7 ms·

Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings f

Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
> the solution really is obvious. Well, from a programmers perspective - it's all about what you are optimizing for. We can end all car related deaths as well by outlawing all automotive vehicles. We can eliminate or curb most sexual diseases by regimenting who one can have sex with. We can end homelessness, by quartering local vagrants in the homes of the citizenry. Solutions are easy. Side effects are less so. If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders.
- afarviral 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.
- slagfart 4y ago
  What would the side effects of lower gun ownership be?
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    You see an increase in crimes against people when the equalizing force of guns is removed: assaults, muggings, home invasions, rapes, etc. Guns can (and do) allow smaller men, women, and the elderly to defend themselves with lethal force — against stronger aggressors. You displace guns primarily harming suicidal people and criminals into harms to innocent victims, via unchecked violence — potentially without reducing suicides. You also see an increase in totalitarian behavior, eg, the Australian lockdowns compared to the US lockdowns. And the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes — more people are killed by hammers or fists than rifles. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
    - Reason077 4y ago
      > “the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes” But common in mass shootings. In the US, “semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings”: https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in...
      - zmgsabst 4y ago
        Mass shootings aren’t common. Also, most “mass shootings” are by pistol by gangs — you’re citing a statistic on the largest ones, which are rare even among rare events. Generally, we shouldn’t base policy around outliers of outliers.
        rswail 4y ago
        How about basing policy on not getting innocent children and adults mass murdered on a regular basis? They are outliers of outliers in other countries. In the US, it's once a week.
        zmgsabst 4y ago
        > mass murdered on a regular basis? That doesn’t happen — it’s been four years since a similarly deadly shooting. > They are outliers of outliers in other countries. In the US, it's once a week. You forgot to exclude gang violence.
        meheleventyone 4y ago
        Comedy gold. We shouldn’t base policy around outliers of outliers but we should have a policy of arming the populace in case they need to lead an insurrection which is itself an extreme outlier. Or the chance of needing a gun for self defence which is also quite the outlier particularly if you drill down into the actual risk factors rather than using broad statistics. So far this year more school kids have died from being shot in the line of duty than cops who are routinely armed. So it doesn’t strike me as that much of an outlier. In particular kids should definitely be safer from gun violence than a police officer. That seems like a reasonable goal? Or the fact that the incidence of school shootings means kids are more widely impacted than just those who end up on the wrong end of a gun.
  - merek 4y ago
    The King of England, Tony Blair, could start shoving you around.
- mahastore 4y ago
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  > If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders. This sounds intuitively correct, but I wonder if we have seen any evidence of this. If I think of the Holocaust would have happened if the Jews in Germany had been armed I'm not convinced either way. I can see arguments that it might have prevented it but also that it might have accelerated it, especially if everyone in 1930s Germany had been heavily armed
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    I think we’ve seen the policy play out: US policy during COVID vs Australian policy during COVID. Afghanistan and Iraq insurrections; Ukrainian militias. Black Panthers; US labor riots; US revolution. I think we’ve seen consistently throughout history that the first step to abusing a population is disarming them. And there are more murders by hammer or fist than by rifle. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      Hang on... you think the US handled COVID better than Australia?
      - zmgsabst 4y ago
        I think the US had less authoritarian measures than Australia — I didn’t say “better”. But yes, I personally think the difference in rates isn’t due to Australia being more authoritarian and that leading to success.
        ungamedplayer 4y ago
        You'd be personally wrong. Edit: I cant reply to your thread. If you compare the rates of two like-minded Australian cities. (To be fair melbourne people pretend to be more cultured) Queensland was known for its "immediate knee jerk reactions", if you want i can find sources for this. Melbourne was known for its "reactive stance" if you want i can find sources for this. Melbournes infection rate and inability to 'follow lock down procedures' was the root cause for their infection rate going through the roof. This further compounded because not following lockdowns created more infections which furthered more lockdowns. Anyways, you'll take what you want from it.. Most of the links with values that I had have been removed. If I can dig up more I'll relink them here.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  If I was a civilian in a large scale war between the United States government and its civilian population I’m pretty sure I would rather the civilians have access to cars than to guns if it was one or the other.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    A conventional war between civilians armed with small arms against the full United States military is a completely unrealistic scenario for what armed resistance would actually look like. More realistic scenarios, based on historical examples, include: 1. Armed resistance of local or federal authorities/law enforcement (e.g. Battle of Athens, Bundy Standoff) 2. Guerrilla warfare against a superior military force (e.g. Afghanistan) 3. Full civil war between the states (would probably look something like Russia-Ukraine war happening right now) In the first two scenarios small arms are absolutely effective. In the third scenario, access to more advanced weapons and logistics would be split between the factions (and possibly supplemented by outside forces).
