[RyanMcGreal]

> It's interesting to see the availability of firearms to citizens presented as a violation of human rights.

The U.S. is an outlier among liberal democracies in its constitutional insistence that access to firearms is a human right. It's also, significantly, an outlier in its rate of firearm-related deaths, with a rate of over 10 per 100,000, similar to Panama and the Philippines and three times higher than the next highest liberal democracy.

Canada, which has roughly the same culture and economy as the United States and shares the same continent, has a firearm death rate only one-fifth of the United States. Australia, which also has a similar culture, has a firearm death rate one-tenth of the United States. The United Kingdom's firearm death rate is one-fortieth that of the United States.

I get that many Americans believe their 2nd Amendment is what restrains the government from tyranny, but the evidence across all the stable liberal democracies manifestly discredits this hypothesis. What keeps a government from tyranny is not the threat of armed revolt but ongoing broad civic engagement in a dense, complex and mutually reinforcing fabric of democratic institutions, traditions, practices and civic values exercised in open, transparent and accountable ways at every level of resolution from the federal government to municipal affairs.

I would go so far as to argue that America's cultural hostility to the idea of government - the deep-seated belief that governments can never be trusted and will only behave (barely) under the constant threat of armed rebellion - is actually a major obstacle keeping the U.S. from becoming more functional and more accountable to its citizens.

It's a failed 18th century idea that is holding America back from joining the rest of the industrialized world's norms of civility, and it helps to explain why the U.S. is an outlier in so many varied measures of life, health and wellbeing.

[yummyfajitas]

It's also, significantly, an outlier in its rate of firearm-related deaths,

The US is also an outlier in it's rate of bludgeoning and stabbing, at 1.7/100,000. By contrast, the murder rate (all weapons) in western europe is 1.0/100,000, southern europe is 1.4/100,000, and northern europe is 1.5/100,000.

I suppose bill of rights causes stabbings and beatings also?

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

[adventured]

The US rate of violent crime is half that of Canada, and 75% lower than Britain. It's lower than France, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and so on.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-...

[arethuza]

Worth noting a couple of points made in an article in Telegraph (which is of a similar political view to the Mail) that covers the same ground:

"Researchers admit that comparisons of crime data between countries must be viewed with caution because of differing criminal justice systems and how crimes are reported and measured."

"A Home Office spokesperson said: “These figures are misleading. Levels of police recorded crime statistics from different countries are simply not comparable since they are affected by many factors, for example the recording of violent crime in other countries may not include behaviour that we would categorise as violent crime. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5712573...

NB I'm not denying that the UK probably has more violent crime than the US (although I suspect that, just as with gun crime in the US, this is highly concentrated in particular areas and times).

[adventured]

I agree, there's little question it changes quite a bit based on definition of violent crime. However, it's a sizable margin of difference. For example it notes that Canada is roughly twice the US on violent crime, if you doubled the US number to match the variance in definition (if that's the case), it'd still be a distinctly interesting data point.

[narcissus]

To extend that: according to my understanding of a discussion I had with my cousin (a police officer in Australia), threats of a violent crime are recorded as a violent crime, as far as statistics are concerned there.

That is to say, "I have a knife... give me the money" is the same as stabbing someone, even if there was no knife.

[adventured]

In the US if you walk into a convenience store, say that you have a knife or gun, and take the money, that's recorded as a violent crime.

[narcissus]

Thanks for the information. I guess I didn't really come out and say "I don't know how it works in other countries", but I imagine that it's the little things like that, maybe differences across all countries, that make this kind of thing really hard to easily quantify.

[Kurtz79]

Actually your data further validate the other user's point, since in the ratios you mention are much less significant in terms of deviation that the ones related to firearms deaths.

I wouldn't call the US an "outlier" for the data you mention.

[LekkoscPiwa]

The US never had communism, nazism, tyrants governing the country. Try to pull off concentration camps against your own people like Hitler or Stalin did when they are heavily armed.

