A contrasting point to the American trend: where I live (Vancouver, Canada) it is illegal to possess bulletproof or stab-proof clothing without a permit. (!) In fact, even DIY-ing your own protection is illegal without a permit.
Personally, I find this philosophically hard to reconcile.
Bullets I can sort of see the reasoning for, but that sounds like a slippery slope towards outlawing even things that might be required in some types of work environment:
Is there any reason why this might be illegal? I understand that defensive gear is forbidden when it can also be used as a weapon but I don’t understand why body armor can do anyone any harm. I am curious what reason there are to forbid body armor than is not dangerous to anyone.
Australian here: I presume the reasoning is along these lines...
No one has any reasonable expectation of being at risk of being shot/stabbed.
The only reason, therefore, that you would wish to have access to something like bullet-proof clothing or ballistic protection is that you foresee it likely you will soon be in a situation whereby you will be shot at.
About the only conceivable situation that you are likely to be shot at is if you forsee yourself or are planning to be engaged in some type of violent action against a police/military force.
Therefore, the only people wanting bulletproof clothing are those planning violent action against a police/military force. And since no one else who is deemed "socially sane" has any desire to own such a peice of equipment, banning it comes with the two benefits of not curtailing normal citizen's freedoms, while adding an illegal thing/signal to the kind of people who do or would plan to do bad things.
Edit: I realise there is the additional possibility that the person seeking body-armour sees themselves involved in gun-fights with other gun-toting individuals/criminals. Even amongst the criminal classes (and certainly amongst civilians), that is seen as almost an equally preposterous/rare idea as gearing up to take it to the police...
Also an Australian. I have a feeling this may not make much sense to Americans.
Bulletproof clothing only protects you against bullets (well it protects against knives too but you can buy less expensive slash/stab resistant clothing). In Australia there is virtually no gun violence. The only people who can shoot you are cops. They will only shoot you if you're doing something that justifies being shot at. Therefore, the only reason you'd need bulletproof armor is if you intend to do something that would justify the police shooting at you.
Encryption on the other hand has legitimate purposes. It's quite possible for someone to say steal all your money by intercepting your bank account login and it requires no special, heavily restricted equipment to do so.
Most bulletproofing that you would wear that isn’t actually armor is not stab proof.
Also, it’s trivial to make effective rifle armor out of AR500 steel, Rhino Liner (or other bed liner) as a spall guard and a nylon/Velcro plate carrier which will not tax a third year cosplayer in the least to sew.
Perhaps on a technical/analytical level there is a similarity, but i think it is a false equivocation in this context. Its similar in the sense that a right to bear arms implies civilian access to tanks and nuclear weapons.
In reality, law and society are complex creatures. I'd observe that any knowledgeable person observes encryption is commonly and widely used for a variety of purposes, and has many people who will push back against its denial of use.
In terms of the body armour law, there would presumably be the empirical facts that:
1.) There's just not actually a demand for it amongst the society in the aussie context at least.
2.) The odds of being shot or stabbed by someone other than a close relative is virtually nil in Australia if you're not partaking in a criminal enterprise. And so far as long as those criminal enterprises don't spill over into public related injuries and violence, people's level of fear regarding guns/stabbings is pretty low.
3.) This must be taken in the context of an everyday culture that has a rate of ~1 in 100,000 rate of homicide (non-uniformly distributed admitedly) compared to the united states rate of ~4 or 5. The culture is relatively uniform, and united states-esque laws and policies regarding weapons and obsessions with are generally viewed as a mixture of "crazy", "a warning of what we could become", and just a generally undesirable state of affairs.
There is a debate regarding encryption. Whereas debate around things like increased access to weapons or body armour is "effectively zero" in the context of Australian society (keeping in mind I don't have the time/space to go into the historic details or rural hunter/fisher/farmer politics).
I'm going to assume that canadians in many ways view american laws/society in a similar vein to us in this context: our friendly but crazy relatives. (albeit with them sharing a physical border).
I'm also guessing (I haven't looked it up) that they have a far lower homicide rate, and would suggest, like Australians, that they believe de-escalation and keeping militarized equipment out of the hands of civilians primarily provides a greater civil protection against shootings/stabbings than ownership of body armour would.
