Comment by psunavy03 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by psunavy03 | Hacker News Reader

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The Swiss model would be a much more reasonable approach. Shall-issue purchase permit on passing a background check, and the requirement to keep the firearm locked up when not used. But if you live alone, your locked front door counts as "locked up."

Statistically, the problem isn't keeping scary guns away from everyone, because the vast majority of people will never shoot anyone. The whole "you're more likely to shoot a household member than an intruder" is a red herring, because the vast majority will do neither of these things. What matters is disarming the suicidally depressed, as well as a subset of people who are disproportionately likely to commit violent crime. 60-85 percent of gun deaths in the US are suicides, jurisdiction dependent. The prototypical gun homicide in the US is a young minority man with a criminal record being killed by another young minority man with a criminal record using an illegally-possessed handgun, usually involving street gang disputes and/or the illegal drug trade.

So what matters is being able to disarm people who exhibit violent tendencies and/or suicidal depression "left of bang."

> The Swiss model would be a much more reasonable approach. Shall-issue purchase permit on passing a background check, and the requirement to keep the firearm locked up when not used. But if you live alone, your locked front door counts as "locked up."

This describes how it works in Seattle, WA.

Except Washington has rolled out broad-based bans which statistically do nothing except harass law-abiding citizens. I live in Greater Seattle, and the vibe seems to be much more "ban them all" than "how do we responsibly have these tools in society." The attitude here towards guns is as irrational as the attitude in Mississippi towards people having gay sex.

The Swiss will sell you your service rifle converted to semi-auto when you leave the military, yet somehow these "assault weapons" don't cause them problems.

The Swiss also have compulsory military service for every man over 18 (women may volunteer), so the people owning these guns actually know how to handle them safely and have been trained to have some self-discipline.

I expect that the 18 week bootcamp affords an opportunity to closely observe all such conscripts and screen them for mental health disorders and behavioral problems, and that the (minimum) of 7 years of reserve service allows ongoing monitoring.

Additionally, common sense tells me that Switzerland's equivalent of "dishonorable" or "other-than-honorable" discharge would result in that person not having the opportunity to buy their service rifle, and possibly putting up roadblocks to owning a gun at all.

Therefore the people in Switzerland most likely to cause gun crime do not have ready access to them. That is quite different to how we think about it in the US.

If you were to seriously propose such a system in the US, I think you would get far more opposition from the pro-gun groups than the anti-gun groups. In fact, anti-gun groups would welcome adopting the Swiss system, since it so closes matches the legislation they have tried to enact such as magazine size restrictions in California, "red flag" laws in other states, and mandatory trigger locks. All of those laws have been opposed by groups like the NRA.

Gay sex doesn't kill 45000 people a year.

Neither do so-called "assault weapons." You're statistically more likely to have someone beat you to death with their bare fists and feet. Do you go around worrying about that every day? I don't.

Nothing is gained by conflating unrelated topics like suicide, gang violence, domestic violence, and the occasional deranged lunatic spree killer just because they all abused the same tool to commit murder.

But if you don't muddy the water like that how are you supposed to demonize guns??

Unfortunately, most people are more interested in the simple answer than in recognizing there is no simple answer. And people are remarkably poor at recognizing that those who are muddying the waters are almost certainly arguing a false position.

You know, it probably kills way more than that.

HIV transmission is way higher among men who have sex with men.

US annual HIV deaths are like under 5000 total. It's gotten way, way, way better than earlier decades.

Thanks for the info. I was imagining the whole world. I look a little above, and maybe it's Washington State really?

In any event:

1) Guns don't kill people. They don't even make the people-killing appreciably more likely.

2) Washington has about 1,000 gun murders per year

3) About 2/3 of U.S. gun deaths are suicides, so we might expect about 333 gun murders in WA in a year.

I'm really glad U.S. HIV deaths have fallen off a cliff!

The 45k number is for US total (as is the <5k number above)

WA state has about 300 murders a year, up significantly from 200-ish pre covid.

Washington is a must-issue concealed carry state though. When working at Microsoft I had to sign something saying I’d keep my gun in my car when on campus.

> So what matters is being able to disarm people who exhibit violent tendencies and/or suicidal depression "left of bang."

I agree

> The Swiss model would be a much more reasonable approach. Shall-issue purchase permit on passing a background check, and the requirement to keep the firearm locked up when not used. But if you live alone, your locked front door counts as "locked up."

I disagree simply because unlike CH, our neighboring states like Mexico, Haiti, and Jamaica are all facing severe public security issues due to US originated gun trafficking, and this blows back into the US.

Adding some additional securitization to our rules more in line with those in Israel allow us to help defend ourselves from contagion.

If the party that support the 2nd amendment also views organized crime in Mexico and Haiti as a national security risk, then using the securitization framing is an easier sell.

I'd argue Mexico, Haiti, and Jamaica are facing severe public security issues because they're failed states run by the stupid and corrupt. The guns probably make it a little worse, ja.

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