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      I'd add a 0.5 to your list: Law enforcement entities become much less willing to play fast and loose with their use of force when there is a good chance that kicking in a door at 4am will get you shot back at which could result in one of your guys being killed and then tough, potentially career limiting, questions being asked about why they chose to kick in that door under those circumstances.
      - confidantlake 4y ago
        But the opposite happens. US has many more shootings AND more police shootings than any other developed country.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  What are uncoordinated individuals with handguns or even rifles going to do vs modern combined arms of the most powerful military in the world?
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Ohhhhh you must mean that military defeated by the Taliban using AK-47s, RPGs and tacticals, right? The same one defeated by the Viet Cong? Your argument is trash. How's Saudi Arabia doing against those shoeless Houthis (i.e. 8 years later)?
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      lol. From a sister comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Your examples are NOT US Military trying to kill citizens. And Viet Cong? Really? You are grasping, how about you throw in Civil war references too. The point is technology has changed the battlefield. Personal firearms mean little - not nothing, but little - on a battlefield with tanks, drones, air superiority that the US has sooo much of compared to any other modern military, including Saudi Arabia. How is Saudi Arabia doing? I don't know. How about you visit the region, do the tourist thing in complete safety while you might see in the media that the Houthis even exist. I think they're doing fine. Not that I agree with their approach... But back to the Democide point: If the US Military went insane and wanted to eradicate every other US citizen then they could do so easily. But the US Military wouldn't. Because a military is made up of humans, with a heart and a conscience and killing their own families and children is not even a thought to contemplate. While "pry my guns from my dead hands" types are happy to continue the status quo...
      - guerrilla 4y ago
        > Personal firearms mean little - not nothing, but little - on a battlefield with tanks, drones, air superiority that the US has sooo much of compared to any other modern military, including Saudi Arabia. Nope, this is nonsense abd exactly the point that the examples refute. A poorly equipped army can defeat the US military.
- merek 4y ago
  Well, from a different programmer's perspective, ideal scenarios ("ending" or "eliminating" bad things) are rarely a reality. We can reduce car related deaths by regulating automotive vehicles and driving behavior. Speed limits, seatbelts, max BAC... We can reduce sexual diseases by educating people on safe practice. We can reduce homelessness through welfare systems. And based on the experiences in virtually every other first world country, the US can probably reduce gun-related deaths with tighter regulations on gun ownership.
  - themacguffinman 4y ago
    But why stop there? Why not ban cars completely? That will reduce car deaths even further. We can reduce sexual diseases even further by regulating who you can have sex with. If you've ever had or transmitted an STI, you're on a permanent banlist. You can obtain a license by proving you have no history of reckless behavior and have a clean record of health. We can also reduce homelessness even further by finding every homeless person and forcing them into a government house. Homelessness is a travesty that must be reduced as much as possible, isn't it? Hey, there aren't any ideal scenarios but we can reduce it further, can't we?
    - hardware2win 4y ago
      Cars have stronger and more useful "positive" use cases than guns
      - themacguffinman 4y ago
        What's more "positive" than the ability to defend yourself? You're just preaching to the choir if you don't accept other sides' perspectives on the value of guns.
        ahtihn 4y ago