Now, to not be objective for a second, i think real life is more complex, but empirically, given the relative differences in homicide rates, i'd say the American case at least appears to be starting the argument on the backfoot :)
Actually, I believe that there is a better case for civilian ownership of tanks, ordinance, and heavy/automatic weaponry than there is for handguns. According to a study by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 86% of gun crimes involved a handgun, even though there are roughly equal numbers of rifles, handguns, and shotguns in the US.
Meanwhile, there's a tanker militia not far from where I live that practices regularly, and doesn't really bother anyone.
I'm fairly certain that there have been no tank related homicides in living memory, and the only two tank related crimes I can find news reports of involve a tank being taken from an army base for a joyride, and Killdozer, which injured no one (discounting the operator committing suicide), and was home-made anyways.
The thing about crime is that criminals instinctively want to hide what they're doing. Handguns are about a million times easier to hide than a rifle, or even a sawn-off shotgun. Having this bulky, visible weapon hanging off of your back is an automatic deterrent to crime.
All our traffic is analysed by unknown third parties but not all of us have reasonable expectation to get shot. I would have this expectation at least in places with decent regulation.
>No one has any reasonable expectation of being at risk of being shot/stabbed.
Isn't assault the quintessential thing that we have police around to deal with? If we didn't have any reasonable expectation of it then we'd be paying for a lot less law enforcement.
Well, I'd say I can't answer that question authoritatively since its almost by definition context-dependent, in addition to asking the practical question of why/how a police force is raised/employed and depends a bit on a subjective point of view.
But empirically, i'd observe a couple of things in the Australian context:
a) Assault may be a continuum, with stabbings/shootings on one end, to the point where, as I said, almost no one reasonably believes themselves to be potentially shot/stabbed. (almost no one reasonably believes they'll be assaulted, either).
b) When people are assaulted or violently attacked, its almost infinitely more likely to be by someone intimately connected with them in their domestic or everyday environment, or in the context of drugs/alcohol. In that context, body armour appears to be to most people equally silly.
c) By far most police's time would be dealing with other matters apart from primarily preventing assault: case investigation and handling, property and vehicular theft, burglary, drug related offenses, traffic (including crashes, random drug testing, etc), crowd and pedestrian control (which COULD be stretched into preventing assault in context), suburban and domestic disturbances (which again, COULD be stretched into preventing assault in context). However, even in those cases where it could be stretched into preventing assault, the notion of appropriate use of body armour (or being exposed to stabbings or shootings in such a context) would be seen as relatively absurd.
Unless your an expat from dodgy places and fear kidnapping when I worked for a Arab company in the UK some of the directors cars where the special order armoured up ones.
Like wise in Germany senior business men have armed guards as a result of RA / baader meinhof.
Politicians also have well founded fears of nutters of political extremists trying to attack and kill them
Just Google homicides by police in the US [1][2]. The US has a very high percentage of civilians, not all criminals, shot dead by our very own police force compared to all other nations, and not just developed countries.
A theme that recurs in political philosophy, and has been profoundly articulated since Bodin and Hobbes, is the state's monopoly on violence, and its necessity not only to rationalize the existence of a state, but also to empower it with irreducible means to enforce law and order.
If one can obtain some mechanism that effectively negates the state's attempts to use violence on them, they can escape being subject to the rule of law. Prohibitions against body armor stem from trying to curb this; this is also why law enforcement hates widespread digital encryption, because it sidesteps mechanisms like search warrants entirely.
Body armor is heavy and obvious, especially in warm climates. I don't think it would start an arms race. You would only wear it when you are attacking or expecting an attack. Not to mention it only protects your chest/back.
Body armor comes in a wide variety of sizes and weights many of which are not heavy and obvious. You don't need a full getup with plates to stop handguns.
I don't think criminals are wise, but protection from police bullets doesn't seem like a reasonable motivation to wear bulletproof clothing. If required, the Police will simply call out a SWAT team using military weapons. There should be no reasonable expectation that somehow you can survive an armed exchange with the police.
