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Comment by rickmb | Hacker News Reader

The scale of the problem isn't in itself an argument for doing or not doing something about. The emotional impact is most definitely an important factor, and not something that can simply be argued away with numbers.

Most people don't live in fear of cancer or lightning strikes, unless they find themselves in the middle of an asbestos filled building or right underneath a lightning storm.

The knowledge however that so many people around carry deadly firearms, and maybe more importantly, apparently feel they have a pressing reason to own firearms, is a daily reality for many. This fear is real, and it is not irrational.

This is not about the odds. It's about not having to live in fear. Even though the odds are wildly in their favor, most people very rationally prefer not to go swimming with sharks.

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The fear of lightning while in a thunderstorm is rational, the fear of a rogue shooter (outside of a war zone or extremely violent neighborhood) is not.

People's fear, by in large, is not rational. Many people would get into a car on a rainy Friday night with little hesitation or thought of risk, yet they are deliberately putting themselves in harms way.

What the author is trying to get across is that public policy should focus on things it can track its effectiveness on and things it can solve.

When choosing where to spend time and money, the odds are exactly what people should be focusing on.

People vote in politicians. We hope that politicians do the hard work of research and getting advice before making policy.

It'd be really nice if politicians could make use of science and good quality research to make their arguments and to craft policy.

It'd be really nice if politicians could say "We don't know what the answer is. We're running some 3 year trials, and at the end of those we'll have some data and information and we'll be in a better position to know what the best thing to do is".

But no politician is going to say that. No politician is ever going to say "I'm not sure, I'll have to look at the research and get advice".

Any politician who said anything other than "Mass shootings are devastating and something needs to be done" would be eviscerated by tv, newspapers, and blogs. There is no possibility of nuanced discussion.

> most people very rationally prefer not to go swimming with sharks.

But when people decide not to swim in a well run swimming pool because the media is constantly blaring entertainment shows about sharks with ominous music and shaky-cam then it's not so rational.

"It's about not having to live in fear."

Is this something that is even attainable by exterior forces? I don't just mean as it relates to gun-crimes, but anything. Everyone has fears — from fear of failure to fear of heights. They are personal and, as such, are yours to conquer personally.

Laws do not necessarily automatically assuage your fears — many people, as you point out, have irrational fears based on emotion rather than in fact / statistic probability.

I live in Flint, MI (which has been #1 in violent crime for the past few years) and the thought of people around me potentially possessing and, possibly, carrying firearms around never crosses my mind when I'm out and about. Maybe I'd just prefer to not give myself a heart attack over worrying about someone nearby carrying a gun, but in one of the cities where one should be worried most about it, it doesn't even rank on the scale of things to think about generally.

Opponents of gun control feel exactly the same way: they don't want to have to live in fear.

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