        The fact that you think you even need to defend yourself is a sign that there's something deeply wrong with where you live. The first step would be to somehow fix that. Make everyone feel safe enough so they don't feel the need to have a gun to defend themselves.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Broadly this is what the downthread "Americans have chosen this" means. An armed, radicalized populace is one that's forever carrying out acts of lethal violence against strangers. Disarm the populace and you get less lethal violence. (The UK has quite a lot of nonlethal violence, mostly alcohol related. We don't need to re-litigate what happened when trying to ban alcohol.) If you rule out disarming, how about de-radicalizing? Many mass shooters leave behind helpful manifestoes detailing their reasoning.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    >If you rule out disarming, how about de-radicalizing? Many mass shooters leave behind helpful manifestoes detailing their reasoning. That requires much tougher questions to be asked and a level of cultural self awareness that most people don't have. Look up the history of prohibition. People thought that they could just ban booze and that would be the easy button that would greatly reduce all sorts of adjacent societal ills. Guns are the same way. People don't want to ask themselves why some youth are so disaffected they go postal. People don't wanna accept that gangs and traffickers mediating business disputes with bullets are basically doing a sloppy version of what courts do for "real business" disputes with extra steps. People don't wanna ask why so many people are taking their own lives. So they bury their heads in the sand and advocate for various flavors of "ban the guns and everything will be happy." Would it have some marginal impact? Certainly. Will it have the impact that advocates say? Lol.
quantumwannabe 4y ago
That is blatantly not true. There have been several mass shootings in Australia such as the 2002 Monash University shooting and the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis since Port Arthur, which inspired the modern Australian gun control system. Port Arthur was also 25 years ago, not 35. Australia also only had a handful of mass shootings before Port Arthur; mass shootings have never been a major issue in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
- yesenadam 4y ago
  > 2014 Sydney hostage crisis A mass shooting in which, by the sound of it, a gunman killed one hostage? Then when "police...stormed the café ...[a hostage] was killed by a police bullet ricochet. ..[The gunman] was also killed. Three other hostages and a police officer were injured by police gunfire" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindt_Cafe_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindt_Cafe_siege In the 2002 Monash shooting, 2 people died. Seems like there hasn't been a mass shooting of >5 people in Australia since Port Arthur (1996), except in 2018 when a grandfather in WA killed his whole family including himself (7 people).
  - Grimburger 4y ago
    The GP link was a terrible source for their point. If you look at the numbers there over the years for actual shootings it's basically a bad weekend in Chicago.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  I'm Australian, and I don't even know about about the Monash University shooting, despite being in a University in the same city at the same time. I had to look it up, 2 people died. The Sydney hostage crisis only one person was killed by the gunman, who was carrying a shotgun. If he had an automatic weapon it very likely would have been more. Your last point is true.
- elementalest 4y ago
  Yep, my mistake its 25 years, not 35. Though the difference doesn't negate the point that its been decades since a gun related massacre. That linked source is for all massacres, most of which are not gun related and have < 6 deaths. Even if you include the 2002 Monash University shootings, its still 20 years. If you look at [1], when the Australian gun laws came into effect, a year later the per capita number of gun related deaths halved. 25 years later and its halved again and the trend continues downwards. For reference the US numbers are here [2]. What is interesting is that when comparing the number of firearm possession per capita between the US and Australia, the US has roughly 10 times more guns [3]. Based on [1] and [2] the US has roughly 10 times the number of gun related deaths per capita. The reason why Australia has historically had less problems than the US with gun violence is that even at Australia's peak, it had 5 times fewer guns [4] than the US [5] did per capita. [1] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_a... [2] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_... [3] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/10/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession/194 https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/10/rate_of_civili... [4] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_c... [5] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_...
lelanthran 4y ago
> Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious. Is it that simple? The is little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-victims-data https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-vict... That same link shows a slight negative correlation between stricter gun laws and sexual assault. Looking at the numbers it's really hard to call any solution "obvious".
- dncornholio 4y ago
  Yes it is that simple. Denying there is a link between shooting and gun laws is he problem. It's that simple.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Yes it is that simple. Denying there is a link between shooting and gun laws is he problem. It's that simple. The data just doesn't support that view. Simply asserting "because I said so" is not a good way to convince people of your argument.
    - dncornholio 4y ago
      "The data" is showing that there's only one place in the world where this shit happens this often.
      - lelanthran 4y ago
        > "The data" is showing that there's only one place in the world where this shit happens this often. You presented Australia as an example of stricter gun laws making it safer for everyone. The data for Australia shows that this is not true.
- robbiep 4y ago
  Your data doesn’t show what you think it shows. Homicides is not gun deaths, because in Australia the number of gun deaths is so small. There are other ways to Kill someone.

