[zmgsabst]

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.-...

[cycomanic]

> 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.

So by your argument crime should be lower in states with less gun control. That is not reflected in reality, in fact according to [1 ], the states with the highest crime rates have actually amongst the laxest gun control laws.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...

[coinbasetwwa]

Correlation =/= causation

[seoaeu]

But lack of correlation is evidence that there’s no causation

[iforgotpassword]

Your first paragraph makes me realize how messed up reality appears to be. A mass shooting every now and then is the new normal. A worthy trade-off for being able to defend yourself and keep the government from issuing lockdowns.

If someone broke into my house the default assumption has to be that they're armed and I should fear for me an my family's lives. So I better be armed myself, and better armed then the burglars. Just don't accidentally shoot a family member that you mistake for the home invader in the heat of the moment. But that would never happen to you anyways, only to other, stupid and irresponsible people - who pretty much then deserve to live with the consequences. Compare that to any European country, where burglars always wait until nobody is home, and even if that goes wrong you at least don't have to fear for anyone's life as they'll either beat it immediately or you calmly hand over your cash and be happy you're alive and well.

[zmgsabst]

This is an incredibly bad faith response which creates strawmen I never said.

You’re welcome not to own a gun if you feel like that would be a better choice for you and/or your family. Nobody is making you.

What I’m saying is that you don’t have a right to take guns away from other people because you find them scary — even if that is occasionally abused, leading to tragedy. People have a right to defend themselves.

> A worthy trade-off for being able to defend yourself and keep the government from issuing lockdowns.

Over 100,000,000 people died to democide in the past century — around 70 times the current US murder rate for 100 years. (That is, 7000 years of the current US murder-with-guns rate.)

Guns also protected Black Panthers, Afghani insurrectionists, and Ukrainian militias.

I’m sorry that the world isn’t as friendly and happy as you would prefer it — I find that disquieting too.

[iforgotpassword]

> which creates strawmen I never said.

Yes you did, and you even repeat it in your reply.

> You’re welcome not to own a gun if you feel like that would be a better choice for you and/or your family. Nobody is making you.

Yes, they are pretty much making you in parts of the US, because things are so bad.

> What I’m saying is that you don’t have a right to take guns away from other people because you find them scary.

Not just because "I find them scary", but because they are literally dangerous. They are made to kill. That's their only purpose.

And yes, you absolutely have the right to take them away from people - just like you have the right to declare certain substances illegal to sell, consume or own, and limit people's freedom in a dozen other ways for the sake of society's well being as a whole.

> even if that is occasionally abused, leading to tragedy.

So where's the straw man again?

> People have a right to defend themselves.

And we arrived at the knee jerk reaction. Taking the arms race as a given. Don't even question why things are that fucked up in the first place. Might have to fear for my life any time of the day, so better have a semi-automatic rifle at hand. It's just so very sad.

> Over 100,000,000 people died to democide in the past century

In the US? Or Europe? Or might it have been in some really unstable chaotic parts of the world? Why you would even want to compare this to a civilized first world country is beyond me. A more reasonable approach would be comparisons with countries that are socially and structurally similar to the US but have different gun control laws, but that comparison wouldn't really fly with your views I guess.

> I’m sorry that the world isn’t as friendly and happy as you would prefer it — I find that disquieting too.

It doesn't seem you want it to be.

[mrep]

Not OP but

> Yes, they are pretty much making you in parts of the US, because things are so bad.

Where cause I live in that scary city called Chicago that people like to mention and have never felt the need to have a gun. We do have a lot of shootings but we also have a lot of people. If our metro area was a country, we'd be more populous than >50% of all countries (139/235).

> Not just because "I find them scary", but because they are literally dangerous. They are made to kill. That's their only purpose.

Or you know, sport. I find shooting clay pigeons or just general target practice to be fun.

[xigoi]

Nobody is trying to outlaw the usage of guns for sport.

[mrep]

What? I'm not allowed to own many types of guns here in Chicago regardless of use: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/chicago/latest/chicago...

