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Comment by abraininavat | Hacker News Reader

The argument at hand is obviously whether a particular thing should be illegal because it is deadly.

rsync brought up sarin in some inexplicable attempt at getting the better of hristov. I pointed out that sarin gas is illegal specifically because it is deadly. If sarin has any bearing on the argument, it seems to back hristov's (unstated but obvious) point that this rifle should be illegal. So I asked rsync to clarify.

I never implied this gun ought to be illegal, or made any statement about it one way or another.

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Thanks for the clarification.

His snark aside, neither bleach nor ammonia are illegal, and require approximately zero skill to combine and deploy in confined spaces.

Actually, I'll just shut up and let rsync respond if he chooses. I get a little excitable when things like this come up on HN because I love hearing the discussion of pragmatists (which I believe comprises much of HN) on the subject.

OP, of this comment thread, was clearly trying to make the point that removing the element of skill significantly increases the possibility for menace:

"The reason we do not get more sniper mass killings is that it takes a lot of skill to hit a target at a very long range with a sniper rifle ... This rifle of course removes the skill element and allows for shooting at an extremely long range."

... in such a way as to suggest that the increased possibility for menace is so enhanced that it is irresponsible, nay, indefensible, for this to be available.

I was pointing out the fallacy of that line of reasoning. Skill requirements don't correlate with deadliness. I did not mention legality and neither did the OP, at least not in the way that other subcomments touched on.

edit: RE: The argument at hand is obviously whether a particular thing should be illegal because it is deadly.

No, that was not the argument at hand. The argument was whether high skill vs. low skill vectors of attack somehow change the ethical judgement involved in allowing something in the first place. I don't care that you hijacked the thread in this direction, but I do think it was a hijack.

How does bringing up Sarin gas help your argument here? Sarin gas = illegal, low "skill vector"[1] This firearm = legal, low "skill vector"

Unless you don't consider consistency important, you seem to be arguing that either sarin gas should be made legal or this firearm should be made illegal. I think you failed at making the point you were trying to make.

[1] I'm assuming here that sarin gas has a "low skill vector". That's obviously not true.

Regarding [1] - while you are 100% correct concerning the manufacture of sarin gas, you are almost certainly wrong in relation to the deployment and/or activation of sarin gas in a controlled space.

"Throwing a grenade" is generally considered 'low skill'. In the case of the Tokyo sarin gas incident, the gas was deployed in a plastic bag (I'm thinking zip loc) and was stabbed with a sharpened umbrella to deploy.

It seems disingenuous to compare sarin gas to bleach and ammonia. We all draw a line where we think something is too dangerous to be legal. And obviously the usefulness of something is to be weighed against its danger as well. As I asked elsewhere, I'd like to know where your line is. You keep on bringing up things like "baseball bats" as if they're the same thing as this rifle. You know they're not.

So where's your line? Are you claiming not to have a line?

> We all draw a line where we think something is too dangerous to be legal.

No, not everyone does. There are quite a few of us who conclude, as many of the Founders and their contemporaries did, that the government has no ethical authority to judge what the people are worthy of possessing, and more to the point, has absolutely no ability to do so without devolving into oppression.

There are regrettably far fewer of us than those who subscribe to the alternate view, but we do fortunately share rank with a large contingent of the second group who at least draw the line somewhere past firearms.

I did reply in the other thread, and just now noticed that we're arguing in multiple threads, so in the interest of HN civility, I'll let that one be the conversation of record.

That said, I will acknowledge that I believe that the right to bear arms is meant to prevent against tyranny, and as such, my line is arguably going to be much higher than I sense yours is. I will go further to state that I disagree with the national firearms act of 1934, which bans new, fully automatic machine guns for sale and import to US citizens.

Could you explain to me the logic by which you suggest some things should be illegal and some things should not? That is, what logic do you use to categorize a weapon as being protected by the Second Amendment?

We know your line is not established law, since you disagree with the national firearms act of 1934.

Where is your logic? This is what frustrates me with the Second Amendment. No one seems to have any logic behind their categorizations.

At least my point of view is rational. Make all firearms illegal. It may get me downvoted in this intolerant place, but it's at least consistent. Could you explain to me what your method of categorization is and how it's rational?

I'll invariably make a few statements in this diatribe that I hope don't color my argument negatively, but I feel might help in clarifying my position.