calvinmorrison 4y ago

> the solution really is obvious. Well, from a programmers perspective - it's all about what you are optimizing for. We can end all car related deaths as well by outlawing all automotive vehicles. We can eliminate or curb most sexual diseases by regimenting who one can have sex with. We can end homelessness, by quartering local vagrants in the homes of the citizenry. Solutions are easy. Side effects are less so. If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders.

afarviral 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.
slagfart 4y ago
What would the side effects of lower gun ownership be?
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  You see an increase in crimes against people when the equalizing force of guns is removed: assaults, muggings, home invasions, rapes, etc. Guns can (and do) allow smaller men, women, and the elderly to defend themselves with lethal force — against stronger aggressors. You displace guns primarily harming suicidal people and criminals into harms to innocent victims, via unchecked violence — potentially without reducing suicides. You also see an increase in totalitarian behavior, eg, the Australian lockdowns compared to the US lockdowns. And the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes — more people are killed by hammers or fists than rifles. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
  - Reason077 4y ago
    > “the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes” But common in mass shootings. In the US, “semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings”: https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in...
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      Mass shootings aren’t common. Also, most “mass shootings” are by pistol by gangs — you’re citing a statistic on the largest ones, which are rare even among rare events. Generally, we shouldn’t base policy around outliers of outliers.
      - rswail 4y ago
        How about basing policy on not getting innocent children and adults mass murdered on a regular basis? They are outliers of outliers in other countries. In the US, it's once a week.
        zmgsabst 4y ago
        > mass murdered on a regular basis? That doesn’t happen — it’s been four years since a similarly deadly shooting. > They are outliers of outliers in other countries. In the US, it's once a week. You forgot to exclude gang violence.
      - meheleventyone 4y ago
        Comedy gold. We shouldn’t base policy around outliers of outliers but we should have a policy of arming the populace in case they need to lead an insurrection which is itself an extreme outlier. Or the chance of needing a gun for self defence which is also quite the outlier particularly if you drill down into the actual risk factors rather than using broad statistics. So far this year more school kids have died from being shot in the line of duty than cops who are routinely armed. So it doesn’t strike me as that much of an outlier. In particular kids should definitely be safer from gun violence than a police officer. That seems like a reasonable goal? Or the fact that the incidence of school shootings means kids are more widely impacted than just those who end up on the wrong end of a gun.
- merek 4y ago
  The King of England, Tony Blair, could start shoving you around.
mahastore 4y ago
ajmurmann 4y ago
> If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders. This sounds intuitively correct, but I wonder if we have seen any evidence of this. If I think of the Holocaust would have happened if the Jews in Germany had been armed I'm not convinced either way. I can see arguments that it might have prevented it but also that it might have accelerated it, especially if everyone in 1930s Germany had been heavily armed
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  I think we’ve seen the policy play out: US policy during COVID vs Australian policy during COVID. Afghanistan and Iraq insurrections; Ukrainian militias. Black Panthers; US labor riots; US revolution. I think we’ve seen consistently throughout history that the first step to abusing a population is disarming them. And there are more murders by hammer or fist than by rifle. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    Hang on... you think the US handled COVID better than Australia?
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      I think the US had less authoritarian measures than Australia — I didn’t say “better”. But yes, I personally think the difference in rates isn’t due to Australia being more authoritarian and that leading to success.
      - ungamedplayer 4y ago
        You'd be personally wrong. Edit: I cant reply to your thread. If you compare the rates of two like-minded Australian cities. (To be fair melbourne people pretend to be more cultured) Queensland was known for its "immediate knee jerk reactions", if you want i can find sources for this. Melbourne was known for its "reactive stance" if you want i can find sources for this. Melbournes infection rate and inability to 'follow lock down procedures' was the root cause for their infection rate going through the roof. This further compounded because not following lockdowns created more infections which furthered more lockdowns. Anyways, you'll take what you want from it.. Most of the links with values that I had have been removed. If I can dig up more I'll relink them here.
tshaddox 4y ago
If I was a civilian in a large scale war between the United States government and its civilian population I’m pretty sure I would rather the civilians have access to cars than to guns if it was one or the other.
- lliamander 4y ago
  A conventional war between civilians armed with small arms against the full United States military is a completely unrealistic scenario for what armed resistance would actually look like. More realistic scenarios, based on historical examples, include: 1. Armed resistance of local or federal authorities/law enforcement (e.g. Battle of Athens, Bundy Standoff) 2. Guerrilla warfare against a superior military force (e.g. Afghanistan) 3. Full civil war between the states (would probably look something like Russia-Ukraine war happening right now) In the first two scenarios small arms are absolutely effective. In the third scenario, access to more advanced weapons and logistics would be split between the factions (and possibly supplemented by outside forces).
