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Comment by qup | Hacker News Reader

You can hardly make stricter gun laws; we have a right to them in this country.

It's hard to limit the guns without infringing on the right of the people.

But not all States' gun laws are equally strict? So if the state with the stricted gun laws is acting in a constitutional manner then other states could also implement those laws but choose not to.

So a lot of this stuff is truly self inflicted and the result of poor policy choices -- not because of governments reluctantly but dutifully obeying the 2nd amendment.

As a matter of fact, the right for states to impose strict laws is before the supreme court right now.

I expect to see them reigning in the states. The 2nd amendment is unambiguous.

> You can hardly make stricter gun laws; we have a right to them in this country. It's hard to limit the guns without infringing on the right of the people.

What an odd take. Gun rights weren't dictated by a burning bush. A group of 39 guys decided for everyone else that that right should exist a quarter of a millenium ago. A completely undemocratic system. Every citizen should have a say and if they will it, anything in the constitution can be amended or struck off.

I agree, but I also doubt you could get anywhere near the population needed to vote for strict gun control to start with. And if it was passed anyways I don't think enough people would accept it and give up their guns even if they had to hide or fight to keep them.

I personally don't trust the US government enough to willingly vote to give them a monopoly on violence even if I otherwise don't shoot guns very often.

This is all such a strange take. What do you think would happen, what's the expectation?

Everybody goes out and starts shooting down their local police force? The military?

I just don't get how people think this would work and if the government would be intimidated by that. I think they'd just shoot first and ask questions later and that's it.

I would say the same thing about the opposite. What do you think people are going to do, take time out of their way to go turn in thousands of dollars worth of guns and ammo for nothing in return? Do you think cops are going to go door-to-door seizing guns and that nobody is going to ever fight back despite being fed the fear of the government barging in and taking citizen's guns by force for their entire life?

I don't believe gun control is effective unless nearly the entire population is accepting it willfully, and if people wanted to do it willfully it would be easy to gain a large majority of votes for that cause. But even the democratic party in some of the densest cities struggle to gain a simple majority from voters on the issue.

I also don't think the government has the power to take peoples guns by force even if they wanted, it would collapse the US if even a tiny portion of people fought back and defeat the entire purpose of trying. Would the US military lose battles against citizens? No, there wouldn't even be very many. But they still wouldn't win the war when some random hillbilly takes a few pot shots at a sub station from 2 miles out and takes down the power for potentially millions of people and all the work and value they produce. Factories don't work without power, essential munitions don't get produced if they can't secure material inputs from across the nation or the world, and if financial institutions takes a dive in response to destruction and chaos there goes US trade power. And you can bet your ass that all the countries the US has been taking a dump on for nearly the last century are going to take advantage of a weakened US.

Maybe that right is not worth the trade off

Unless you change the culture it will be just like the drug war. Firearms familiarity and possession are a cultural rite of passage for ~most males in the USA and there is no way to regulate that in a way that meaningfully stops it short of perhaps large-scale death penalty.

Pretty much everyone in Europe that wants a gun can have one within a couple weeks, the reason they don't only has a little to do with the law.

To get a gun in Norway i need 6 months in a shooting sports club. And then can only take the gun with me for shooting exercise. Strictly prohibited to have a round chambered when not standing on the shooting lane. And then only after an order from the guy running the training.

Again, a bit naive, but that actually sounds okay to me. You'll learn to use the gun responsibly and in a controlled manner. What else would you want to do with it and why?

Sorry for not making it clear in the first post. I just meant to say it's a little harder to get in some countries. The "Europe" is quite diverse.

Still, 6 months or not, from what I've heard, people have their gun permit applications rejected very rarely. Compared to Poland - it's much easier. Also just hearsay, but I've heard that it can be hard to get a permit and it's often rejected without any apparent reason.

But that was about pistols. Hunting rifles seem to be much easier to get in both Poland and Norway, though you still need to be a part of a hunting "club". Not sure what it's called, but it also takes some time and effort, just the rejection rate is lower.

Most people, including myself, have no interest in jumping through such hoops to exercise a constitutionally protected right. We also value the ability to carry (mostly) anywhere we see fit for the purpose of defending ourselves in a worst case scenario.

Yes, the American cultural preference for guns is well established. The GP's point was that in most of the world guns are more restricted and people are doing just fine.

Sure, but I could print a reliable firearm with ECM'd barrel and make ammunition within a couple weeks if I went to Norway and so could most of your citizens, just following FGC-9 and "but what about ammo" instruction guides. The law says 6 months but in practice that's not the limiting factor. And then with no problem chamber a round and walk around with it in a backpack. The same applies in most of EU; of course in someplace like France or Poland you can straight up buy a black powder revolver over the counter which although heavy works quite well for most self defense cases with a firearm.

The fact is if any particular Norwegian decides today they want a gun, criminal record or not, and they have very modest means by Norwegian standards they will have it within a few weeks, no problem at all. Of course in USA criminal have been found many times with these self-made guns, now quite reliable and accurate, but a great deal of culture here is people will bear arms no matter the prison sentence hanging over their head or what the law says, and that is the cultural issue you will run into trying to curb gun possession in America. The fact Norwegians don't I think has more to do is that they don't view gun's as integrally to their natural rights and cultural imperative as much as Americans do, the physical potentiality is there for them to bear arms roughly widely as Americans do even without a change to law.

The drug war that the US government created?

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