Sadly, there are criminals that have tried bulletproof clothing with the resulting escalation of violence. In 1986 bank robbers wearing bulletproof outfits wounded five and killed two FBI agents in the 1986 FBI Miami shootout. Naturally, the two bad guys didn't survive. See [1].
Canada only embraces personal liberties it can tax the shit out of
they have no motivation to embrace personal liberty at all, the government is still a constitutional monarchy...liberties are at her Majesty's discretion
> it is illegal to possess bulletproof or stab-proof clothing without a permit. (!)
I can see the bulletproof part - don't want criminals to be wearing it and thus forcing police to have high power rifles around to take them down, which also might mean those kind of weapons would get in the hands of criminals as well through the black market and such.
What's the logic with stab-proof clothing then? Does police in Canada carry knives and is forced to use them to stop criminals.
> I can see the bulletproof part - don't want criminals to be wearing it and thus forcing police to have high power rifles around to take them down
Bullet proof clothing typically covers the chest area and wearing it doesn’t mean you won’t be injured. As a police officer’s primary job is to diffuse a crisis situation, not “kill every suspected perp”, I see minimal reason a bullet proof vest on the perp would impact the police significantly.
Try getting shot, especially multiple times, wearing a bullet proof vest and you’ll understand completely why my opinion isn’t out of line.
> Try getting shot, especially multiple times, wearing a bullet proof vest and you’ll understand completely why my opinion isn’t out of line.
What is it like, for those of us who don't have guns and bulletproof vests on hands to experiment? Does it knock the breath out of you? Would it bring you to the ground?
Depending on the (edit handgun) caliber it could bring you to the ground even with adrenaline flowing. You will end up with large bruises for sure. If there is a rifle involved >.22 caliber, then you will likely face penetration unless you have a trauma plate. Body extremities really can't be effectively protected.
Yes, caliber and grains matter too (in addition to barrel).
A rim fire .22 is so different from a .223, that it's comparing them is almost useless (but not quite). Just look at the cartridge and it becomes very clear...
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/05/03/guest-post-22-...
I’ve not experienced it directly, but I have a couple of friends who have. Best case scenario you are knocked down and bruised, worse case you get broken ribs, worst case the vest isn’t rated for the caliber and goes through.
You feel the entire kinetic energy of the bullet with a vest, the bullet just doesn’t go through. Imagine driving a truck at 100mph into a sturdy concrete wall. Similarish outcome.
It depends on how far away, and what you were shot with... vests are designed to block hand guns, not rifels. It may not stop every bullet. A larger hand gun, say 50cal, has more recoil and is harder to aim with sequential shots, thus not practical... but feels amazing and is so loud!
I believe it would take a person down and possibly kill them. I've been told police are taught 2 to the chest 1 to the head.
From my quick googling, a great read:
"...Among the accounts from those who have experienced being shot while wearing a bulletproof vest (and lived to talk about it), there is one consistent analogy to describe the feeling: being hit with a baseball bat. ..."
http://www.ponderweasel.com/shot-wearing-a-bulletproof-vest/
Police are taught to put all rounds in center body massage. They are never trained to do 'headshots' pistols are not made for that kind of accuracy, especially in high stress/adrenaline situations.
Indeed, obviously having not experienced it myself, just from understanding the sheer physics of it and how bullet-proof vests work, my initial prediction would be something like:
"Getting hit hard in the chest by a big blunt concussive object"
I think the reason is similar to what was shown for seat belts:
When you know you are protected you take more risks. If criminals can protect themselves they are probably more likely to use violence in the first place.
GF's kids came home yesterday talking about school shooting safety (hit perp with a fire extinguisher -- which is too heavy for any of them to lift), the safe closet, etc.
Their chance of being shot is infinitesimal, while the chance of choking or dying in traffic (1K kids/year in the USA, for example) is real. But there is no training on what to do in these cases.
Seems like it's all part of the terrorization of the populace, of which this clothing is a symptom.
Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states. My wife is from Australia and it seems as if it were a night and day difference when it comes to gun control. I wish our founding fathers had written something more explicit and more prohibitive so that perhaps more lives could have been saved to gun violence.
I may sound paranoid but I may end up taking a serious look at some of these options in the near future.
