You Want A Gun? Then Do Something For Me | Hacker News Reader

You Want A Gun? Then Do Something For Me

timkellogg.me

12 pointstkellogg28 comments

The idea isn't bad per say, but while it may be a good solution for you, it may not be the best solution for everyone. I live in the south, and I know a lot of people would be outraged at the idea of this. When it comes down to it, most people are selfish. They think having a gun is to protect them and their loved ones, not me or you. They wouldn't like the fact that they have to spend extra time and money for their 'God given right' to bear arms. An 80 hours course isn't going to stop people from being violent, look at the hijackers of 9/11, they had to go through and get their pilot training which costs thousands and a lot of time, and that just shows where there is a will there is a way and a course might help these situations but nothing is going to totally alleviate them.

I don't think a lot of people who don't live in the south or a rural area understand how guns are used in normal culture in places like here. People go out and hunt. A lot. They go target shooting, they have competitions, etc. It's a big deal and it's an issue that sits very close to the heart of a southern person.

I personally am not sure what should happen, but these are just some things I have seen and grown up around. Almost everyone has a gun here, most of them never get shot, but they are still really prevalent.

Taking the argument to its logical conclusion: if you aren't willing to kill on behalf of the unarmed, you aren't worthy of defending yourself. Kill for me, or you deserve to die. That logic seems flawed.

That is in fact the logic of the the pro-gun party. Since politics is about compromise, might as well run with it...

In what way, in fact, is that the logic of the "pro-gun party?" I myself have not heard the NRA or others ever say that non-gun owners deserve to die. Please elaborate.

They say that "guns protect us". How do they protect us? Is a bystander supposed to lift up their shirt, revealing a gun tucked into their waist, forcing the bank robbers to run away? I think the NRA and Republican party have already assumed that they're instructing the general public to kill, or at least wound, on behalf of public safety.

Having the ability and/or willingness to protect others is entirely different from mandating it. The NRA is asking for the ability to exercise the right to defend oneself (and others) if needed, without censure. You would require that civilians purposefully put themselves in that situation - to go looking for trouble - in order to have that right of defense.

All assault rifle owners are required to serve as volunteer police

If someone wants to use a gun for criminal purposes, it's hard to imagine that giving them a badge first is going to solve anything.

It just means they could go on their power trip under the guise of police work in addition to doing it criminally.

"the constitution specifically highlights firearms as a method reserved for future use to revolt against the government, if it ever becomes evil."

I keep reading this, but I don't believe the us constitution says any such thing. Am I (European) correct?

You are correct - the 2nd amendment prohibits the US government from infringing the right to "to keep and bear arms" - it does not specify what kind of arms, so knives and swords (and theoretically but not actually) nuclear weapons would all be equally covered - supposedly as a check against tyranny, but this is not spelled out in the constitution, and sedition was made illegal about 10 years after the constitution was ratified.

My personal view, therefore is that the arguments for the 2nd amendment are a ridiculous fiction - as I imply above, US citizens can not actually build up an arsenal of weapons that would enable them to successfully challenge the US Government successfully (see Waco, Move, etc. - build up a big enough armory, you will be taken out).

So in my view gun rights only exist at this point to enrich arms dealers and give the citizenry an illusion of control, at the low, low cost of 80-something of our citizens per day.

It was in the Declaration of Independence, but not the constitution.

The difficulty in defining what to regulate is probably the hardest part of the problem and he just throws out a completely unworkable definition.

A double-action revolver would fit his definition of an "assault rifle".

Even better depending on what you define as a reload a single action cap and ball could qualify. Restricting to rifles only, if you define a reload as taking bullets from outside the weapon and storing then in the weapon, which seems like a reasonable enough way to define it on the surface, a bolt action rifle with an internal box magazine (aka most rifles) would qualify. Also what would be the mission of the proposed volunteer police force? when would they be called in/up? who would govern and organize them?

Do people who want food also have the responsibility to feed society?

Straw man fallacy. Besides, I don't think I've heard of too many people going on deadly feeding rampages.

I will never support any sort of gun control that does not also include disarming law enforcement. Is this not something other people are concerned with?

..."but military service has a way of vouching for their sanity."

Sadly, there are too many who lose their sanity thanks to the military.

