[Steko]

"I would start by measuring the magnitude of mass shootings as a problem... That’s an average of 18 deaths per year. For comparison, three times as many die from lightning strikes."

This is a bullshit red herring designed to ignore 99.8% of the gun homicides that take place each year in the US [1]. Gun control works to control much more than just mass shootings.

[1] Using 8K as a rough estimate for annual gun deaths from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg

[_sentient]

I think it's actually valid, as the author then goes on to say; "From a logical viewpoint, we should be more concerned with gun crime in general. If gun crime is a significant problem, then gun control could be a solution to that problem."

He's not cherry picking stats to make the matter of gun crime appear less serious. He's addressing the impending tidal wave of emotion in response to the events in Newtown, which happened to be a mass shooting.

[throwit1979]

Perhaps you should read the rest of the article in which the author examines the non-mass-shooting gun related homicides.

The reddit attention span appears to be alive and well at HN.

[Steko]

Ignoring 99.8% of gun deaths until paragraph 12 is pretty much the most ridiculous form of burying the lede I've ever seen.

Yes he eventually talks about all these gun deaths and then he hand waves it all away, too much thinking:

"I’m not even going to try to answer those questions, because they are extremely complex."

Too much work, forget it. Man, if only scores of other countries had gone through something similar and we could draw on those experiences but ... thinking is HARD!

[metalsahu]

I think most people have trouble visualizing effects of policy because the changes are not immediate and hence not discernible. So instead of trying to convince people why gun control can help reduce mass shootings, lets do the opposite. Let me try to convince you to legalize the use of bazookas, a portable antitank weapon. Do we feel safer in this new world? You need to draw a line in the sand for controlling the use of lethal weapons and I think that line starts with assault weapons - rifles that can mow down an entire room in a minute.

Another flawed argument is that these incidents are small anomalies which can't be controlled by regulatory changes. Yes, if you can categorically prove that this is just a blimp on the charts. Anecdotally it feels like this is spreading, increasing in frequency. At what point are you going to put your foot down and push for changes? Some social behaviors tend to be pretty viral, inspiring a new set of perpetrators. Lets treat this with caution and not bury it under the carpet of data & statistics.