I really doubt you will leave, at least for this particular reason. Maybe you'll find a job elsewhere, or find another good reason, but I think you understand intuitively that the chance of being shot, even in the US, is lower than the chance that you will die in a car accident. Our founders were way more concerned about state tyranny (the Crown in their case) than private crime, and I would guess that they still would be, even after being shown what an AR-15 can do. I wouldn't dismiss their conclusions too quickly.
When I was living in Oakland, I had a European friend stay over while he was interviewing with tech companies. Around 3am, 2 guys coming out of a club and arguing about drugs or something shot at each other, resulting in one of them dying literally on my front step, and the other being apprehended by the police a few blocks away. This was in downtown Oakland btw, not in one of the risky neighborhoods. We had come back from a smoke break shortly before.
My friend, pretty traumatized, did not accept any job offers.
This is obviously a personal anecdote, and a pretty extreme one, but just to show you that these things do have an impact.
It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?)
In most states it’s illegal to carry a gun and drink, etc. Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here?
Maybe your European friend forgot what happened in Paris a couple of years ago in a country with strict gun control laws. Gun control laws provide a false sense of security. Since you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no gun control laws will achieve “gun safety” that people seek.
> Chances are the gun was acquired illegally, possessed illegally,etc. How do more gun control laws help here?
You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire. There's a reason why muggers in Paris or Tokyo don't shoot people, and the reason is not because they are nice muggers.
And "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" is kind of the opposite of "gun control laws are slippery slope toward total dictatorship" (which a lot of people seem to believe). You cannot claim both at the same time.
>You cannot possibly believe that you can confiscate all the guns in the US.
You don't need to confiscate all guns to practically eliminate gun crime. The UK didn't, we just adopted a harm reduction model, gradually controlling and then removing those weapons with the greatest risk for harm and the least legitimate use - handguns and semi-automatic centrefire rifles. It took decades, but it worked.
Start with a serious federal licensing and registration system. Establish a national database with comprehensive ownership records, including private transfers; require firearm manufacturers to submit forensic samples of bullets and casings for all new firearms. Mandate firing pin microstamping. Fix the known shortcomings of the background check system. Close the gun show loophole. Instate the five-day waiting period originally proposed in the Brady Act. Require secure storage of all firearms in an approved gunsafe. Introduce mandatory safety training. Impose considerably harsher punishments for reckless or dangerous use of a licensed firearm.
Once you've got all that in place, then you can start talking about buybacks, amnesties and outright bans, starting with Title II firearms. Mandate a legitimate sporting or professional justification for the purchase or transfer of any firearm. Ban large-capacity magazines, then centerfire handguns, then semi-automatic rimfire handguns, then semi-automatic rifles.
After 30 or 40 years of incremental progress, you end up with a society that has a negligible number of handguns and semi-automatic rifles, while still maintaining the rights of sportsmen and farmers to own shotguns and bolt-action rifles in a properly controlled manner.
You can do it, if you can muster a serious and well-funded opposition to the NRA.
> Start with a serious federal licensing and registration system.
Good luck getting that kind of law passed anywhere outside of NY/CA. Registration = Confiscation is a strongly held belief. See how many New Yorkers registered their AR-15 when the NY SAFE Act was passed in the middle of the night.
> Close the gun show loophole.
There is no loophole. Federally-licensed gun dealers must run background checks no matter where they sell their wares. Private transfers do not require background checks.
> After 30 or 40 years of incremental progress
What you call "progress," I call a city-slicker's fantasy paradise. I grew up in a nanny state (NY) and moved south in my mid-30s. It's refreshing to live in a place where guns are seen as tools and not as evil monsters that charge out of their locked cases and mow down innocent children all on their own without a human pulling the trigger.
The sitting president (regardless of what you or I think of him) was elected on a base that believes in a different idea of progress. I voted for him stricktly because I believed he'd be largely ineffective and that he wouldn't shit all over my gun rights.
>What you call "progress," I call a city-slicker's fantasy paradise.
Not so long ago, you could have said the same thing about seatbelts or drink-driving or Jim Crow.
There's a clear case to be made that guns should be at least as well regulated as cars. There isn't a national movement arguing that you should be able to drive with no license, no insurance and no tags. In most states, you need a license to cut hair. This is not an unwinnable battle, it's just a battle that nobody is putting enough resources into winning. Liberals may be outraged and dismayed at the rate of gun violence, but they're not taking action.