1) I think that all arms that the government possesses ought to be allowable by the citizenry. That is my interpretation of the intent of the second amendment, though I do not necessarily discount other people's beliefs as wrong. I understand that the founders aren't still around to ask (regrettably), but given what I know of the times, and what I know of our war for independence, I see a couple of logical conclusions from that, and I have settled on the opinion I have because I believe it to be the most logical extrapolation.

I also acknowledge arguments that suggest that the second amendment was primarily meant to deter the ability of foreign invasion, as it has been proven to be effective for, and fits with the actions of the times (if not necessarily the 'off the record' statements of many of our founders), and I agree that it is not as effectively spelled out as I would like it to be. That said, none of the other rights enumerated by the Constitution are either, and people don't generally balk at them. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is there any mention of Twitter, Facebook, email, megaphones, etc. I personally believe in the principle of liberty (and am in fact a Libertarian), and believe that people ought to be free, and that our country, as intended, does a better job of this than most others. That is not meant to believe that I think we are the best country, or that our people are in any way better than other people, but I think that, if our government works as it is supposed to, we have the greatest potential for freedom of any of the countries I am aware of.

As for where I set the lines, I believe that until its appointment process is somehow violated, the Supreme Court are the Constitutional authority of our nation. So, by that logic, I define my categorizations by what the Supreme Court has tested, and what they have remarked on. Regrettably, there hasn't ever actually been a test of the firearms act in the supreme court, so I am free to have a vaguely defined opinion of it because there hasn't been any opinion offered. Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently banned big gulps in the state of New York -- just because it's a law does not mean that I am obligated to agree with it. More importantly though, the courts recently struck down the ban as being arbitrary and capricious, which (thankfully) sides with my own personal opinion of it, so I believe that justice was done, however delayed.

I would happily keep going, but I think I've given enough to digest at least, and I hope I've explained my position well without completely convincing you that I'm one of those gun obsessed nuts you see on the news (I'm not).

I wouldn't assume you are a gun obsessed nut because you think differently from me. In fact, your ability to argue in a civil manner would cause me to bet that you were not a gun obsessed nut.

But I'd urge you to look deeper than the Constitution for the answers to questions about what's best for the country. It's just a piece of paper, written by men in a very different time than ours. Rather than abide by the dictum of that piece of paper, ask yourself how you'd shape a nation if you were starting one from scratch. Forget this idea that we're locked into these old, vague words and their interpretations by old, flawed men and women.

Who knows, maybe you'd include the Second Amendment word-for-word in your Constitution if you were creating one from scratch. But, when your colleagues asked you why you thought the "right to bear arms" was so important, I hope you could give a better answer than "Well, some old men thought it was important hundreds of years ago."

On that note, I'm going to bed! Thanks for the discussion.

I have researched this subject a lot, and I can assure that yes, I have far more reasons than just because the Founders intended it.

For 1, more armed populaces tend to be safer places to live. To quote Heinlein, "An armed society is a polite society", and there is evidence to that fact here in America. Of interest is a place called Kennesaw, GA which, in 1981 (I think) they enacted a law encouraging every head of household to own a firearm. In the year they enacted that law, burglaries in the town of Kennesaw dropped 80%. Since then, their crime rate has held at FAR below the national average, as well as the state of Georgia. Somewhat ironically, it obviously didn't "solve crime", but did displace it to areas outside of Kennesaw to a very large degree. Before the law was enacted, it seemed as though every media outlet in the nation was decrying the law as it would surely be "a wild west town" and "blood in the streets" and all that, but that never happened. What happened instead is that they effectively pushed crime (and presumably criminals) out of town. Since then, the population of Kennesaw has quintupled, but crime rates have stayed low.

Meanwhile, if you look to Morton Grove, IL, they enacted a gun ban at a similar time, and crime (of all types) went up across the charts. When they repealed their gun ban, crime went down. The data on Morton Grove isn't quite as marked as Kennesaw (e.g., only 17% difference instead of the more obvious 80%), so it's possibly attributable to other factors, but it's hard to explain away the results in Kennesaw.

Further, the state that has the highest concentration of "fully automatic" machine guns (e.g., already to buy new) is New Hampshire. They also have some of the most lax gun control in the nation. Open carrying firearms is fairly common place in New Hampshire, and if I recall correctly, the only thing you need a permit for is to concealed carry in a vehicle. On top of that, their state buildings don't even have metal detectors, and you're allowed to carry guns in there. Wild West sounding? Maybe, but it's the third safest state in the union.

Again, I have more data to support my position with better than "cause the Constitution said so", though I do obviously agree with my interpretation (which is also the Supreme Court's interpretation) of what it means.

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