[multjoy]

Speaking of rights, what happened to "well regulated"? There seems a lot of interest in "Shall not be", but far less the further into the paragraph you go.

[codeyperson]

> You also see an increase in totalitarian behavior, eg, the Australian lockdowns compared to the US lockdowns.

Don't believe tabloid media. No it wasn't 'totalitarian'. I can't take you seriously now.

[zmgsabst]

I guess we disagree on “totalitarian” — or if the BBC is a “tabloid”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59486285.amp

[yesenadam]

I can't see "totalitarian" used on that page. I'm confused what your point is. The story is about 3 people escaping from "one of Australia's main quarantine facilities for people returning to the country" and being arrested when they were caught. That sounds like very unremarkable news to this Australian, but it seems that to some people it sounds like totally unacceptable totalitarianism, no idea why. Not the first time I've seen people post similar unremarkable "news" items on HN accompanied by extravagant claims that Australia is suddenly like the USSR or something.

[zmgsabst]

> Officials did not state whether the escapees were returning travellers or locals in quarantine.

> In recent days, the centre has also housed people infected from a Covid outbreak in Katherine, a town 300km (185 miles) away.

> Police had set up checkpoints around the compound on Wednesday and inspected cars moving through the area.

[yesenadam]

I feel like the key to you seeing great significance in these reports are your unspoken premises, the beliefs you have, how you are framing this, which you will have to say out loud for me to know why you're posting this stuff.

[zmgsabst]

I feel like you’re intentionally avoiding the point by saying things like “I don’t see the word totalitarian” and then ignoring the obvious implication that the article describes camps which are forcibly quarantining people who never traveled, including taking measures like searching unrelated cars who happen to be nearby.

I think you’re responding in bad faith because it would challenge your view of yourself and your nation to admit that forcible imprisonment in camps for quarantine is what people mean when they say “totalitarian”.

[calvinmorrison]

"Sir, please return to a two mile radius of your home for you own safety or else we will arrest and imprison you, for your safety"

[pjerem]

I don’t know which country you are talking about but I haven’t heard about prison sentences for not respecting lockdowns, only fines. At least in the EU.

And while those laws were pretty stupidly implemented they were just the outcome of improvisation from unprepared governments, not some totalitarian vision. Even citizens from countries with a strong culture of disobedience understood that.

[gravelc]

I didn't realise the the rate of muggings, assaults, home invasions etc. was higher in Australia and the United States. Sounds like a nightmare. /s

[zmgsabst]

Well, comparing the stats:

The US seems to have higher murder, but less per capita crimes against people (eg, rape and burglary).

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/...

[gravelc]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say those statistics are laughable.

Have a look at the order of all countries:

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Burgla...

[titaniczero]

What about the european countries without "equalizers"?

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Spain/Unit... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/Un... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/Un... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Italy/Unit... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/Uni... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Austria/Un...

> 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.

Sorry but to my european ears, this "equalizing force" theory sounds plain stupid. I get that it is not that easy to ban them because we have different traditions and background, and I get that it is really hard to ban something when people is used to it and that it could lead to unexpected consequences (black market, etc).

But defending guns as an "equalizing force" is just stupid, given the stats.

[Reason077]

> “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...

[zmgsabst]

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.

[meheleventyone]

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.

[zmgsabst]

> In particular kids should definitely be safer from gun violence than a police officer. That seems like a reasonable goal?

No…? Why would comparing vastly different groups be “reasonable”?

Also, they are on a per capita basis: there’s a lot more school children than police officers.

By about two orders of magnitude (50M children to 600k officers).

[meheleventyone]

So you’re saying it’s perfect reasonable for more kids to be violently shot to death than police? On the whole my expectation is that the officers should be protecting the kids but this attitude certainly explains the behaviour of the officers on the day.

[rswail]

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]

> 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.

[cycomanic]

Your argument is disingenuous.

You say guns can be used by weaker people to defend themselves (not sure if you consider children weak), and the argue that rifles kill less people than hammers. Yes rifles, handguns on the other hand kill >30 times more (and there is a large unspecified firearm category which kills ~10 times more than hammers). So are you suggesting weaker woman should take a rifle to their date in case they need to defend themselves.