> There's a clear case to be made that guns should be at least as well regulated as cars.
So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because based on what you've posted, that you're not familiar with gun regulation in the U.S because you're from the U.K.
Guns are heavily regulated. You can't walk into a corner store and pick up a handgun. No were never going to allow registration or licensing as a barrier to acquire firearms. That doesn't mean there are no laws in place to prevent unlawful gun possession.
Criminals don't care about laws, it's a fundamental issue that gun control proponents continue to ignore. More gun control only makes life unnecessarily more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their rights.
>So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because based on what you've posted, that you're not familiar with gun regulation in the U.S because you're from the U.K.
I am well acquainted with US gun laws.
Do you need to apply for a license in advance of buying a gun in a majority of states? No. Do you have to take a test and prove that you are competent before you can own a gun in a majority of states? No. Is there a national registry of all guns with mandatory reporting of all transfers? No. Is there a requirement for third-party liability insurance? No. Is there a federal agency responsible for researching and reducing firearms fatalities? No.
In a majority of states, you can walk into a gun store, show your driving license, wait for the NICS background check and walk out with a gun within a matter of minutes. In a majority of states, you can buy a gun from a private seller with no background check.
Guns are far, far less well-regulated than cars.
> Criminals don't care about laws, it's a fundamental issue that gun control proponents continue to ignore.
The police care about laws, because they can enforce them. Criminals care about laws, because they can be arrested and prosecuted for breaking them.
Firing pin microstamping and pre-sale collection of striation data makes it far harder to commit a crime with a gun and get away with it. Mandatory safe storage makes it far harder for criminals to steal guns and far less likely for children to access them. Improved background checks reduce the availability of guns to known criminals and people with serious mental health problems. Mandatory registration reduces the supply of guns to the black market by creating a paper trail from factory to crime scene.
If you treat gun crime like a public health issue, you can use evidence-based interventions to mitigate risk. Seatbelt laws save lives. Drink-driving laws save lives. Mandatory driver training saves lives. Speed limits save lives. Exactly the same principles apply to gun control. Practically every other developed nation on earth has taken this approach, with great success.
Let's agree to disagree. Clearly you enjoy living in a nanny state and think that's the only way to feel safe.
I've evaluated the risks and feel that my family's safety is my responsibility. When seconds count the police is only minutes away - oh and they have no legal obligation to protect you in the USA.
> ”Let's agree to disagree. Clearly you enjoy living in a nanny state and think that's the only way to feel safe.”
Regardless of how wrong you might think someone is, please don’t follow up “agree to disagree” with an insult. Even if you don’t think your parent deserves better, the HN community as a whole does.
So, incidents like the Vegas massacre; is there any response to this kind of thing at all you'd accept, or is it just not a problem that 58 people got killed and hundreds wounded?
> So, incidents like the Vegas massacre; is there any response to this kind of thing at all you'd accept, or is it just not a problem that 58 people got killed and hundreds wounded?
A good response would be to react to overall death statistics and not emotional one-time events. I'm quite confident that across the US, cars have killed more people over the Vegas news cycle.
I understand and empathize with the desire to do something to prevent incidents like this. The issue with the anti-gun movement is that it focuses on the tool and not the human. We have a serious mental health problem in this country. Far too many young men are angry (depressed?) and in need of help but seeking mental help is seen as not a manly thing to do.
Yes we should do something, but gun control laws (at least those in this country that we are ALL willing to tolerate) will not yield the outcome you desire.
I realize most of you won’t do this, but go take a firearms class and learn to shoot. It’s a skill worth learning. As a reader of this forum you are likely to enjoy tinkering and building useful, mechanical things. By far the funnest thing I’ve done is build an AR-15 (gasp! Those things are evil!) from parts. Despite the media’s demonization of this non-military non-assault weapon, the AR-15 is a standardized component platform very much like the PC or LEGOs. That isn’t to imply that it’s easy to build one (lots of swearing involved in getting trigger springs and pins lined up in the small spaces, etc.)