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    I'd add a 0.5 to your list: Law enforcement entities become much less willing to play fast and loose with their use of force when there is a good chance that kicking in a door at 4am will get you shot back at which could result in one of your guys being killed and then tough, potentially career limiting, questions being asked about why they chose to kick in that door under those circumstances.
    - confidantlake 4y ago
      But the opposite happens. US has many more shootings AND more police shootings than any other developed country.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
What are uncoordinated individuals with handguns or even rifles going to do vs modern combined arms of the most powerful military in the world?
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Ohhhhh you must mean that military defeated by the Taliban using AK-47s, RPGs and tacticals, right? The same one defeated by the Viet Cong? Your argument is trash. How's Saudi Arabia doing against those shoeless Houthis (i.e. 8 years later)?
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    lol. From a sister comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Your examples are NOT US Military trying to kill citizens. And Viet Cong? Really? You are grasping, how about you throw in Civil war references too. The point is technology has changed the battlefield. Personal firearms mean little - not nothing, but little - on a battlefield with tanks, drones, air superiority that the US has sooo much of compared to any other modern military, including Saudi Arabia. How is Saudi Arabia doing? I don't know. How about you visit the region, do the tourist thing in complete safety while you might see in the media that the Houthis even exist. I think they're doing fine. Not that I agree with their approach... But back to the Democide point: If the US Military went insane and wanted to eradicate every other US citizen then they could do so easily. But the US Military wouldn't. Because a military is made up of humans, with a heart and a conscience and killing their own families and children is not even a thought to contemplate. While "pry my guns from my dead hands" types are happy to continue the status quo...
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      > Personal firearms mean little - not nothing, but little - on a battlefield with tanks, drones, air superiority that the US has sooo much of compared to any other modern military, including Saudi Arabia. Nope, this is nonsense abd exactly the point that the examples refute. A poorly equipped army can defeat the US military.
merek 4y ago
Well, from a different programmer's perspective, ideal scenarios ("ending" or "eliminating" bad things) are rarely a reality. We can reduce car related deaths by regulating automotive vehicles and driving behavior. Speed limits, seatbelts, max BAC... We can reduce sexual diseases by educating people on safe practice. We can reduce homelessness through welfare systems. And based on the experiences in virtually every other first world country, the US can probably reduce gun-related deaths with tighter regulations on gun ownership.
- themacguffinman 4y ago
  But why stop there? Why not ban cars completely? That will reduce car deaths even further. We can reduce sexual diseases even further by regulating who you can have sex with. If you've ever had or transmitted an STI, you're on a permanent banlist. You can obtain a license by proving you have no history of reckless behavior and have a clean record of health. We can also reduce homelessness even further by finding every homeless person and forcing them into a government house. Homelessness is a travesty that must be reduced as much as possible, isn't it? Hey, there aren't any ideal scenarios but we can reduce it further, can't we?
  - hardware2win 4y ago
    Cars have stronger and more useful "positive" use cases than guns
    - themacguffinman 4y ago
      What's more "positive" than the ability to defend yourself? You're just preaching to the choir if you don't accept other sides' perspectives on the value of guns.
      - ahtihn 4y ago
        The fact that you think you even need to defend yourself is a sign that there's something deeply wrong with where you live. The first step would be to somehow fix that. Make everyone feel safe enough so they don't feel the need to have a gun to defend themselves.
pjc50 4y ago
Broadly this is what the downthread "Americans have chosen this" means. An armed, radicalized populace is one that's forever carrying out acts of lethal violence against strangers. Disarm the populace and you get less lethal violence. (The UK has quite a lot of nonlethal violence, mostly alcohol related. We don't need to re-litigate what happened when trying to ban alcohol.) If you rule out disarming, how about de-radicalizing? Many mass shooters leave behind helpful manifestoes detailing their reasoning.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >If you rule out disarming, how about de-radicalizing? Many mass shooters leave behind helpful manifestoes detailing their reasoning. That requires much tougher questions to be asked and a level of cultural self awareness that most people don't have. Look up the history of prohibition. People thought that they could just ban booze and that would be the easy button that would greatly reduce all sorts of adjacent societal ills. Guns are the same way. People don't want to ask themselves why some youth are so disaffected they go postal. People don't wanna accept that gangs and traffickers mediating business disputes with bullets are basically doing a sloppy version of what courts do for "real business" disputes with extra steps. People don't wanna ask why so many people are taking their own lives. So they bury their heads in the sand and advocate for various flavors of "ban the guns and everything will be happy." Would it have some marginal impact? Certainly. Will it have the impact that advocates say? Lol.

