Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

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Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks or database for guns.

Background checks are already required for almost all gun sales, including ones at gun-shows. This whole discussion is a red-herring. And what the f%!# good do you think a "database for guns" is going to do? You think the terrorists buy their guns over the counter, with legit IDs and happily register them with the authorities? You expect the terrorists to register their pressure cookers? Maybe we should have background checks for buying those?

And then what? Background checks for buying nichrome wire, because it can be used as a bridgewire in a detonator? A database of Arduinos, since they can be used as timers for bombs?

Or how about a national database of people who guy gasoline, Drano, nails, ball-bearings, lithium-ion batteries, soldering irons, solder...

Better still, let's implement a Great Firewall of America to keep people from accessing subversive content like Inspire magazine, the Unabomber manifesto, the writings of Timothy McVeigh, the Koran, Cryptome, Wikileaks, Paladin Press, Justin Bieber songs, Anarchist's cookbook, Poor Man's James Bond or the Federalist Papers...

People talk about the "90%" or whatever support that universal background checks had among the voting public. However, ignoring the problems of legislating based on shallow polls, nobody seems to be talking about the 90+% of sherrifs and police officers who believed that neither universal background checks nor a so-called "assault weapons ban" would have any beneficial effect on gun crime.

90% is some BS fake skewed poll run by some organization with an anti gun agenda. It's not possibly accurate. You can make any poll say anything if you word the question skewed enough.

I own guns. My parents own guns. My brother owns guns.my cousin owns 15+ guns and is a police officer. My girlfriends father owns guns. Some of us belong to the NRA. My brother and cousin going shooting a couple times a month. In some cases, we own guns that would be banned under a lot of gun control laws. My cousins response to Newton was to buy an AR15.

Yet we all support background checks. I don't find the 90% number hard to believe at all.

Yes, but... if the question on the survey was "Do you support background checks for gun purchases?" you might, indeed, get a 90% "yes" score. But, that question would be bogus vis-a-vis the recent proposal, since background checks are already required for the majority of gun purchases. To get a meaningful response, the question would need to be "do you support even stricter background check rules than are currently in place?" and you'd really need a way to eliminate answers from people who don't know what the current rules are.

So quoting that 90% number might be technically accurate for some specific question on some specific poll, but I'd question whether or not it actually reflects public sentiment on this issue, from people who actually have an informed opinion on the issue.

>Yet we all support background checks.

Sure do love that anecdotal evidence.

It's not that I'm against background checks per se, it's that they are useless in stopping crime. It's simply a feel good badge we can throw on our sashes.

Plus, if we're serious about reducing gun violence, we limit handguns, not rifles. We can pat ourselves on the back and make us feel better over dead kids, but the real problem in this country with gun violence is handguns. The fact that it's all about "assault rifles" (a meaningless loaded nonsense term) shows that people are not the least bit sincere or knowledgable.

I know 3 places right now I can purchase a handgun without paperwork that are not gun shows.

"As we have discussed, the most logical starting point to address gun violence is the expansion of the background check system. Incomplete or absent background checks create a gaping hole in the wall between firearms and criminals. Loopholes in the background check system give criminals unprecedented opportunity to access firearms. This problem must be remedied quickly."

- National Fraternal Order of Police President Chuck Canterbury, February 16, 2013

http://www.coloradofop.org/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/view_...

For another take on gun-control issues from the LEO perspective:

PoliceOne’s Gun Policy & Law Enforcement survey was conducted between March 4 and March 13, 2013, receiving 15,595 responses from verified police professionals across all ranks and department sizes.

http://ddq74coujkv1i.cloudfront.net/p1_gunsurveysummary_2013...

Well, it's an online opt-in survey so you have to keep that in mind. Also, they didn't directly poll on the question of background checks, which is the subject that gets the 80 - 90% approval rating in other polls. Instead they asked about the effect of "currently proposed White House legislation" and got a much different result.

Those are true points. I just wanted to point out that there isn't necessarily unanimous support for increased gun-control amongst LEOs. And regarding the FOP, I don't have a citation handy, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that a lot of the rank and file police officers differ with their leadership on gun control issues.

But it's worth sacrificing our freedoms in exchange for (only theoretically improved) safety (from causes of death that we are already extremely safe from - statistically speaking).

You and your neighbors packing assault weapons does not make you "free". It makes you "the Taliban".

Tell that to the minute-men (Minutemen), coincidentally originating in Massachusetts.

I don't own or currently have plans to purchase an assault weapon. I do, however observe that a state in which only the established power may have such things is certainly not free (neither liberated nor without cost).

That's a weak point. You could just as easily say it makes you "the Northern Alliance", "the French Resistance", "the Black Panthers", or "the Swiss". Weapons do not dictate ideology.

Point wasn't about ideology but way of life. For example, one of the great things about living in a largely gun-free society is that my probability of getting murdered in a drive-by revenge killing tomorrow is pretty low, since I do not belong to an armed faction responsible for an assault on an opposing faction last week.

