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I'm waiting for a politician to pass legislation requiring us to have the telescreens from 1984. We already have thought crimes, I mean red flag laws and no fl

I'm waiting for a politician to pass legislation requiring us to have the telescreens from 1984. We already have thought crimes, I mean red flag laws and no fly lists. People need to stop giving up their liberty and privacy for perceived safety. You're much more likely to be killed by an automobile than a mass shooting. This is the new flavor of scare tactic.

RaceWon 7y ago
> You're much more likely to be killed by an automobile than a mass shooting My man! 3,424 people per Day are killed in car crashes. That is 1 million and 250 Thousand people every single year who die in wrecks. Here in America alone we lose over 100 people every single day--give or take a few.
- mdemare 7y ago
  You’re more likely to be murdered in the U.S. than to be killed in a traffic accident in the Netherlands. My point being, there is a lot of room for improvement in _both_ numbers.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    For certain definitions of "you". There are small subsets of the population which account for large percentages of homicides in the US, and they mostly kill each other(gangs). I, personally, based on my demographics, activities, and location, have a very low chance of being murdered. Less than the average European. But probably more than a European of similar traits to me. But the odds at that point are so low it is really irrelevant in life.
king_magic 7y ago
I agree that no fly lists are a bit much, but I’m 100% in favor of red flag laws. RE: red flag laws, I don’t see them rising to the level of thought crime. For example, I do not think it is unreasonable to use a legal process involving a judge to take away guns (either temporarily or permanently) from unstable people who are making thinly veiled threats. Society should have that right, and I for one fully support it. Equating mass shootings to basically the “well, terrorism is so rare you’re more likely to get crushed by your TV” scare tactic argument isn’t really fair. I’m sorry, 283* mass shootings in one year in one country is absolutely insane. It’s not a scare tactic, this is quite literally a mass shooting crisis. Short of national background checks, assault weapons bans and a whole host of other common sense things that Republicans and the NRA will never let happen in the US, I think red flag laws involving a judge are worth giving a try. This new trend on HN of hammering red flag laws is really hard to understand. These laws are not oppressive overreach. They are common sense, reasonable approaches to dealing with the greatest domestic threat we actually have. *https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-shootings-than-days-so-far-this-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-s...
- rayiner 7y ago
  Saying it louder doesn’t make the point less ridiculous. Mass shooting deaths have never exceeded 80 per year. Nobody is panicked about West Nile fever anymore, but it still causes 100+ deaths per year. You’d think engineers would be resistant to such blatant emotional manipulation, but I guess not.
  - king_magic 7y ago
    Your numbers are simply not accurate. And equating this to mosquito-borne disease is not reasonable. Mosquitoes aren’t being radicalized by the far right, they aren’t living in an increasingly polarized society, and they certainly don’t blow orange size exit wounds in people. *https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
    - rayiner 7y ago
      You’re right, I was looking at a chart through 2016. Looks like about 120 this year. Still, the average is under 80 over the same period over which west Nile killed 100 per year on average. And the peak this year is still below the 284 killed by west Nile in one year.
      - king_magic 7y ago
        There were 15 West Nile deaths in the US in 2019. It’s not even close to the same thing. https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/statsmaps/preliminarymapsdata2019/disease-cases-state-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/statsmaps/preliminarymapsdata20...
        rayiner 7y ago
        We don’t have full 2019 data. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus_in_the_Unite... > Since the virus has become widely established in the U.S., an average of 130 deaths a year occurred.
onion2k 7y ago
This is the new flavor of scare tactic. I'm British, and I find it really weird that Americans apparently live in abject terror of the world around them. The notion that anyone in Britain would ever need a deadly weapon to defend themselves is completely alien here. We just ... don't.
- prepend 7y ago
  Countries have different belief systems and thus are different. The U.K. has a queen, with the best real estate in the country set aside for personal use. While that seems really inefficient to me as a Frenchperson, I understand that British people like it. I’ve categorized this in the category of things that I’ve noticed but am not interested in enough to work toward the explanation, but if I ever learn it I’ll remark “hmm, that’s neat, I never knew that.”
  - onion2k 7y ago
    The U.K. has a queen, with the best real estate in the country set aside for personal use. Most of the state-owned "crown estates" land is open to the public.
    - prepend 7y ago
      Try taking a tour of Buckingham Palace. Compare it to the available of France’s “crown estates” :)
- otakucode 7y ago
  The primary reason for a need for guns is to retain the ability for a violent uprising to overthrow an oppressive regime should one arise. One of the benefits of the American system is that it does not assume infinite beneficence and eternal benevolence on the part of the governing body. This is wise because we know history. It doesn't make sense to fear being shot simply because many people own guns. If it did, then it would make sense to be in constant fear of vehicular homicide because automobiles are everywhere. It is not possible to make it impossible for people to harm or kill one another. Humans are hard to keep alive, not to kill. What protects you is not the inability of your neighbors to kill you - they all can, and easily - or the legal system, it is social and the philosophical outlook of those around you. Those factors are scary to people so they often pretend to not see them, but they're really the only protection humans can ever have and it is what they actually rely upon to determine if they 'feel safe.'
mtgx 7y ago
The US also has automatic "papers please" now with the verification of social media accounts.

