Exactly. Going on a tangent here but this is exactly what I tell gun control proponents. Deal with the root cause of the problem and leave gun owners be.
Unfortunately, the root cause in that case is unstable people getting a hold of guns and then killing people with them (themselves or others). (Leaving aside gun accidents, which are also a problem.) While we should certainly do everything we can to help prevent and treat mental illness, it will never be possible to eliminate it completely. Therefore we should also make it as unlikely as possible that such a person would have access to a gun.
That's not to say that people should not be allowed to own guns, but I believe it does follow that very careful standards should be in place to ensure that licensed gun owners will use, transport, and store their weapons with the due level of care. Reasonable people could certainly debate what sort of standards those would be, in terms of licensing, restrictions, education, storage and transportation requirements, etc., but given the evidence that availability of firearms contributes to deaths by homicide and suicide, the issue certainly seems worthy of investigation.
> Reasonable people could certainly debate what sort of standards those would be
Sounds reasonable to me. I would however, also ask you to consider that excessive control leading to difficulty in accessing guns for personal protection is dangerous as well. The question becomes how much power do you want to give government over this issue.
A lot of gun owners cite the concerns that they have over the emergence of a tyrannical government. With guns, these citizens can protect themselves more adequately.
You don't want a scenario where the government of the day rounds up a bunch of deplorables/undesirables and sets out to massacre them. This has happened before and I'd bet that guns in the hands of each of these individuals would have accorded them a fairer chance at defending themselves.
As far as deaths go, governments have killed more people than a few gun toting individuals who clearly have mental issues have. Governments are more dangerous.
I don't think it's fair that you're getting down votes here without replies. I didn't down vote, but I'll explain why I disagree.
It is most likely true that governments have killed more people than individuals with guns acting alone, although I don't think it's as lopsided as you suggest. As an example, the United States death toll in all of World War II was about 400,000. Currently there are over 30,000 gun deaths in the US every year.
The more significant issue though, is the claim that a prevalence of guns would prevent government tyranny to the extent that it outweighs the damage they cause. Speaking of the US specifically, that would first require that the US would have a government at some point that was intent on killing hundreds of thousands of its own people. But not only that, it would require an armed insurrection against that government to actually be successful in stopping it. I'm no fan of the current US government's policies or effectiveness, but both of those events seem astronomically unlikely anytime in the foreseeable future. It is incredibly unlikely that the US government would morph into a murderously tyrannical regime. And if that somehow did happen, it is also unlikely that individual citizens with guns could do much to stop it. On the other hand, it's a fact that access to guns causes tens of thousands of deaths in the US every year.
I just can't see any reasonable argument that the likelihood of the emergence and defeat of a tyrannical government is so great that it is remotely likely to outweigh the existing annual gun death toll. Not to mention that I'm not even suggesting preventing gun ownership, just sensible restrictions. In order to drive a car you need to prove that you know the rules of the road and that your vision is sufficient (or that you will wear corrective lenses). Your car must be registered and in good working order. I'm in favor of a similar licensing process for guns: a thorough, standardized test to prove that you are of sound mind and are aware of proper safe use and storage. Registration so that law enforcement can be aware of potential threats, and can track weapons used in crimes. Restrictions on how guns can be legally stored and transported, and where they can be taken. I'm not an expert, and I could certainly be convinced I'm off on the specifics, but opposing any restrictions on ownership whatsoever seems an untenable position to me.
I agree with you completely except that I caution people not dismiss the idea of an armed rebellion so easily. It’s really easy to fool ourselves into thinking bad shit doesn’t happen and we are “beyond violence”. I want to believe it too, but let’s just say for example Trump starts rounding up “illegals” and shooting them if they refuse to leave our country. Just think about that. At some point many of us would break and as we see our friends and families torn apart we would be willing to die to defend their humanity. Hopefully we’d have some of the military on our side, but we’d likely break out in civil war. Our military is powerful but not as big as many people assume. It can’t do shit to a bunch of people in concrete urban structures with AKs what makes anyone think 100MM citizens with weapons wouldn’t be effective in seizing control back from a tyrannical leader?
Those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither.
I know you’ve heard it before. But I honestly worry we’re suffering from a “times are good why do I need all these liberties my ancestors fought for” phase and it would be really dumb to forfeit them all and then end up back at square one with an actual actively oppressive system governing us and no way to defend ourselves against it.
> Trump starts rounding up “illegals” and shooting them if they refuse to leave our country
I'd say that that's a valid I'd concern even as a Trump supporter. All governments are capable of copious amounts of nastiness. Today, my guy could be in power, tomorrow someone else's will be. Therefore, systems that take this into account would perform better than those that don't.
> I don't think it's fair that you're getting down votes here without replies.
Why, thank you!
> Currently there are over 30,000 gun deaths in the US every year.
Interesting stat. I'll look into this more and see where the rabbit hole leads me. But as I gather so far, the data supports my claims more than yours. Case in point from Wikipedia:
In 2012, 64% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides.
