[rjbwork]

How else would you analyze the issue?

A binary analysis would lead us to conclude that gun regulations are completely bereft of any benefit whatsoever, given that gun violence, even mass shootings/spree killings, happen in countries with quite strict gun control - I mean, the former PM of Japan was killed via firearm just this month! But that is not the case. There is a clear gradient of occurrence and effectiveness of regulation. So, we need to move into the realm of statistics.

And the statistics are that over the course of the decade from 2010 to 2019 ~350 kids were killed in school shootings, and ~26000 took their own lives.

My assertion is that given these numbers, an inordinate amount of resources, political capital, and conversational bandwidth is being spent on what is actually a rather rare occurrence and that this is largely a waste compared to what we could be spending said resources, political capital, and conversational bandwidth on - namely, solving the problems that affect broad swathes of the populace and that I, and others, believe actually drive people to commit such violence in the first place.

Or, we can spend the next century fretting about a statistically vanishingly rare occurrence, keeping the blue and red tribes divided, making little to no progress on the existential problems that we as a country, culture, society, and species face, as the world becomes increasingly uninhabitable.

[spaceman_2020]

> given that gun violence, even mass shootings/spree killings, happen in countries with quite strict gun control

They absolutely do not, not even remotely close to the scale and frequency in the United States. At least not in countries with equivalent socio-economic metrics as the US (El Salvador does not count).

[rjbwork]

>They absolutely do not, not even remotely close to the scale and frequency in the United States.

I thought we weren't analyzing gun violence statistically?

[spaceman_2020]

We weren't analyzing school shootings statistically, since the statistical incidence of that happening should be as close to zero as possible.

But since you walked down the statistical path anyway, the least you can do is not be completely wrong about it.

[rjbwork]

I see that you have a hard time following an argument and the rhetorical techniques I used. I will break it down.

I compared the rate of school shooting deaths to suicide deaths for the purpose of pointing out the outsized amount of resources the issue takes up.

You claimed that it is wrong to analyze gun violence statistically.

I, for the purpose of demonstrating the absurdity of such an assertion, analyzed gun violence using a non-statistical and binary approach.

You then took exception to me conceding your point for the purpose of argument and using said non-statistical approach by then bringing statistics back into the mix and arguing that the frequency of gun violence is much higher in the US than other places.

So, which is it? Can we, or can we not use statistics to analyze gun violence? If we can, then we can compare the statistics across regulatory regimes and social, economic, and cultural contexts and show that gun violence can be affected in degree by those factors. If we cannot, then we cannot show that regulation is effective, since gun violence still happens in highly varied regulatory regimes and social, economic, and cultural contexts.

I would argue that statistics is an appropriate approach since, in my opinion, it allows us to come to a better reckoning of reality. Ultimately, your view is up to you. But you can't have your cake and eat it too here - you have to either admit that the use of statistics is appropriate, or that aforementioned factors are irrelevant to gun violence occurring. They are simply mutually incompatible views.

[CTmystery]

> I see that you have a hard time following an argument and the rhetorical techniques I used. I will break it down.

In this one sentence you betray yourself as uninterested in debate, and instead just like to hear yourself talk. The person you are responding to offered an interesting comparison, that of stats from the US versus other countries (and, I might add, they gamely came to your turf, which you subsequently tried to dismiss). Instead of doing the hard work of revising your views in the face of a potentially fruitful comparison, you dismiss it out of hand and assert your self-righteousness.

[rjbwork]

>The person you are responding to offered an interesting comparison, that of stats from the US versus other countries

They did the exact opposite of this. They asserted that it is wrong to examine this issue statistically.

[spacemanmatt]

> I see that you have a hard time following an argument and the rhetorical techniques I used. I will break it down.

Classic. They're not having trouble following your argument. They just disagree.

[rayiner]

They’re not just disagreeing. They’re asserting that you shouldn’t analyze the issue statistically (I.e. they reject the notion of putting it into context) but defending the non-zero rate of gun deaths in other countries with statistics.

[rjbwork]

They clearly disagree. But they've done so very poorly, as I'm sure you can see.

[housingisaright]

How do I report a comment on HN? These comments can’t be serious

[umanwizard]

They seem serious to me, and well-argued.

[ineptech]

click on the "1 hour ago"

[shkkmo]

And since you agree that it is useful to compare school shooting statistics between countries, then you should also agree that it would be more effective to spend more time and resources combating suicides than school shootings. The relative difference in mass shooting rates based on gun control strictness is much smaller than the relative rates between mass shooting deaths and suicides.