The bigger issue is however that I'm very certain there are more events of a fun being used to attack a weaker person, than od a weaker person defendinf themselves with one.

[zmgsabst]

No, she should use a handgun.

The rifle point was that while most murders are by handgun, most gun laws restrict rifles — which was a specific, second thing I was calling out.

> The bigger issue is however that I'm very certain there are more events of a fun being used to attack a weaker person, than od a weaker person defendinf themselves with one.

My point is that is more equal than when violence relies on knives and bats and fists.

[watwut]

No, rapes would not go down if guns were removed. Guns don't prevent rapes and actual rape and domestic violence victims ended up in prison after trying to defend themselves with guns.

It is simply not true that women, and the elderly would defend themselves with lethal force all that often, besides aggressors are the ones who are quicker at obtaining guns and using them.

[CapricornNoble]

>>>It is simply not true that women, and the elderly would defend themselves with lethal force all that often,

How often is acceptably "often enough" for the disadvantaged to protect themselves?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/04/texas-woman...

[cycomanic]

> 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.

So show us the statistics that crime rates in states with high gun ownership are lower.

[lliamander]

The relationship between gun ownership and homicide rates are (weakly) negative

https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/06/guns-and-states/

[seoaeu]

> And the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes — more people are killed by hammers or fists than rifles.

Your own link shows that two thirds of homicides are committed using guns. That’s your only citation and hardly a compelling one to back up your claim that the US has a far lower crime rate thanks to all the guns

[zmgsabst]

Yes — and you see how that link is in support of rifles in particular, which are used less often than fists or hammers?

You ignored what the text you quoted actually said.

[seoaeu]

No, I pointed out that the quoted text made an irrelevant distinction between different kinds of guns while the entire rest of the comment (and the ones it is replying to) are about guns in general

[zmgsabst]

> That’s your only citation and hardly a compelling one to back up your claim that the US has a far lower crime rate thanks to all the guns

We have your comment which dishonestly claims that link was related to the claim about crime rates — when it clearly wasn’t.

The distinction is meaningful because gun restrictions tend to target rifles, when they’re hardly used in crimes.

[seoaeu]

> dishonestly claims that link was related to the claim about crime rates — when it clearly wasn’t.

I’m sorry for assuming that the final sentence of the comment and only citation was related to the rest of it

[zmgsabst]

I accept your apology for making a bad assumption that ignored the actual text of my post and which assumed bad faith on my part, since that link supported the nearby text which described data from that report.

[Auracle]

Guns, not rifles. Most are committed using pistols.

[seoaeu]

Yes, but OP was claiming that banning pistols (and all other guns) wouldn’t help reduce crime, while citing the homicide data as proof

[jeffbee]

Just having a gun in your home increases your risk of being shot - virtually always either by your angry spouse, or yourself - by 50%. The idea that having a gun make you safer has no sound basis.

[lelanthran]

> Just having a gun in your home increases your risk of being shot - virtually always either by your angry spouse, or yourself - by 50%. The idea that having a gun make you safer has no sound basis.

So? Just having a swimming pool in your home increases your risk of drowning, but people have them anyway.

Also, I think you pulled that 50% number out of the air.

[XorNot]

Stanford published a study following handgun owners from 2004 to 2016 [1]. From the results: "Overall rates of homicide were more than twice as high among cohabitants of handgun owners than among cohabitants of nonowners. These elevated rates were driven largely by higher rates of homicide by firearm."

But we could also reduce that down to "if you're specifically in an assault". Surely you're safer right? If you're in an assault and in possession of a gun, you are over 400% (4 times) more likely to be shot then if you do not have a gun. [2]

While having a swimming pool in your home does in fact increase the risk of drowning - in fact, it increases the risk of all the kids of your neighbors drowning as well (this is why I don't, and never will in fact have a private swimming pool in my home)...nobody puts a swimming pool in and says "this will stop me from drowning". In fact they go to considerable lengths and there is considerable regulation surrounding preventing exactly that.