We all want to reduce gun violence, but as history in the US has proven, stricter gun control is not the most effective answer IMO.
I'm a Brit who was taught to shoot at school (http://whitgift-ccf.co.uk/about.html), so I have a rather different perspective on this. I wouldn't describe it as fear or unfamiliarity, just a belief about risks and benefits. (One of those life experiences that seems weirder and weirder in retrospect; imagine Hogwarts with SA80s. The ammunition was tightly supervised, but unloaded weapons less so)
I'm not sure you could untangle the "mental health" aspect of mass shootings from the politics of it. Some of it is "extroverted suicide" but a lot looks to me like people have been radicalised.
>I don't put communal values above my own family's safety
Having a firearm in the home makes your family less safe. The potential benefits of protection from violent crime are vastly outweighed by the risks of accidents, suicide and domestic homicide. You might believe otherwise, you might believe that you're different, but the data doesn't lie. The gun that poses the greatest threat to your life is the one you own.
Imagine this: What if you were told you were no longer allowed to drive or even ride in a car, because the chance of dying in a car accident (in your own car even!) was too great? Wouldn't you say it's up to you to balance the level of risk you're willing to take to engage in the freedom of expeditious travel?
but why stop there, your own home would be statistically safer without a motor vehicle, alcohol or knives. and wow I hope you aren't in possession of perscription drugs, haven't you heard we are suffering an opioid epidemic?
isn't it time you thought of the children?
and as it stands I also believe one should have the right to take one's own life, so I completely discount scare tactics predicated on suicide stats
I'm litearally rolling on the floor laughing at this naivete. Shit, I grew up in the woods where the semi-auto Remington 742 woodsmaster or the 1100 shotgun wasn't any different than the Ace hardware hoe or the Rotenone or Sevin bug dust; we used both to keep the pests out of the garden that fed us.
I've bought one firearm, out of a dozen, from a licensed store. Almost all are private, individual to individual sales or inherited.
Why do malls have security cameras when they cannot catch all thieves? Why have a border control when you cannot catch everyone crossing it?
If America gets rid of one million guns, that's one million less guns criminals can illegally obtain. This is not an all-or-nothing game. I'm sure even Japan has a few illegal guns hidden somewhere.
Your comments belie a pretty strong ignorance of American gun culture. This isn't a numbers game; there is a large portion of the population that would not comply with a confiscation program, and would resist using (you guessed it) firearms. Many of the strongest supporters of the second amendment are in the military and police. It boggles my mind that the same people who denounce involving our military in middle eastern quagmires, would propose igniting such a civil war domestically.
This is a numbers game, and a long-term game. I'm sure there are Americans who would rather shoot a police officer than give up their guns, but I believe their numbers are dwindling. Societies change. After all, gay marriage or a black president was unthinkable only a few decades ago.
Personally, I kinda see the point of having guns if you live in the middle of nowhere eighty miles from the nearest police station. So I'd say, let them keep their guns. No reason to give them more political ammunition.
For the majority of Americans (by population, not area), guns make much less sense. If American cities are infested with shootings, it's not because gun control doesn't work. It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.
It has proven be a tough battle for Americans to coerce the government into action. But, hey, nobody said fighting your government would be easy, did they?
> If American cities are infested with shootings, it's not because gun control doesn't work. It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.
Yes you're so right. I mean Chicago is literally a war zone and has some of the strictest gun control laws in the land. Clearly this is the NRA's fault.
What bugs me is that this kind of thinking comes from watching/reading CNN, NYT, WaPo push the anti-gun agenda and people just gobbling it up with no actual experience with gun handling/ownership. In general the state of the news media in this country has reached a new low. I try to watch all the news channels to get a broad set of opinions on things in general. What I get instead is, either the president is brilliant, or the president needs to be institutionalized. Or that guns should be banned outright, or that kids should be taught to shoot before their 1st birthday. There's absolutely no objectivity these days. Maybe it's always been that way but it sure didn't feel like that 25 years ago.
It's because the American government is bought out by NRA lobbyists so they don't try hard enough.
If you mean "bought out" in terms of actually bringing voters to the polls over this issue you'd be right.
Like it or not, people against gun control are more likely to vote on that issue in the US than people for gun control.