There is no way people wouldn't defend their families from going to concentration camps if they were armed. History shows that this holds true. The Government is afraid of armed people as it should be. That is a good thing. Not bad.

[lifeisstillgood]

This is a foolish post - sorry to be so blunt.

Civilians standing alone do not stand a chance against the combined arms of a standing army. Does not matter if they all have guns or not. What counts is explosives, range, airpower - oh and the idea that one side has their families to worry about.

There was armed resistance to the rounding up - look at the warsaw ghetto. [1] This was armed civilians fighting an invading army, which took a huge German effort to subdue. But they did subdue it - in a way horrifically reminiscent of the US in Fallujah. (No I am not comparing US Army in Iraq to Nazis. But watch the footage on both events and then try to not worry)

If you think that the right to bear arms is there to stop tyranny, you should expand it to the right to bear Semtex, armoured vehicles and aircraft. That is why Afghanistan and Iraq were / are such a mess - the other side is fighting back with real weapons, not pop guns. Armies are frightened of other armies. Not armed civilians.

Oh, and the rise of UAVs is going to make the next insurgency a very different prospect.

Add in to this mix the basic human desire to think it is all going to go away, and no-one is that crazy. There is a story of a village running from the massacres in Rwanda, and they reach a river, and only one teenager crosses, the rest think they will be safe. The teenager is the only one left to tell the story.

Look at it this way - Hitler started small, targetting the criminals and the undesirables. Have you taken up arms to overthrown the White House now that Cuba is used for torture? What is your trigger point ? How do you find out that there are death camps? Warsaw happened because they rounded up Jews into one place before shipping them out. The Nazis learnt from that. Evil has analysts too.

What is the difference? It is not the grunts in the army. It is the need to have enlightened people in government. If we cant have that we will make do with sane politicans. The insane ones are harder to spot. You know Nixon used to end dinner chat at the white house with the line, "I could walk out of here and 45 minutes later, 500 million people would be dead?"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto

[LekkoscPiwa]

Did Hitler or Stalin used "explosives, range and airpower" to move people to concentration camps? How you imagine this? Let's say there are 200 houses in a neighborhood. You know that in house #47 and in house #186 there are families that are Jewish/suspected anti-communists, etc. You need to get them out to the concentration camp. You do it by bombing the whole neighborhood? Let's say in Berlin or Moscow? Please explain how having weapons would NOT help families in these houses. Because what I'm telling you and what history tells us is that Secret Police (NKVD/Gestapo) will be sent there with guns to get these people at the gun point to their destination.

And number two: let's say you are a President of the USA. Let's say you do something really evil against the will of the people. Like - theoretically - sending all Mexicans to the camps. You say Mexicans are armed or not - no difference. Interesting.

[lifeisstillgood]

This seems to be heading off HN ground but I will try and answer you. I guess that yes, in a certain respect, you are right.

However these genocides seem to take two (possibly three) forms

1. Hitler / Stalin Like a virus they replace the societal leadership function and use the "normal" mechanisms of law and order for their own ends. People are "arrested" and "tried" just like every day - but it is a farce.

Now at what point do you shoot a police officer? When is it socially acceptable to kill a cop? There just does not seem to be a point. So for years this can go on. Rounding up "criminals". I could put psychologists on stage to say "treatment of the whole family" is the solution for criminal activity - we are taking these families to family-re-start camps. You can make up anything for a while. Its only when the media provide proof that this is going on, that people are dying that maybe killing the next cop to arrest someone will be seen as righteous. But you could easily argue that 60 Minutes cannot be aired because it will incite people to shoot cops.

After the cop has arrested you, that's it, you have no guns, game over.

2. Serbia

This is very muddled but basically can be seen as just arrest / herd everyone out of a defined geographic area - for example it would be everyone in the street apart from #47 and #186. Round them all up with an army / militia and send everyone to a processing camp. Thus the removal of guns happens to a whole neighbourhood, and can be done with artillery and tanks. Cant arrest everyone cos they are all armed? Really it seems not to work like that. The mass graves in Serbia / Croatia are filled with military age people.