This is not an argument against gun control, but against spending so much time and effort fighting for that gun control at the cost of letting slip the lower hanging fruit that could prevent more deaths.

[fleetwoodsnack]

It’s really quite simple, you didn’t have to spell out your confusion so elaborately:

Statistics deals in degrees; violence against children is something that is sufficiently cognized in absolutes.

[JamesBarney]

If we shutdown all schools we would have 0 mass shootings at schools.

This is the only moral choice when dealing with absolutes.

[fleetwoodsnack]

Not really, that’s just one (extreme) proposal. I understand the self-gratifying impulse to write something like that though: it absolves the responsibility and work of addressing the problem, and frustrates the conversation away from finding solutions toward justifying the need to find a solution at all. It even makes you feel clever for a half-second.

A cute rhetorical parlor trick.

[JamesBarney]

You said it was an absolute. Once we start weighing the costs against other things we care about like education it becomes a relative cost.

[fleetwoodsnack]

This is a principles based analysis. Pretty common in public policy.

Principle 1: Children should not be victims of arbitrary violence

Principle 2: Children should be educated

These are compatible principles. Your proposal (one of many potential proposals) is to undermine principle two rather than addressing the source of the issue which is violent third parties.

And to forestall any further swiss-cheese a priori logic: this is not something fantastical. There are other societies with have honored both principles one and two, and have experienced zero, as in ABSOLUTELY zero acts of mass violence in educational settings.

[odessacubbage]

this is unironically my solution

[chii]

policy decisions and budget allocation should an emotionless utility function that allocates what produces the best outcome with maximal efficiency.

To do otherwise is to be biased one way or another.

[avidphantasm]

> How else would you analyze the issue?

Um, I don’t know maybe morally? As in, it is morally abhorrent and unconscionable for children to be preyed upon in school, one of the places they should safe by definition.

[rjbwork]

Okay.

I agree that kids should not be preyed upon in schools.

Now what?

[avidphantasm]

Get rid of fucking assault rifles. Ban their sale. Mandatory buybacks. Jail time for violators. There are lots of other problems contributing to school shootings, e.g. alienated males due to retraction of empire, loss of manufacturing jobs due to financialization of the economy, erosion of mental health safety net due to privatization and disinvestment. All of these issues need to be addressed. But when the patient is bleeding out, you first STOP THE BLEEDING.

[rjbwork]

That won't be happening. The second amendment is a thing. Demographics and opinion polls show that we won't be getting rid of it any time soon. Assault Rifles are in common use, thus will not be banned any time soon. The current regime seems poised to expand, rather than restrict, the types of arms which we have the right to bear.

This is ultimately my point - we have a lot of other avenues to address the problem rather than this, IMO, fruitless attempt to deal with the guns.

[ineptech]

Of course it's hard to do, but that doesn't change the fact that getting rid of most guns is clearly and obviously the way to significantly reduce the amount of gun violence in the US. Contesting this is too silly to take seriously, like an alcoholic saying "I know I've been fired from my last three jobs for showing up drunk, but we have lots of other avenues to address this..."

And just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. If one side can stack the Supreme Court with people who suddenly realize there's no constitutional right to privacy, the other side can find some judges to suddenly notice the "well-regulated militia" part of the second amendment, and act accordingly.

[Maursault]

> The second amendment is a thing.

Gun-control opponents... generally choose to ignore the first clause altogether, hoping that no one notices that there was never an unabridged right to gun ownership.[1]

The solution to the gun-control issue and, perhaps, to some of the lawlessness in our communities is for the states to invoke the Second Amendment and require gun owners to join a militia.[1)

The 2nd Amendment says well-regulated militia shall not be infringed, it's the right of the people. Gun owners should be drafted into militia and whipped into shape. Whether regulation works or not is incidental because the 2nd requires it.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/08/22/t...

[avidphantasm]

Contemporary (mis)interpretation of 2A is relatively recent. Nothing is impossible in this realm.

[spacemanmatt]

Careless deference to the 2nd amendment (more generally, deference to "the constitution") is among the reddest flags you can throw.

[rjbwork]

Not really deference. Just a cold analysis of the state of things.

[crypot]

I am pretty sure clear backpacks will solve the problem. I read about it on twitter.

[Ancapistani]

> Get rid of fucking assault rifles. Ban their sale. Mandatory buybacks. Jail time for violators.

I understand your perspective, and I believe I understand how you arrived at it. I even largely share your concern - but I don’t think you fully realize just how repugnant it is to many people.

Have you considered how many lives your proposal would cost, or how likely it would be to succeed in any measurable way?

