not going to change because criminals illegally obtain firearms and illegally use them on other people.

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Of course there's a meaningful comparison! It may not be 1-to-1, but if per-capita the US has equal crime but double the fatal crime, it's a red flag that should at least direct our attention.

It's obvious that firearms are an escalating force. Their presence creates a scenario where a criminal now has to very quickly decide between dying, killing, calling the bluff, or fleeing. It can make a non-fatal crime fatal.

There are questions like "are firearms even effective for self defense?" Or "do firearms save fewer people than the number of conflicts escalated to fatality?" If most women won't pull the trigger, is it an equalizing force or does it give the criminal a more fatal weapon to wield.

All the discussions I see on firearms are so surface-level and generally lack the level of intellectual curiosity I think the topic requires to properly discuss whether or not the second amendment was a good inclusion. And that's before you get into the (IMO nonsense) discussion of "overthrowing the modern government".

I'm not equipped to have this discussion, to be clear, it's far too nuanced and requires numbers I don't know. I would need to rely on dedicated researchers.

Not every crime is committed by a defined criminal, many are committed by those committing a crime for the first time. Now that is so easy due to the accesibility of the tools. Firearms being so readily available will cause regular citizens to occasionally use them to harm others, it doesn't mean they have been obtained illegally.

Every other 1st world country has proven prohibition does mean a significantly decrease risk of being shot. That is in per 100,000 people, therefore number of citizens does not matter.

Every other 1st world country has much higher rates of other types of crimes.

Again, you are asking why the US has so much crime - not why it has so many guns.

Criminals are, by definition, criminals. Owning a firearm doesn't make someone more likely to commit crime - the opposite in fact.

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