Comment by microcolonel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by microcolonel | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

First of all, assault rifles are not on the open market in the U.S. and haven't been for quite some time.

U.S. armed violence has a lot more to it than the availability of weapons; statistics are easy to misinterpret as well, since they're really just the proportion of violent crimes that are committed with one particular tool.

Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost the same proportion of violence with guns, despite fairly hefty controls.

The U.S. really just seems to have more violent crime in general than many other countries, and my understanding is that this has been true since well before anyone else had harsh restrictions on the legal ownership and use of firearms.

> I have read some arguments about private protection against excessive government excesses, but I don't really buy it.

The theme of the article is these excesses; if you're not making the connection here, you're never going to make it. Also, incidentally, that's the reason it's in the constitution; I hear that it's an important document over there, but what would I know?

The other good reason for widespread private ownership of firearms is protection against occupation by an invading force, which history has shown to be an unpopular tactic; though perhaps this is not comparable. IIRC the imperial Japanese even stated this as why they weren't interested in occupying U.S. soil.

I once read that the largest standing army on the planet is in the U.S. on the opening day of deer season. Not sure if that's factually accurate but it does sound formidable.

Consequently the best firearm a guerrilla fighter can own is a high powered hunting rifle with a good scope. Also, the average hunting rifle sold in the U.S. is better than the sniper rifles we recovered in Iraq. Nothing is more demoralizing to an invading force than snipers, except perhaps anti-personnel mines.

Are all those rifle owners regular active hunters? How many of the hunters possess military caliber marksmanship? Stalking a deer through a forest and sniping members of an invading enemy both involve shooting rifles at moving targets. Being holed up in a sniper's nest during a shooting war and taking out human targets that are aware of your presence and either shooting back directly or trying to relay your position to better placed or equipped comrades and all the while moving fast and erratically would be extremely challenging for non military trained folk, hunters and otherwise.

More significantly, which countries do you think are in a position to attack the lower 48 states? Canada and Mexico. Can't see that happening any time soon. Sadly, an American on American conflict seems far more likely than a foreign invasion, but even that would require a a civil society and social order break down of unprecedented scale.

| Being holed up in a sniper's nest during a shooting war and taking out human targets that are aware of your presence and either shooting back directly or trying to relay your position to better placed or equipped comrades and all the while moving fast and erratically"

That's not deer hunting, that's duck hunting.

I'm just going to compare murder rates between Canada and US. Murder is harder to fudge. Using data from different years. Maybe that invalidates the conclusion, but I'm guessing it holds in general.

> Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost the same proportion of violence with guns, despite fairly hefty controls.

Firearm homicide in the US per 100k: 3.55 [1] Firearm homicide in Canada per 100k: 0.51 [1] Homicide rate in the US per 100k: 4.7 [2] Homicide rate in Canada per 100k: 1.6 [2]

Proportion of homicides from firearms in the US: 3.55/4.7 = 76% Proportion of homicides from firearms in Canada: 0.51/1.6 = 32%

Not sure what to make of the numbers. But it doesn't seem like Canada has "the same proportion of violence with guns".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

>Murder is harder to fudge.

Actually it is quite easy. For evidence, see

>Firearm homicide in the US per 100k

>Proportion of homicides from firearms

That you can so easily switch between murder and homicide makes the numbers really easy to fudge to most people who don't consider the differences between the two.

I am not following you. Do the differences really matter in this case?

EDIT: Don't read this as snarky disagreement. Rather, Im just confused and genuinely want to understand.

Simply put, homicide can be constructed to include suicides as well as accidental deaths. While these are issues with guns, they aren't the same issue as murder and should be treated differently (consider how often you see "pool related homicides" when discussing accidental drownings of children). Even if one was going to include them, then they should be clear when they are using terminology that is not only often misunderstood by readers but which has been knowingly used by others to mislead.

This is not to say that these other issues should be ignored. Having a gun in the home is more likely to make a suicide attempt result in death and that is an issue that should be discussed and dealt with. But it should be done so openly and recognizing it is a separate, though related, issue.

I should have just wrote "homicide" instead of "murder". The two sources I gave separate suicides from homicides.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com