This is not a rhetorical question. I would definitely consider myself part of “American gun culture.” I would resist disarmament with lethal force if necessary. That statement may be somewhat shocking in this context it wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow amongst gun owners.

… and this is about banning one kind of weapon. One kind. An ill-defined class of firearms that are used in a tiny fraction of crimes. How many deaths would be worthwhile to make that happen?

> But when the patient is bleeding out, you first STOP THE BLEEDING.

Attempting to disarm the US may or may not “stop the bleeding” - but I’m extremely confident that it would create many times more patients.

[kcplate]

> Get rid of fucking assault rifles

There hasn’t been an “assault rifle” used in a school shooting for decades. “Assault rifles” are highly regulated— it’s nearly impossible to own one. There have been a fair number of sporting semi-auto rifles used in mass shootings.

Can we please stop describing these weapons as something they are not? The “AR” in AR-15 means “ArmaLite Rifle”. ArmaLite being the company that originally developed the weapon.

[stevenjgarner]

> There hasn’t been an “assault rifle” used in a school shooting for decades. “Assault rifles” are highly regulated— it’s nearly impossible to own one.

Respectfully, aren't these definitions just semantics about firing capability?

My understanding is the mass-shooter weapon of choice, the AR-15 is semi-automatic-only (ie not an assault rifle [0]) as they do not have select-fire capability, meaning the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, multi-short burst, and/or automatic firing mode. Semi-automatic fire means that one shot is fired upon each depression of the trigger. [1]

Regardless of firing capability, there is "overwhelming evidence that the AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14" [2] battle rifle [3].

This evidence is borne out in our schools [4]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

[1] http://www.weaponslaw.org/glossary/selective-fire

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle#M16

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rifle

[4] https://archive.ph/IJKT6

[a4a4a4a4]

> Respectfully, aren't these definitions just semantics about firing capability?

Statements like "ban all assault rifles" require semantics, and the entire discussion around "which weapons to ban" is entirely semantics. If this person genuinely means "assault rifle", then you already can't own these as a civilian (generally, unless it was made before 1986 and you pay a ton of money for it). If this person means "assault weapon", then we're talking about a poorly defined class of weapons, which are largely based on cosmetic features.

> My understanding is the mass-shooter weapon of choice, the AR-15

The AR-15 is the most common rifle in the country. It's a popular rifle because it can do everything. It's cheap, you can hunt with it if you want (larger magazines are popular for hunting feral hogs, which are infesting the south), you can shoot sporting competitions with it. If you want to shoot a different caliber, for example to change to .22 for cheap target shooting, you can pop two pins, swap to a second upper, and go ahead and plink away at your soda cans. With it being the most popular platform of rifle in the US, of course it pops up in mass shootings. Wanting to ban the AR-15 is like wanting to ban RAM 2500s because they're the "truck of choice for drunk drivers" [1].

> "overwhelming evidence that the AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14" [2]

A potential, but never materialized, military AR-15 that they're talking about here, would have been select-fire. Then that military AR-15 would be an assault rifle. This has no bearing on semi-automatic AR-15s not being an assault rifle.

This is the third uninformed comment from you that I've needed to respond to today, loaded with more sources but lacking comprehension.

[1] https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-most-duis-2020/

[avidphantasm]

Okay, ban all that stuff too. Why do people need more than pistols, shotguns, and basic rifles? I can’t own a nuclear weapon. So clearly there is a line.

[a4a4a4a4]

Do you know how many people are killed by rifles per year in the US?

...

Around _400_[1]. That's ALL rifles. Hunting rifles, bolt action, "assault weapons", whatever, in a country with ~300M-1B guns and a population of 330M. While we should look at why these deaths happening, banning the tool used to commit such an incredibly low number of crimes is just silly. I'd compare it to trying to ban swimming pools because 390 people drown in them per year [2]. "No one NEEDS a swimming pool, ban them all!"

People like you that want to go off and "ban everything" while being completely uninformed and refusing to do any kind of simple research are the worst kind of voters / citizens.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in...

[2] https://www.edgarsnyder.com/statistics/swimming-pool-statist...

[stevenjgarner]

The 2nd amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [0]

My understanding is that it is up to the courts (ultimately the US Supreme Court) to interpret the Constitution, and define things like "Arms", "security", etc..

> I can’t own a nuclear weapon

Careful what you wish for. If personal nuclear weapons ever become a thing, they too may be "Arms" "necessary to the security of a free State". It is hard to understand some rulings of the Supreme Court.

