[wpietri]

A pretty obvious distinction is that pharma companies make tools for saving lives, while consumer gun companies make tools for taking lives.

(And yes, I'm aware of the theory that consumer guns are for taking lives in self defense. But in 2012, there were 33,563 gun deaths in the US, only 259 of which were justifiable homicides, so it's at least reasonable to think think that whatever the intent of gun companies, it's not working out like one might hope.)

[drak0n1c]

The main reason for the second amendment is deterring authoritarianism. It works, regardless of force proportion. Occupying Afghanistan was a pain that was ultimately not worthwhile for anyone who tried it.

Regarding self-defense, there is also a benefit in deterrence - look at relative crime rates in the most heavily armed per-capita states.

[mschuster91]

> The main reason for the second amendment is deterring authoritarianism. It works, regardless of force proportion.

No. It's delusion. In doubt, feds will fuck you over and shoot your corpse when they're done. There is no such thing as stopping the police, short of welding yourself shut in a tank, but you're bound to run out of gas, air or food/water. Or being blown up with an RPG, if you do enough damage.

The only thing that works as a deterrence to authoritarianism is masses - but you really need MASSES, as in hundreds of thousands of people, not a couple hundred neckbeards with guns. Hell, G20 Hamburg was in the upper 5-digit range of protesters with a decent amount of experienced and willing rioters and it got royally screwed. I don't nearly see any protest coming near that range of numbers soon... except, maybe and hopefully, if Trump decides to be a totally ignorant idiot and fires Mueller.

[wanderer2323]

The case for deterring authoritarianism is not G20 protests, it's

(a) groups like Deacons for Defence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justic...) where the presence of weapons serves as a deterrence, or if you want to turn to more grim times, (b) events like Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising) where the concentration of weapons counts for forcing an oppressor to suffer casualties instead of just rolling over the unarmed opposition. That is what the quote you are responding to alludes to.

Finally, weapons also serve as deterrent for the out-of-control forces, e.g. (c) 1992 Los Angeles Riots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots) when the government is not acting directly or indirectly against a group but is simply not acting at all during critical time

All of these has happened before, and all of these will happen again, during our lifetime.

[soundwave106]

I don't see a correlation, actually, so far.

Comparing guns per capita on a small sampling, the top 5 most violent states per one survey are Louisiana (gun ownership: #11), Alaska (gun ownership: #1), Tennessee (gun ownership: #15), Delaware (gun ownership: #51), and Nevada (gun ownership: #16). All over the place, at least so far. Maybe a small bias towards "more guns=more violence per capita", but with such a huge outlier with Delaware, that makes me imagine that the overall data is pretty noisy.

My impression is that there is a much stronger indicator of guns-per-capita: population density. The top 5 guns per capita states are: Alaska (population density: #50), Arkansas (population density: #40), Idaho (population density: #44), West Virginia (population density: #29), Wyoming (population density: #49). Again, somewhat messy, but there seems like a strong bias towards more rural areas.

This makes sense to me. In America, a driving force for many people with guns is less pure self defense and more sport and recreation. Of which the opportunities are quite a bit more readily available in rural areas.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2016/07/29/ame... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/gun-ownership-rates-by-stat... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[eitland]

Guns make more sense when you look at them as an insurance policy or maintenance fee. (Ugly but usable analogies.)

Guns saved us from Hitler and guns saved us from the Russians in the 50-70ies.

Cars on the other hand kills way more people and should be banned except for people who can document that they need it ;-)

[kaftoy]

Cars kill people in accidents[1]. Guns are used for this on purpose. By your logic, we should also ban food because it feeds the people using the cars and the guns. Guns can still be used in the military, nobody ever argued that (vis-a-vis to you comment about Hitler & the russians). And btw, about those russians, they found new ways (tools invented by the americans) to screw with the world, didn't they? How are guns defending us now?

[1] in recent years, terrorists have been using cars to kill people too, but not the same extent.

[eitland]

> nobody ever argued that (vis-a-vis to you comment about Hitler & the russians).

This part of the discussion started with the claim that gun producers were evil by definition.

That seems to include everyone including if they only sell to armed forces.