[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M21-3762

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/

[lelanthran]

> But we could also reduce that down to "if you're specifically in an assault". Surely you're safer right? If you're in an assault and in possession of a gun, you are over 400% (4 times) more likely to be shot then if you do not have a gun. [2]

From the paper itself, the TLDR is that those numbers only apply if you're in a gang. The cohort that is 400% more likely to be shot is, according to the paper, 400% more likely compared to non-illicit activity individuals.

> "However, compared with control participants, shooting case participants were significantly more often Hispanic, more frequently working in high-risk occupations1,2, less educated, and had a greater frequency of prior arrest. At the time of shooting, case participants were also significantly more often involved with alcohol and drugs, outdoors, and closer to areas where more Blacks, Hispanics, and unemployed individuals resided. Case participants were also more likely to be located in areas with less income and more illicit drug trafficking (Table 1)."

It's a good argument for better social services, not for restricting non-gang individuals from owning firearms.

[mrep]

Fellow bill burr fan?

[lelanthran]

> Fellow bill burr fan?

Very much so, but don't recall a clip about swimming pools (or gun crime)

Link?

[mrep]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqB2t-DGb8&t=300s

[bagels]

Surely there are confounding variables? For instance, if one does/does not have a criminal record, has/does not have a propensity for violence, or maybe most importantly does/does not have curious children in the house.

[dncornholio]

US reasoning is so weird. It's ALWAYS safer to have no gun than to have one? I'd even say that you have less chance to get shot unarmed than you do armed. Is there any data to back this up?

[GiorgioG]

I was born in the US to Italian immigrants - so I don't particularly feel it's just "US reasoning". We didn't live in the greatest neighborhood growing up (about 2-3 miles from where the Buffalo Tops grocery store shooting occurred.) My father had a .22 caliber rifle. One late night (2-3 am) when we were asleep the doorbell rang. My father answered the door with his rifle in hand. Two people claiming to be Buffalo Police Officers were "looking for a missing child" and wanted to come in to ask questions. My father felt something was amiss and didn't let them in. He subsequently called the police and they had no such report of a missing child in the area, nor any police officers going door to door at that hour of the night. In this case I feel it was safer to have a gun than no gun. You can't plan for such events, the best you can do is being prepared for it. There are consequences to gun ownership and consequences to not owning a gun. Ultimately it's the law of the land that allows you to make that choice for yourself.

A defensive use of a firearm doesn't mean you actually need to fire the weapon. The mere presence of a gun can act as a deterrent.

[tshaddox]

How often do people use guns to defend themselves against violent crime, and how often do people kill themselves or others with guns (accidentally or intentionally)?

[zmgsabst]

Defensive uses:

500,000-3,000,000

Suicides:

24,000

Murders:

14,000

- - - - -

Defensive gun uses:

https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/firearms/defensive-g...

Suicide and murder:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_S...

[gbhn]

There are roughly a million violent crimes a year. It is not credible there are 3x as many defensive uses of firearms that are somehow being missed.

The page you reference indexes a few thousand over several years. Seems likely an undercount as the page claims but not by that much by probably a couple orders of magnitude.

[jka]

As far as I can tell, the 500k-3m figure is from an unpublished[1] report that was commissioned by the CDC - further validation could be helpful.

There is also separate disputation of the figure in a report[2] by Harvard's Injury Control Research Center.

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/16/the-s...

[2] - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-thr...

[epicureanideal]

> There are roughly a million violent crimes a year

Source? Seems low.

[zmgsabst]

Those numbers are (roughly) in line with FBI statistics, from 500,000 to 1,500,000 depending on if you include assaults.

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

[zmgsabst]

Sure — I’m willing to believe a lower number; that was just what I found.

[seoaeu]

Your first link shows 2400 documented cases since 2019 which is more than I’d have expected. But clicking through those examples… many honestly don’t seem that sympathetic. Stuff like “shootout between X and Y, but Y shot second so it was self defense”. Or “X fatally shot Y with no witnesses to contradict his self defense claim”.