This again points to mental health issues more than guns being the problem. These obviously unwell individuals would have found other ways to exit a world they no longer could bear being in. Sad affair but true. So unless the mental health is addressed, if your goal was to prevent deaths, you would not solve much by taking guns away.
> It is incredibly unlikely that the US government would morph into a murderously tyrannical regime.
Funny that you say that because these same words echo what I heard a holocaust survivor said in a WWII documentary I was watching less than a week ago. The Jews did not think that nazi Germans would ever do what they did to them. They kept saying that Hitler was a passing fad and that in no time (3-4 yrs), he'd be out of power and normalcy would resume. I'd like to think that at the rate with which polarization is happening today, it isn't unfathomable that a murderous regime COULD take power. Even if they weren't murderous, there are other ways to exercise tyranny making death seem a more befitting (or may be even noble) endeavor as opposed to living on one's knees, so to speak.
It never seems dangerous at first. I'd posit that that's why we get insured; we assume that things can be calamitous even when there's little evidence to suggest the same.
That's the difference between my view point and yours. I have a theory on how this ties in to why most preppers are right leaning as opposed to left leaning i.e. perception of risk but I won't get into that right now. The point is, even if there's a small chance of that occurring, because the downside of not being ready is so huge, we must pull all stops to remain safe.
> opposing any restrictions on ownership whatsoever seems an untenable position to me.
I'm glad you see it that way, but a non-trivial number of anti-gun proponents don't see it that way and instead want guns taken away from the bulk of current owners if not all(civilians that is).
It's true that most of the gun deaths (about 2/3) are suicides. If you do some research on that though, I think you'll find significant evidence that it's not actually true most of those people would have found another way to do it. There are varying degrees and durations of suicidal intent, and a major factor of whether someone follows through is access to means. So although it's certainly a reasonable assumption that a suicidal person would just find other means if they didn't have a gun, the evidence shows that access to guns really does make a big difference to suicide rates.
I absolutely hear you that tyranny does happen, and is sometimes horrible. I would point to the Chinese persecution of their Uyghur population currently. However, when you multiply the odds of something like that happening in a country like the US, times the odds that an armed rebellion would be successful, times the odds that such an event would save more lives than it took (certainly many people would die in an armed overthrow of the US government), the combined probability is certainly small. Then comparing that to the lives that sensible gun laws would save every year, it seems hard not to support some kind of structure.
Often, yes, giving up freedom is dangerous. But society can't exist with 100% freedom either, because one person's freedom must be balanced against another's rights. There are already many things we agree that people can't do in a civilized society because the harm to others outweighs the infringement on personal freedoms. For instance, we need to accept property rights. As mentioned, we need licensing to drive a vehicle. We are required to pay taxes so that common services can be funded. Some oversight on gun ownership seems, to me, a sensible part of that list. Of course, that's not to say that increased security for decreased freedom is always good; it depends on the particulars of the case.
Edit: btw I absolutely understand the desire to be prepared for extreme events. I have several months of food and supplies stored in case the big west coast earthquake or another disaster hits. I can understand people's desire to own guns for protection, although I don't myself. I don't believe that any of that needs to conflict with sensible laws around registration, licensing, and safe use.
This was a lightbulb moment, and I realized the contradictory stance I have - no oversight on social media but I believe in gun control/regulation.
People and tools.. and what tools are dangerous enough to be regulated, the thing with social media regulation and censorship is that seems so closely tied with free speech and free market enterprise so any oversight is revolting to me, but given the effect fake news has - I realize it can be as dangerous, if not more, than guns.
I knew it from the get go. I also know most people here are left leaning but that people haven't really thought about why they take the positions they take. There is a lot of indoctrination. This is by no means an attack on OP or you personally. Survey most people here (HN) without bringing up guns and they will agree with what OP said; people are the problem and not the tools.
Bring up the issue of guns and because it is the 'progressive/liberal/democrat' thing to do, guns(tools) become the problem. If we weren't polarized politically and instead took time to think about issues for ourselves, then our convictions would be consistent and hold true across the board.
I am a black non-american who absolutely agrees with and loves Trump. I look at the data on economics and what he's done for America and wish more people could see the same and forget about what the media says about him. His policies on immigration are common sense and exactly what I would want for my country; people have to come in the right way and some places have to have more scrutiny than others. That doesn't mean I hate humans but rather that I understand that people are different and some worse than others.
I agree with you on the “people don’t examine their principles and hold consistent world views” thing. You see it everywhere but and it frustrates me so so very much. But I think the travel ban is actually was super immature and is actually an example of the right being inconsistent. You’re American until you travel to Iran then you’re subhuman? What! Come on. Of course we need to scrutinize people who enter even if that means closing our doors to refugees if we can’t handle the load, but a travel ban that applies even to US citizens... that’s inconsistent.
> You’re American until you travel to Iran then you’re subhuman?
That's obviously very ill informed (I'd like a link to this or a pointer to such incidents if you don't mind).