The NRA has over 11 million paying members. That's almost 3% of the US population, probably over 10% if you just count adults. That's a powerful voting block.
> Like it or not, people against gun control are more likely to vote on that issue in the US than people for gun control.
This is why I voted for Trump. Hillary was guaranteed to shit all over my gun rights. Trump is proving me right - he's been largely ineffective and despite all the bellyaching, isn't really doing much harm (oh boy, I know I'm going to set off a shitstorm now.) But net-neutrality! But LGBT rights! If you look at what he's said and the practical effect of what he's done...it's basically a no-op.
> I'm sure there are Americans who would rather shoot a police officer than give up their guns, but I believe their numbers are dwindling.
You're wrong.
Furthermore, communities across the US are becoming more locally homogenous. It's not going to be a person here or there you'd have to deal with, it would be entire communities.
How’s that working out for cities that have ineffective (but hey they feel good ‘cause we gotta do something!) gun buyback programs like Chicago (with super-strict gun control laws to boot)?
You can't illegally acquire guns when there are no guns to acquire.
You realize that in the case of one of the Paris attacks, the weapons were legally acquired, right? Guns aren't 100% banned in France. In fact, the French police decided to confiscate legal weapons from over 100 individuals with terrorist ties.(1)
In the UK, handguns are so difficult to get hold of that organised criminals often resort to using modified flare guns or antique duelling pistols. Suffice it so say that these are not particularly deadly or reliable weapons.
There are about 50 firearm murders per year in the UK. We haven't had a single mass shooting incident since 2010. When taken seriously, gun control works.
I think one of the problems here is how the issue is framed to begin with. Do we have a serious firearms problem or do we have a suicide problem? Two of my cousins have committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound (one was an extremely successful doctor and the other an auto-factory worker.) Two-thirds of gun deaths in the US are from suicide. Bet you most of you gun-fearing folks didn't know that.
"In terms of race and ethnicity, Kaplan said that 77 percent of white gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides, while less than 1 in 5 (19 percent) is a homicide. The figures are nearly opposite for African Americans, for which only 14 percent are suicides."
Instead of a firearms problem, maybe we have a suicide (mental health?) problem and a poverty/inequality problem. Or maybe we have a media problem - neither the left, nor the right's propaganda machines seem interested in the real issues.
Suicide attempts are predominantly impulsive acts that are rarely repeated, so controlling the means of suicide is an essential component in suicide prevention. Most people who attempt suicide go from intent to action within a matter of hours, with no significant forward planning.
Women are far more likely to attempt suicide, but men are far more likely to die by suicide. This disparity is explained predominantly by the choice of means - women tend to choose less effective means like poisoning and wrist-cutting, whereas men tend to choose more effective means like hanging and shooting.
Here in the UK, acetaminophen poisoning is one of the primary means of suicide. We restricted the sale of acetaminophen to a maximum of 32 tablets in pharmacies and 16 tablets in general retailers. This led to a 43% reduction in deaths due to acetaminophen poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts due to other means.
If you're serious about suicide prevention then gun control is a vital part of the response, alongside other measures to restrict access to means of suicide and improve access to crisis care.
I have a bottle of 500 acetaminophen tablets in our medicine cabinet, no women or children have been harmed in this household by gun or Tylenol. Personal responsibility is still a thing in some parts of the world.
>For example, single shot rifles and shotguns are legal in the UK. Yet rarely used. Why is that?
They're extremely well regulated. Many thousands of British people enjoy hunting and target shooting, but they do so under strict supervision. If you want to own a rifle or shotgun, you need to apply for a license. To receive a license, you need a clean criminal record, a clean bill of mental health and evidence that you have a legitimate sporting or agricultural use. In the case of a sporting application, you'll need to be a member in good standing of a recognised shooting club; if you're a target or clay pigeon shooter, the presumption is that you'll store your firearms on club premises unless you have a legitimate reason to keep your firearms at home.
Any purchase of a firearm has to be approved in advance by the police. Your license permits you to hold a specified quantity of ammunition; you can be asked to account for how your ammunition was used and investigated if you purchase quantities of ammunition that appear to exceed your normal use. Your firearms must be kept in a locked container when not in use, whether in storage or in transit. The police have the right to enter your home at any time to inspect your firearms.
