Hacker News Reader

Comment by stevemck | Hacker News Reader

Guns scare the shit out of me.

When I grew up in Australia where there is basically no guns. I used to walk on streets even on a drunken Friday / Saturday night without fear.

I moved to the US a few years ago and since then every corner I turn, I see people and I worry.

I don't worry about getting robbed. No. I worry about a gun fight somewhere and a stray bullet hits me. I worry that someone drunk might hold me at gunpoint and at a moment of misjudgement he/she shoots me.

It is pretty hard to get killed by being punched. On the other hand, it is pretty easy to lose your mind for a second and shoot someone

I hate this project, because now the barrier to entry of owning a unregistered gun is so much lower

View on HN

I see the opposite, I see a world where the predator on the street corner cannot be sure I am armed, who has to pause and think before he mugs me or another, are they armed? They have to think twice about that home invasion as well.

You vastly over exaggerate the issue here, this level or paranoia needs medical assistance.

Gun laws will not make people safer, making an already illegal act; using a gun against someone/something; even more illegal solves nothing.

We have a major problem with drugs. There is too much money in this because of the illegal nature of it. From the use and sale of drugs to prosecution, treatment, and imprisonment. The establishment has too much to lose to give it up and those in that system have too little to lose to not resort to violence.

Fix the drug laws, find good work for those who have too much idle time, and then we can work on the culture of violence that pervades many inner cities.

> They have to think twice about that home invasion as well.

As a simple supporting point, home invasions while the tenants are currently at home is much higher in Canada where firearms are significantly less common. In America, burglars make sure noone is home before breaking into it. This has been correlated to gun ownership and castle doctrines.

I am not trying to be glib/mean here, but you should probably see a therapist to learn how to cope. It sounds like you are suffering.

really? Have you had bad experiences with gun wielding Americans? I acknowledge that the US certainly has a lot of guns and armed robberies/crimes are highly publicized, but if you aren't in a sketchy neighborhood the likelihood of running into a malicious person with a gun is very very low

I don't see why your fear differentiates between guns with and without serial numbers. Either way, you're dead if you get shot with one. Then again, fear is irrational.

Take a look at a state like New Jersey. Guns are illegal there for all intents and purposes. Does nothing to keep cities like Camden off the most dangerous cities in America list though.

You are ridiculous.

If only we could uninvent the CNC and the firearm.

Totally agree. Particularly since US citizens are so obsessed with guns and violence. I mean, look at all the shootings and massacres happening, by people of all ages and races, it's crazy! Couldn't stand living in a society like that where everyone's allowed and legally motivated to keep guns.

All of the mass shootings in the US have occurred in "gun free zones" (for example schools) where law-abiding people can't legally bring guns. Regardless of what your TV told you, non-law-enforcement people in the US can't legally walk into a school with a gun.

As it turns out, criminals don't really care where they can legally bring guns and will happily walk past a "NO GUNS ALLOWED HERE!" sign.

When gun grabbing legislation is passed, it only hurts law-abiding people, not criminals. Criminals will still get and use guns whenever they'd like.

Regardless of what you write, there are non-law-enforcement people in the US who can legally walk into school with a gun. I don't know about every state, but in Utah if you have a permit to conceal, you are good to go in a school.

I recommend Legal Heat, a site that spells out the current regulations state by state, about where you can and cannot go while carrying a firearm.

This is not true, though. There were armed security personnel on site[1] at the Columbine shooting that actually had a shootout with the duo. There were guns on campus, unfortunately they did not stop the massacre.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/columbine.cd/Pages/DEPUTIES...

Per that item, and memory, those guys were outside the campus when it started, and only one was armed.

And I think you're missing the point. Absent a total ban on citizens of good standing possessing guns inside (including administrators in this case, or, say an arms locker in the teacher's lounge), the duo wouldn't have had free reign as the police cowered outside (experience shows teachers and administrators are a lot more serious and brave about protecting their charges than the local police were that day).

To take another example, the Colorado theater shooter could have gone to closer or bigger ones, but just happened to pick the one that was so ... severe about being "gun free" it insisted off duty police hired as security guards go unarmed. It was gun free, alright, until he showed up.

One correction to this pattern: the Arizona Congresswoman shooting, where an armed citizen showed up as the shooter was being restrained by people there, but one of them in the line could have been legally armed.

No, I actually get the point I just completely disagree with it. The repeated suggestion that guns will make people safer just isn't demonstrated by reality. Not to keep trading anecdotes but here is the case of the Police/Walmart shooting in Las Vegas[1]. Joseph Wilcox was armed, intervened with the thought that his gun would neutralize the situation and wound up becoming another victim. This is your principle put into practice.

Gun advocates pushing the line "school shootings wouldn't happen if there were armed people on campus" sounds suspiciously similar to the joke about selling elephant repellent. Keep in mind, I'm providing you with examples of things that actually happened while your view of gun-provided safety exists in the hypothetical. I am happy living in an area where gun ownership is scarce and shootings (especially accidental) are scarcer.

[1]http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/jun/22/joseph-wilcox-be...

Point me at a second incident where a spree shooter had an accomplice watching his back. It's not something that's happened before, to our knowledge.

Heck, the Columbine incident is very rare in having two shooters. Per Wikipedia and my memory this only happens every few decades in the US and no other time at a school, and it's equally rare in the rest of the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(Ameri...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(schoo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(workp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#Religi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_familicides_in_the_Uni...

Whereas we know of tens of incidents stopped, or so we suspect since a spree killer/mass murderer who's stopped early by definition doesn't succeed in killing lots of people.

Here is your second incident:

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

Here's your third: #59 in your first link. Here's your fourth: #67 in your first link.

We know of the incidents stopped, but so many of those in your links ended by the killers' own hand. In almost all of the cases, however, these are mass murderers with guns.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com