I think it's disingenuous to bring up the Taliban and then deny you were saying anything about ideology. It was an emotional appeal that buries your true point. You know who else did that? Hitler.

Godwin's Law FTW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law

Why do we bother to have laws at all if people are going to break them?

I mean look at all the silencers people have to get away with murder - oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated.

Suppressors are legal in all but 11 states if you fill out the paperwork.

Please don't interject facts into this discussion! This is Hacker News, where we should just say what we THINK might be correct, or should be correct, without having any actual knowledge of the subject. That's what real hackers do, right?

BTW it's worth pointing out that some countries like Finland do not regulate silencers/sound suppressors on the grounds that they reduce noise pollution and benefit public health by reducing the risk of hearing damage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Finland#Related...

I think you're confusing HN with Slashdot. :p (At least, I always hoped the level of discussion was more nitpicking... I mean "detail-oriented.")

Also: "The data indicates that use of silenced firearms in crime is a rare occurence, and is a minor problem" ( http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v08n2/44.clark/clark.pdf )

The post I was replying to is largely correct. Criminals don't have suppressors because there is no secondary market for suppressors due to regulation. That said, I would guess they wouldn't need or use them even if they were available.

Criminals don't have suppressors because they are a novelty and any gun-owner understands this.

...without having any actual knowledge of the subject. That's what real hackers do, right?

Not at all. Real "hackers" are intimately knowledgeable regarding the systems with which they work.

and wait 8-10 months for the NFA background check.

oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated.

OR, it could be because they're expensive, ineffective, don't last, and hurt accuracy. Or because most murders are not planned out in advance, in excruciating detail, by criminal masterminds (or even the crooks in episodes of Columbo). Somebody who finds out their spouse is cheating on them and decides to kill them in a fit of rage isn't going to care about a silencer.

Likewise, gang on gang crime over drug deals doesn't seem to involve a lot of stealthy, hit-man style assassination stuff. Those guys don't need silencers.

And the people who do want one and want to avoid your regulations? Well, they just build their own, no license, background check, or anything else needed.

It should also be noted that in some European countries, suppressors are required when shooting in a close enough proximity to a neighbor that the loudness could be an inconvenience.

Suppressors are dead easy to make out of household products as is, they just aren't worth more than 2 shots. Likewise, any individual sent as the imaginary "hitman" that everyone seems to believe exists, would probably be aligned with a group with enough finances to either buy legitimate suppressors, or procure them from the black market.

The only people that cannot purchase automatic weapons and restricted modifications (suppressors, grenade launchers, etc) are the poor. The legal roadblocks are overcome (perfectly legally) with money.

That isn't the kind of gun violence these emotional responses are trying to stop, though. Situations like Boston and Connecticut are planned incidents. They don't use silencers for the reasons you list because they aren't trying to conceal their crimes, they just want to kill as many people as possible, and silencers hurt accuracy.

People just ignore the slaughter of spouses and mass murder of the destitute on the streets in favor of only focusing on shooting sprees.

The emotional rage murder would be culled by stricter gun laws, but gangs and mass shooters will just go to underground channels to get their armaments if they can't try to get them legally.

It's also important to understand that suppressors are not silencers. Most movies depict a suppressed handgun as sounding like an air rifle: that's just not the case unless you're talking about specially built firearms (integral suppressors, no leaks for gas) with sub-sonic rounds. I am going to guess that very few crimes have the monetary pay-off to justify such an investment (and if they do, the criminals can certainly afford to purchase a CNC machine and manufacture a supresor themselves).

On the other hand, a regular 9mm handgun or a .223/.308 rifle with a suppressor will still be very loud: comparable to a car's engine back firing, a tire blow out, or a firecracker. That's definitely a reduction in noise compared to a regular gun shot, but while one such noise might go unnoticed, a rapid succession of such noises certainly will.

I mean look at all the silencers people have to get away with murder - oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated.

Murderers rarely use such things

A silencer is cheap and trivial to manufacture from common materials.

I think you overestimate the deterrence of an additional felony charge. "Q. What are you in for? A. Murder... and an unlicensed weapon accessory."

Often these trivial laws are passed in order to be catch alls. You might get off on a technicality of a murder charge, but they get you for the illegal silencer.

Remember, they got Al Capone on income tax violations.

And you think that's a good thing?

maybe in your state.

Silencers aren't illegal at all.

And really the proper term is sound suppressor, they're far from silent.

You appear to be angry and marginally psychotic. Willing to bet you have numerous high powered assault rifles. God bless America.

You appear to be somebody who slanders random people you know nothing about, makes medical diagnoses you aren't qualified to make, indulges in lazy, stereotype driven thinking, and lacks the interest or ability to contribute anything meaningful to an otherwise interesting discussion. So I guess that makes us even?

<---- reddit is that way

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