[kashunstva]

> we find that a socially optimal level of ownership is often greater than zero

I suppose one could model this in some way. But as a pacifist, vegan and never owner of firearms, I’m genuinely clueless as to how this could be. Is the social optimality here a function possessing weapons for hunting, which can be a social activity?

[Mezzie]

My guess would be hunting and also the possible presence of a firearm in certain situations acting as a deterrent as well as a potential social equalizer.

When you're a physically vulnerable person and there are zero firearms in a community (and it's known there are zero), then there's no physical deterrent to attacking you. Of course in theory there are social consequences, but if you're in a society that includes things like alcohol or other substances, teenagers/people with poorly developed senses of long term consequences, or mental illnesses, then the thought 'oh shit, she/he might be strapped' might do more than 'you might go to jail'.

[nathan_compton]

I don't own a gun, but I live in a very rural area. It might take police 20 minutes to reach us in an emergency, even if we managed to make a call (as we might not in a home invasion, for example). From this point of view I can see the utility of owning a gun, at least in principal.

Also, imagine a scenario where a foreign power attempted to occupy a country? There is probably an optimal number of armed citizens to deter that kind of activity. As we have seen in recent years, foreign powers often do want to capture and hold foreign territory. The chance of this is small, but clearly non-zero.

[rayiner]

We have a real-life example of the second point playing out in modern times. The relevant observation is that it's important for armed citizens to be able start a conflict in order to put other forces in play. During Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan, civilians captured weapons from military depots to fight against the Pakistani Army. Those civilians formed the core of a resistance movement that was then quickly joined by defectors from the Pakistani military and, eventually, India. The civilians could not possibly have won a war against the Pakistani military. But it's doubtful that India would have jumped into the war if there wasn't already an armed resistance movement for India to support.

We have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that it's very difficult even for the world's most powerful military to hold cities and countryside against people armed with handheld automatic weapons.

[rayiner]

In the absence of firearms, the person who has the next most dangerous weapon can easily dominate everyone else. The country where I'm from was disarmed by the British to keep us from fighting them. But armed gangs still terrorize people with knives and machetes and whatnot.

Some fraction of the population in any society is antisocial. A non-zero rate of firearms ownership allows the people who aren't antisocial to suppress those who are antisocial and maintain peace.

[thrance]

> A non-zero rate of firearms ownership allows the people who aren't antisocial to suppress those who are antisocial and maintain peace.

Do you have an example of such a place? What you're describing is called vigilantism, and usually creates more issues than it solves.

[soco]

Is this theory working in the US? Do we see the social people with weapons suppressing the antisocial gangs with weapons? If you see proof for this, good. But I don't see it. Also, one downside of firearms is collateral victims.

[rayiner]

The U.S. has lots of social people with guns: police, guards, military, etc. We have a system where we draw a line around certain social people with guns and call them “the government.” But governments didn’t spring out of thin air. They reflect a broader social principle that the optimal level of social piece involves a non-zero number of people capable of exercising violence.

[pandaman]

>But I don't see it.

Do you really see armed gangs terrorizing citizens somewhere in the US then? You not seeing people in the process of suppressing gangs is fine, it just means the suppression is very effective. If suppression did not exist as you imply then you'd be seeing armed gangs collecting protection money from you every week.

[black6]

No, because the state owns a monopoly on violence and cracks down hard on vigilantism.

[HaZeust]

>"Is this theory working in the US?"

Yes. It's the country with the most gun ownership metrics from almost every dataset, and there's not nearly as much gun violence as you'd THINK despite that.

[JJMcJ]

In some parts of the USA like the interior of Alaska, hunting is a big part of actually getting food to eat, not just for sport.

[constantius]

I can describe myself in the same way as you, and yet, if I lived in a country where ownership is allowed, I'd always vote to keep it so, even without having the intention of owning a weapon myself, because otherwise the balance of power shifts too much in the favour of the State/ruling class.

I disagree with the sibling comments about defending the country against an invader (if your country is facing invasion, weapons will be readily available) and defending yourself against crime (it's a non-issue in any non-failed state, and in a failed state weapons are readily available anyway and rarely make any difference).

But in a world where wealth inequality is increasing, where surveillance is ever more present, the tiny probability of the population being able to resist when it finally rises up justifies the very tangible downsides of an armed population.

I am aware that there are many arguments against this view, but I think the downsides of an authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence are too dire to be brushed aside.

[soco]

This is the first use case for firearms I can understand. I hate it, I hate even that we have to have this discussion in a so-called civilized world, but here we are, and I understand it.

[HaZeust]

The world first becomes civilized when groups and bodies of people have tensioned, proportional leverage against one another - lest there's low incentive for the naturally more leveraging group to engage in virtuous action. Of course, we see it time and time again where both governments AND people use the leverages vested upon them in functionally incorrect or anti-social ways, but it is the closest to an equilibrium between two perpetually-unwieldy groups (governments, the governed)

In a nutshell, the tension of existential leverage that the government has on you through their monopoly on violence is thereby "equally" leveraged by your right to own firearms - and the implicit extralegal right to use it against them - in an unjust event. And a government SHOULD be perpetually worried for when you'd eventually consider something "unjust" enough for you to exercise that right - as it creates a chilling effect for them to even attempt it.

[archagon]

Except the people with guns are often aligned with regressive/authoritarian regimes. Which makes the problem much worse.

Is there any country where guns are politically neutral? Switzerland, maybe? Certainly not the US.

[esseph]

Even in states like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, etc, there are non-GOP registered voters and plenty of them have firearms.

It's probably far more than you think.

[fasterik]

It's interesting that your first guess is hunting, and not self-defense. As a pacifist, do you believe in letting violent people do whatever they want to you without resisting or fighting back?