At the time of writing the 2nd Amendment (December 15, 1791), the accepted "Arm" was a musket, with a muzzle velocity between 1425 fps (434 m/s) and 1700 fps (518 m/s) with a ¾” (19.05 mm) diameter ball (. 640 caliber), and an approximate weight of .9 oz (25.5 g) [1]. Today the court accepts that an ArmaLite AR-15 is an "Arm", with a muzzle velocity of 3,300 ft/s (1,006 m/s) using a .223 Remington cartridge with a 55 g FMJ bullet [2].

The momentum of the AR-15 round is therefore approx 55,330 gm/s compared to 13,209 gm/s for the musket ball (ie more than 4 times greater). Too many American shooters make the mistake of thinking these modern "lightweight" weapons translate into less lethality, but it is the increased momentum from higher muzzle velocities that does the devastating damage to soft tissue and bone.

Take a look at the X-ray of a leg showing a bullet wound delivered by an assault rifle used in combat compared to an X-ray of a leg that sustained a bullet wound from a low-energy bullet, inflicted by a weapon like a handgun in Philadelphia. [3]. The trauma surgeons of the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary massacre reported "They were so pulverized, he said, that they could be identified only by their clothing." [4]

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15740773.2019.16...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.223_Remington

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/health/parkland-shooting-...

[4] https://khn.org/news/article/trauma-surgeons-uvalde-mass-sho...

[raxxorraxor]

You jail a father, kid gets mocked in school because the father is in jail and he kills some mates with a knife.

I don't believe any of the points you make are drivers of violence at all. You perhaps failed to analyze the typical issues.

I do agree that a society might want to ban guns. Policing is much safer and there are a lot of other advantages. Fewer deaths too of course. But I heavily doubt the presence of guns is reason for an increase in violence among younger people. On the contrary, I think some people are well underway to create self-fulfilling prophecies. Security at schools is part of that.

There is a recent increase in crime but certainly to none of the factors you mentioned. I live happily in a country without access to assault rifles. But we probably disagree on what constitutes drivers of violence.

[hobo_in_library]

It always surprises me to see people proposing a blanket ban on these kinds of guns despite the fact that all school shooters were young men under 25 years old.

You could just limit sales of these guns to folks over 25 and make everyone much safer.

In fact, every single school shooter was white...

[lkois]

By binary analysis, it sounds like you mean to claim that 99% effective isn't close enough to 100%. For most people that would be enough. Because I don't know how else you could conclude that gun regulations are bereft of any benefit whatsoever, even hypothetically, without manufacturing such an unfair hurdle to obfuscate the obvious: gun violence requires access to guns.

It seems like you want to say that broader mental health problems are more important than gun violence, but that's only more reason to restrict access to guns. Most other places in the world are able to recognise that mental illness and guns are a bad mix, and act accordingly. The US has had nearly one third of the mass shootings in the world since the 60s yet people like you continue to defend access to guns as though it's not a contributing factor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...). That alone seems to point to one of those broad problems affecting the populace. It doesn't have to be the only cause, to merit a treatment.

The rest of the world doesn't view gun access as a given, or even a good. It's earned and revered, or prevented, but never normalised. It's why Abe's assassin had to make his own gun, because Japanese laws didn't make things easier for him. It's why here in Australia, even gangsters don't even have guns, for the most part https://youtu.be/BYsXCnxbnj0?t=461

But we don't judge the effectiveness of these restrictions by some bogus standard of absolute zero gun violence. We judge them by assessing our rare incidents of gun violence, and whether we think we think we could or should have done more to prevent them from obtaining and using a firearm.

And when we look at the numbers of mass shootings in the US, particularly in sensitive places like schools, we wonder how in the world you can think you're doing enough.

[tacitusarc]

This approach assumes a moral equivalence to all gun violence. I believe people tend to assign a significantly higher negative moral weight to the murder of children in general, and children at school in particular. You may disagree with that weighting, but it’s an entirely consistent and valid model.

[shkkmo]

I don't see the moral difference between taking a gun and shooting a kid and bullying and harassing a kid until they are driven to take a gun and shoot themselves.

Both are horrific, but the latter seems even more horrific because it includes not only death, but psychological torture before the death.

[res0nat0r]

Most folks outside the USA (where I live) that I've worked with / spoken to say that we're completely insane and it's embarrassing that we allow the incredible amount of gun violence that we do. All my coworkers overseas think it's unreal and really intolerable that we allow the level of gun violence that we do.

People need to quit embarrassing themselves trying to somehow reason away why the USA is an outlier via some kind of cope metric. It's the guns.

[readme]

you could start by using actual data

your 80:1 stat seems pretty dubious -- do you have a source for it?