3. Rwanda. Half of your village attacks your family with knives. Imagine say the white folks in NYC deciding to kill the black folks using pitchforks [1]. This is hardly a controlled genocide so is less crime against humanity than WTF.

I was focusing on the first one - there seems to be no point where shooting a cop (even one in a black shirt) is something acceptable, even for people who would otherwise shoot back.

There is something built into us that perceives immediate danger as a threat, but if danger is kept far enough apart from the "now" we rationalise it away - even if it is bleedin' obvious. Its why i supported Blair/Bush invading Iraq - I mean the guy had a track record, of course he had WMD.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots

[LekkoscPiwa]

Thank you for your reply. After all the downvotes I certainly appreciate it.

Ad.1. Hitler and Stalin wouldn't necessarily be interested in getting power in a society armed through their teeth and Constitution stating that the people have the power to act forcefully against tyrants using guns. Probably, Hitler would become a painter and Stalin would become a pop, or priest. Exactly, like a virus. It feeds and spreads on the weak body. Not on the one that's armed.

Not a Police Officer. A highly feared Gestapo/NKVD. This is not police. Both Gestapo and NKVD were extremely feared and hated. No problem shooting their "officers". There is a joke in Poland from Communistic Times: an anti-communistic movement member goes to the Church because he want to confess. During the confession the priest asks him what sins he committed. And the guy says: Dear Priest, I killed a KGB agent. And the Priest replies: Son you came here to confess or to pride yourself. These guys were truly hated in their societies. General public in USSR would love to hear that someone is finally shooting bastards killing them in millions in 1930s. Are you kidding me?

However, you make very interesting point with our tendency to rationalize away even if it is "bleeding" obvious. That's extremely good point. And my answer to this is: in 300 million people in the US, you will find at least thousands (I think millions) who will see very well what is going on. As they existed in Nazi Germany too. Even when more than 90% Germans chose to follow their leader. What I'm saying is that this is precisely why you make a republican (not possible to take away by popular vote) law allowing everyone to have a gun. So maybe at least one among those thousands or millions will be able to shoot our hipotetical tyrant before it's too late.

Ad.2. Serbia - come on, were they armed? Were they? Were the people armed there? If I know they are taking me to the death camp, I'd prefer die fighting with dignity than to be slaughtered in a death factory.

Ad.3. Yeah, you can't stop people from killing each other. We're talking about the state going crazy because the "Dear Leader" went insane. So not really applicable.

[desas]

While the US didn't treat people in concentration camps as poorly as Stalin or Hitler did, there were 110,000 Japanese Americans put in concentration camps in 1942. Were they just not heavily armed enough?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

[odiroot]

Tell that to the unfortunate Americans of Japanese descent who where thrown into "internment" camps after Pearl Harbour. I doubt any guns would've helped them change government's mind.

[adventured]

The point is that any given Japanese individual would have been perfectly justified in defending their self with a gun, versus being put into internment.

Jews having guns in Germany would not have stopped Hitler due to their relatively small numbers, but it would have been completely proper for them all to defend themselves instead of having their families sent to slaughter.

If a dozen people are coming to attack my home, I'll probably lose that fight, but it doesn't mean I won't attempt to defend myself with a gun if I can rather than just capitulate to their brutality.

Of course there's also a drastic difference between Hitler and Stalin's gulags vs the Japanese internment camps. While a complete violation of their rights, there was never any consideration toward committing genocide against the Japanese in the camps.

[loevborg]

I'm not sure if you are being facetious. However, on the assumption that you are serious, there is no reason to think that more arms would have helped the minorities in Germany persecuted by the masses. The groups targeted by the Nazis were small (by comparison) and would never have had any chance of successfully defending themselves against the aggressions of the state and its citizens, no matter how well armed.

[cafard]

There were a lot of weapons in private hands in Weimar Germany, and that was not the least of the factors that made it chaotic. And once Hitler was in power, it really didn't matter who had a rifle or a pistol stashed in the house--with the police and military willing to take extreme measures, private firepower had no real chance.