However, could there be more to the story? If there's a threat that the individual(s) might have been radicalized (and there are enough instances where this has been the case), then Americans might have to be smarter about whether they can allow you back into society without severe scrutiny or even detainment where evidence supports it (curious if there's sufficient legislation to resolve this though).
> But citizens of these countries who are legal permanent residents in the United States initially were held for long hours at airports, and those who have immigrant visas also were denied entry.
I know citizens eventually got back in but it could have been handled better.
Of course people entering the country from some places require more scrutiny than others. But, it's not like that hasn't always been done. People coming from the countries on Trump's travel ban list face extreme scrutiny to get US visas. What Trump decided to do was ban anyone coming from those countries altogether. Including people who had already gone through that vetting process and obtained visas. Even including permanent residents of the US, initially! Even people fleeing from countries like Iraq, because their lives were in danger due to helping the US. There was already a common sense policy in place; Trump employed a policy sledgehammer. (With little to no evidence that it would even achieve the stated goal of increasing security.)
I would debate your other points as well, but I don't want to get too far into the weeds here. My main point is that often what is sold as a "common sense" policy is in fact an overly simplistic one—the policy already in place may have had a great deal of sense behind it, but the world is complicated, and so, so are most sensible policies. Taking rash actions like barring all travel from a list of countries is more likely to do harm than good. (As would an extreme policy on the other side, like opening borders completely. Again, the world is complicated, and difficult problems require thoughtful solutions.)
> Even people fleeing from countries like Iraq, because their lives were in danger due to helping the US.
Well obviously this isn't very useful and may need to be rethought if true. I don't know much about this claim though so I'll read more on it.
> Trump employed a policy sledgehammer
Look, these things aren't easy. May be it is a disproportionate response but I've lived through a period of fear when muslim terrorists bombed/shot up malls and universities in my country. In one incident, two armed civilians (an Israeli and a native) were able to shoot some terrorists and save some innocent lives. A once safe country ended up with us having to lock our offices during the day when business should be conducted. I am a lottle biased on the issue and that's why I took such a hardliner position on it.
I'm sorry, that sounds terrible, and certainly does help explain the position. In a way, I see this as a mirror to our freedom vs security discussion down thread. In this case, I feel what's being given up in the name of security is too great. Most people in the world are decent. It does us harm if we learn to fear whole groups of people—or in the extreme case, all people who we consider outsiders to our group—due to the radical acts of a few. While there certainly are people who society needs to be protected against, and it certainly does make sense to carefully vet people coming from countries that are known to harbor terrorists or other enemies, I feel heavy handed policies like the iterations of the travel ban both encourage these feelings of fear and distrust in members of the population, and worsen feelings about the country from people on the outside (and even citizens who identify with people in the targeted groups). Ill will is increased on all sides, to everyone's detriment. Perhaps that would be justified if the security threat was sufficient, which obviously many Trump supporters feel it is. But the evidence doesn't support that. For example, here's an article from the Cato Institute demonstrating that the travel ban would not have prevented the entry of any terrorists since 9/11: https://www.cato.org/blog/new-travel-ban-wouldve-prevented-e...
This Rousseauian vantage point on the general nature of people is something that's debatable to me. I think that under specific conditions this rings truer (or more false depending on how you look at it) than in other conditions. This whole debate leads to an even deeper rabbit hole that entails things such as the necessity of religion(not to be conflated with fundamentalism / fanaticism). I am more of a Maistrean in my view of humans i.e. that people aren't good at first but under the right conditions, people can behave in a desirable manner that ensures chaos is staved off.
> Cato
I no longer believe Cato represents true conservative ideology and it is not necessarily the most authoritative source on matters conservative policy. It is weak on a lot of issues and infiltrated by people who don't necessarily embody its founding principles. When it was formed by the Kochs, they eventually broke away from another group who thought that they(Kochs/Cato) had sold out their mission for more mainstream appeal. This group was led by Murray Rothbard, and I guess I could say I left with them(Miseseans).
Just concluding the book, Sons of Wichita, and despite the Kochs being viewed as the embodiment of conservative/libertarian ideology in America, I don't think they take it far enough. They're weak on immigration. Very weak. They've built an amazing corporation that their father, Fred, would have been proud of (despite the family feuds) but he most certainly would have disapproved of their politics. He of course came up in the era of communism and saw it as the greatest threat that existed at the time.
Anyway, Tempestn, been a great discussion. I'd like to continue this later via mail as per your profile so I'll be reaching out. You've been great; typically these discussions tend to get out of hand with a lot of name calling but there was none of that here. Kudos for the survivalist initiatives you've undertaken - I don't even know what to say about that except I hope you never need to employ them. :)
That's not to say that people should not be allowed to own guns, but I believe it does follow that very careful standards should be in place to ensure that licensed gun owners will use, transport, and store their weapons with the due level of care. Reasonable people could certainly debate what sort of standards those would be, in terms of licensing, restrictions, education, storage and transportation requirements, etc., but given the evidence that availability of firearms contributes to deaths by homicide and suicide, the issue certainly seems worthy of investigation.