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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

You’re quoting statistics that are irrelevant to the point. Mass shootings are not political violence.

I can come up with a multitude of political violence examples in countries with strict weapons laws - New Zealand, France, Japan. Then if you add in other weapons - cars, knives, bombs, the list gets even longer.

The point is - gun control won’t stop political violence. Perpetrators will use other means at their disposal.

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> The point is - gun control won’t stop political violence. Perpetrators will use other means at their disposal.

Technically true. But gun control means political violence will have to engage much closer and is less likely to be as deadly. Do we want more or less death+maiming in our political violence?

You’re missing the forest for the trees.

The issue is political violence. Whether it’s done up close or far away is a distraction from the fact it exists.

Am I? The forest view is that political violence is an inevitable part of life. And that outlawing guns makes them less accessible and therefore less likely to be used in any violent interactions.

You are.

No, political violence isn't an "inevitable part of life".

Violence is part of human nature. So is politics. I'd rather they didn't mix, and we take reasonable measures to stop all violence. But I don't see how we can make violence impossible without changing human nature.

Just to be clear political violence is a broad umbrella of many actions, including violent protest and political assassinations. One can be more of an issue than the other. Personally, in my opinion it’s hard to political violence as a whole is an “issue” when looking from a historically context. However, I do think that political assassination specifically is something that has been an issue historically.

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