RaceWon 7y ago

> You're much more likely to be killed by an automobile than a mass shooting My man! 3,424 people per Day are killed in car crashes. That is 1 million and 250 Thousand people every single year who die in wrecks. Here in America alone we lose over 100 people every single day--give or take a few.

mdemare 7y ago
You’re more likely to be murdered in the U.S. than to be killed in a traffic accident in the Netherlands. My point being, there is a lot of room for improvement in _both_ numbers.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  For certain definitions of "you". There are small subsets of the population which account for large percentages of homicides in the US, and they mostly kill each other(gangs). I, personally, based on my demographics, activities, and location, have a very low chance of being murdered. Less than the average European. But probably more than a European of similar traits to me. But the odds at that point are so low it is really irrelevant in life.

king_magic 7y ago

I agree that no fly lists are a bit much, but I’m 100% in favor of red flag laws. RE: red flag laws, I don’t see them rising to the level of thought crime. For example, I do not think it is unreasonable to use a legal process involving a judge to take away guns (either temporarily or permanently) from unstable people who are making thinly veiled threats. Society should have that right, and I for one fully support it. Equating mass shootings to basically the “well, terrorism is so rare you’re more likely to get crushed by your TV” scare tactic argument isn’t really fair. I’m sorry, 283* mass shootings in one year in one country is absolutely insane. It’s not a scare tactic, this is quite literally a mass shooting crisis. Short of national background checks, assault weapons bans and a whole host of other common sense things that Republicans and the NRA will never let happen in the US, I think red flag laws involving a judge are worth giving a try. This new trend on HN of hammering red flag laws is really hard to understand. These laws are not oppressive overreach. They are common sense, reasonable approaches to dealing with the greatest domestic threat we actually have. *https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-shootings-than-days-so-far-this-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-s...

rayiner 7y ago
Saying it louder doesn’t make the point less ridiculous. Mass shooting deaths have never exceeded 80 per year. Nobody is panicked about West Nile fever anymore, but it still causes 100+ deaths per year. You’d think engineers would be resistant to such blatant emotional manipulation, but I guess not.
- king_magic 7y ago
  Your numbers are simply not accurate. And equating this to mosquito-borne disease is not reasonable. Mosquitoes aren’t being radicalized by the far right, they aren’t living in an increasingly polarized society, and they certainly don’t blow orange size exit wounds in people. *https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
  - rayiner 7y ago
    You’re right, I was looking at a chart through 2016. Looks like about 120 this year. Still, the average is under 80 over the same period over which west Nile killed 100 per year on average. And the peak this year is still below the 284 killed by west Nile in one year.
    - king_magic 7y ago
      There were 15 West Nile deaths in the US in 2019. It’s not even close to the same thing. https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/statsmaps/preliminarymapsdata2019/disease-cases-state-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/statsmaps/preliminarymapsdata20...
      - rayiner 7y ago
        We don’t have full 2019 data. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus_in_the_Unite... > Since the virus has become widely established in the U.S., an average of 130 deaths a year occurred.

onion2k 7y ago

This is the new flavor of scare tactic. I'm British, and I find it really weird that Americans apparently live in abject terror of the world around them. The notion that anyone in Britain would ever need a deadly weapon to defend themselves is completely alien here. We just ... don't.

prepend 7y ago
Countries have different belief systems and thus are different. The U.K. has a queen, with the best real estate in the country set aside for personal use. While that seems really inefficient to me as a Frenchperson, I understand that British people like it. I’ve categorized this in the category of things that I’ve noticed but am not interested in enough to work toward the explanation, but if I ever learn it I’ll remark “hmm, that’s neat, I never knew that.”
- onion2k 7y ago
  The U.K. has a queen, with the best real estate in the country set aside for personal use. Most of the state-owned "crown estates" land is open to the public.
  - prepend 7y ago
    Try taking a tour of Buckingham Palace. Compare it to the available of France’s “crown estates” :)
otakucode 7y ago
The primary reason for a need for guns is to retain the ability for a violent uprising to overthrow an oppressive regime should one arise. One of the benefits of the American system is that it does not assume infinite beneficence and eternal benevolence on the part of the governing body. This is wise because we know history. It doesn't make sense to fear being shot simply because many people own guns. If it did, then it would make sense to be in constant fear of vehicular homicide because automobiles are everywhere. It is not possible to make it impossible for people to harm or kill one another. Humans are hard to keep alive, not to kill. What protects you is not the inability of your neighbors to kill you - they all can, and easily - or the legal system, it is social and the philosophical outlook of those around you. Those factors are scary to people so they often pretend to not see them, but they're really the only protection humans can ever have and it is what they actually rely upon to determine if they 'feel safe.'

mtgx 7y ago

The US also has automatic "papers please" now with the verification of social media accounts.