[pjc50]

> 33,636 deaths due to guns

.. or four Srebrenicas, or roughly the entire historical body count of the Troubles. If it was concentrated then we would say that it was genocide.

The big threat of the moment is "stochastic terrorism". If you tell enough people that X is a threat that is coming for them - that they are going to be victims of a holocaust - then eventually one of them will follow the logic that they can use their gun to avoid the holocaust by pre-emptively murdering the threat. Most people will recognise these messages as lies and nonsense, but there will be a number who believe it. Of those, eventually one will take action.

There has been a steady drip of those people "taking action", such as by going and opening fire on synagogues. Often they leave behind surprisingly similar manifestoes. They speak the same language and are radicalised in the same way, despite never having met nor being part of the same organisation.

Now, this is ""fine"" as long as there's only one such movement carrying out occasional massacres. What happens when someone decides to start pre-emptively shooting back? Reprisals? Riots? As soon as there's two armed groups in politics there is the risk of horrible escalation.

[brigandish]

> or four Srebrenicas, or roughly the entire historical body count of the Troubles.

If you're going to compare the 300+ million population of the USA with something, it's better to do it with (German occupied) Europe than a place with a population of around 1% that of the USA. It's also strange to bring in wars, civil or otherwise, and again compare numbers when the entire population of the island has a population of around 2% that of the USA's.

> If you tell enough people that X is a threat that is coming for them - that they are going to be victims of a holocaust - then eventually one of them will follow the logic that they can use their gun to avoid the holocaust by pre-emptively murdering the threat.

I suppose we should stop saying "win at all costs" or "some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that." because maybe a Liverpool fan will go on a killing spree.