quantumwannabe 4y ago

That is blatantly not true. There have been several mass shootings in Australia such as the 2002 Monash University shooting and the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis since Port Arthur, which inspired the modern Australian gun control system. Port Arthur was also 25 years ago, not 35. Australia also only had a handful of mass shootings before Port Arthur; mass shootings have never been a major issue in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

yesenadam 4y ago
> 2014 Sydney hostage crisis A mass shooting in which, by the sound of it, a gunman killed one hostage? Then when "police...stormed the café ...[a hostage] was killed by a police bullet ricochet. ..[The gunman] was also killed. Three other hostages and a police officer were injured by police gunfire" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindt_Cafe_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindt_Cafe_siege In the 2002 Monash shooting, 2 people died. Seems like there hasn't been a mass shooting of >5 people in Australia since Port Arthur (1996), except in 2018 when a grandfather in WA killed his whole family including himself (7 people).
- Grimburger 4y ago
  The GP link was a terrible source for their point. If you look at the numbers there over the years for actual shootings it's basically a bad weekend in Chicago.
Gatsky 4y ago
I'm Australian, and I don't even know about about the Monash University shooting, despite being in a University in the same city at the same time. I had to look it up, 2 people died. The Sydney hostage crisis only one person was killed by the gunman, who was carrying a shotgun. If he had an automatic weapon it very likely would have been more. Your last point is true.
elementalest 4y ago
Yep, my mistake its 25 years, not 35. Though the difference doesn't negate the point that its been decades since a gun related massacre. That linked source is for all massacres, most of which are not gun related and have < 6 deaths. Even if you include the 2002 Monash University shootings, its still 20 years. If you look at [1], when the Australian gun laws came into effect, a year later the per capita number of gun related deaths halved. 25 years later and its halved again and the trend continues downwards. For reference the US numbers are here [2]. What is interesting is that when comparing the number of firearm possession per capita between the US and Australia, the US has roughly 10 times more guns [3]. Based on [1] and [2] the US has roughly 10 times the number of gun related deaths per capita. The reason why Australia has historically had less problems than the US with gun violence is that even at Australia's peak, it had 5 times fewer guns [4] than the US [5] did per capita. [1] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_a... [2] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_... [3] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/10/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession/194 https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/10/rate_of_civili... [4] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_c... [5] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/rate_of_...

lelanthran 4y ago

> Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious. Is it that simple? The is little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-victims-data https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-vict... That same link shows a slight negative correlation between stricter gun laws and sexual assault. Looking at the numbers it's really hard to call any solution "obvious".

dncornholio 4y ago
Yes it is that simple. Denying there is a link between shooting and gun laws is he problem. It's that simple.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Yes it is that simple. Denying there is a link between shooting and gun laws is he problem. It's that simple. The data just doesn't support that view. Simply asserting "because I said so" is not a good way to convince people of your argument.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    "The data" is showing that there's only one place in the world where this shit happens this often.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > "The data" is showing that there's only one place in the world where this shit happens this often. You presented Australia as an example of stricter gun laws making it safer for everyone. The data for Australia shows that this is not true.
robbiep 4y ago
Your data doesn’t show what you think it shows. Homicides is not gun deaths, because in Australia the number of gun deaths is so small. There are other ways to Kill someone.