I wish people would stop using the term "assault rifle" incorrectly. There is only one assault rifle ever, the Sturmgewehr 44.

To start making your wish a reality, go update this page and address any concerns various WP editors may have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

That page gets it right in the "Definition" section saying the term is basically slang derived from the StG44 and that to be considered an "assault rifle" it must be select-fire. Those are Class III weapons in the US and already very restricted, assuming you have enough disposable income to buy one and find a seller. The example given in the post has nothing to do with Class III weapons, so the term is used improperly, that is my point.

This isn't how rights work.

> “No person can own or operate an assault rifle as a civilian except for honorably discharged veterans, current military officers or enlisted personnel at E3 level or higher, or persons who have passed an 80 hour course. All assault rifle owners are required to serve as volunteer police (or some other analogous public safety service).”

Because nothing could go wrong with conferring special rights only to members of the military, right?

This proposed solution would have had limited impact on the recent killings that have stoked the current gun control argument. Adam Lanza would've have passed the 80-hour training requirement. Columbine and Virginia Tech was perpetrated by handguns and shotguns. Aurora did involve a rifle but VT still resulted in more fatalities with just handguns. The older perpetrator of the Beltway sniper attacks was an Army veteran.

This is not to say that gun control is bad. But the reasoning behind this solution is very specious.

He did mention an 80 hour course.

Expecting an 80-hour course to somehow deter a psychopath from shooting up a bunch of people strikes me as rather naive.

I agree with your claim, but it's also my understanding that the CT killer (and many murderers in general) stole the gun from a friend or relative.

So a killer wouldn't need to attend the 80 hour course if he had access to a gun purchased by someone who did attend the course.

The CT killer used his mother's legally owned rifle and it is said she took him shooting with her on many occasions.

This proposal assumes 2 things: 1) insane people are incapable of passing 80 hour courses; 2) sane people will not go insane in the future. Both of these assumptions are incorrect.

Bobble, you've hit on the core problem. While most, if not all, mass murders involved a mentally unstable perpetrator, being mentally unstable has nothing to do with being too incompetent to kill lots of people. In fact, many of the mass murderers that the US has seen over the last decade were very intelligent individuals.

Also, ex-military are (probably) statistically more unstable than the average citizen due to conditions like PTSD. Keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of the mentally unfit is a really complex problem to solve without either trampling over rights altogether (frequent invasive psych evals that have the potential of being biased or politically charged) or banning them altogether.

Banning these weapons altogether isn't a good solution (sorry Obama) because too much of America considers them a core part of their society and have shown that they really are mostly safe, historically speaking. However, I think there's enough evidence that the trend is shifting toward guns being statistically more dangerous than they used to be. Even if that evidence doesn't exist, there is a public perception that needs to be addressed. This is a problem with politics in general - if there's a public outcry against _X_, you have to ban or regulate _X_, even if there's no statistics to validate the public outcry; politicians have a need to be reelected (or in the case of a 2nd term president, the need to maintain a legacy or to get another Democrat voted into office after his term is up).

This article tries to walk a line somewhere between "ban guns entirely" and "give everyone a gun". I admit, there's a ton of problems with almost all parts of it (and yes, I am the author). But it is an attempt to invent a compromise that could add to society (by strengthening the police/protection agencies) instead of take away (ban guns, cultural norms) while still addressing the problem.

If you've been following Congress in recent years like I have you've probably become sick at what their idea a compromise has become. It seems like the Congressional culture has shifted toward a self-serving Armageddon between Good and Evil. Obviously that's a much (much much much) bigger problem that I want to address here, but introducing constructive compromises where both parties gain is where it starts.

Yes, I think this has gains for both sides. The "Gun people" also tend to be pro-military, so we're letting both sides "win" by giving enlisted and veterans some rights that are not widely available to the general public. Honestly, I don't think it's possible to have either side "win". I can't think of a way to address public concerns without taking things away. If someone can think of a way, please tell them to write to their Congressmen immediately.

Right...and that provision would've likely been passed by Adam Lanza. And it seems likely he would've been able to inflict such a massacre with lesser weapons; the VT killer caused more casualties with handguns.

The point is, the logical reasoning used to single AR-15s is so flimsy that the argument should be about regulating a much wider category of firearms. To single out AR-15s is just pandering.

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