Any breach of your license is an extremely serious offence that will almost always lead to revocation of your license and can lead to a custodial sentence.
> If you want to own a rifle or shotgun, you need to apply for a license. To receive a license, you need a clean criminal record, a clean bill of mental health and evidence that you have a legitimate sporting or agricultural use.
In the U.S., we don’t need government approval, yes we need a background check if acquiring the firearm through retail. But if I choose to hand my firearms down to my kids, the government has no business being involved. But what if your child is a known felon?! Well, that’s covered too - it’s illegal to transfer guns to people who are not legally allowed to possess them.
People who really don’t like it here are under no obligation to stay, though I will say you can find like-minded people in “progressive” states - so you can have your false sense of security and stay in the US too.
The only people I know who have rifles or shotguns either work in rural areas or are into wildfowling, or if wealthier, into grouse shooting or deer stalking. These are fairly common in some parts of the country (e.g. Scotland where I am - where large parts of the country are dedicated to shooting one kind of beastie or another) but they are still minority interests.
Most people here just aren't interested in guns.
Ironically, in some areas here in the UK it is common for kids to be taught to shoot at school!
"It’s interesting that the focus is on the gun and not the situation: club, drugs, (alcohol?)"
And a gun. A gun is really an important part of this, and the bit that we can have some control over, and a gun is the thing that makes this situation different in the US rather than UK or Australia.
It isn't like we are going to get rid of drinking locations. If they weren't happening in public, they'd happen at people's houses. Same with alcohol - we've tried it. I won't speculate on possible drugs since we aren't quite sure about that bit, but it is unlikely we'll get rid of these things either.
Without the gun, the weapons likely wouldn't have been so deadly especially if the person doesn't have proper training and control. Most likely, the weapons would be things like knives or broken bottles. Not saying they aren't deadly, just that they take a bit more work and might have more chance to live.
Now I'll assume the weapon was illegal. Hey, it happens even in place with tough laws. If they are put in place correctly (see Australia, who had a similar gun culture to the US for an example), fewer people have guns. Illegal guns are harder to come by because of that. Between scarcity and increased risk in selling, prices will likely go up and the end result is that fewer criminals actually have guns because fewer criminals can afford them. Especially possible low-level drug dealers.
dude...Oakland at 3am. despite all of the press Oakland is getting as this new Bohemian paradise for SF exiles, it is still...Oakland...and will remain so for years to come if not forever
I am not sure which NRA pamphlet you have been getting your history lessons from, but the 2A was not about state tyranny but the poverty of the state governments post-revolution.
Sorry random throwaway account, but you are incorrect. After the revolution, during the Articles of the Confederation era (1780s), the national defense devolved to various state militias and this was continued into the early 19th century. Thus we see all of the various references in section 8 enumerated powers to calling up, paying, and directing the state militias when necessary but a key point was that training of the militias was a reserved state power. Unfortunately, the states were poor. Very, very poor. Providing a few cannon was within their power but not providing each and every rifle of these militias. The states argued, successfully, that if the militia members had the right to maintain their arms at home the burden of providing such would fall to the militia members and not the states. Training and practices of such militias was the 'well regulated' part of that amendment, btw. It was not a rhetorical flourish that existed nowhere else in the document but was in fact a key part of the amendment as understood at the time. The 2A is a way to enable the states to push the burden of providing a rifle (a useful tool most of them would have already) onto the citizens and avoid the creation of an expensive mandate for the states that they were ill-equipped to provide at the end of the 18th century. One can argue that interpretations and opinions regarding the meaning have changed, but the history is both well-documented and quite clear.
If you actually studied US constitutional history rather than getting your arguments from the side of whatever box your latest gun purchase arrived in you might know these things.
This is all true, but there is historical basis, explicit and implicit, from the writings at the time supporting the idea that at least one factor for the second amendment was the ability to defend against state oppression.
"It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression." - 1769 newspaper editorial.
Defense against tyranny was a minor point that was seldom addressed in either the state legislatures debating the amendments or in the actual writings of the principals involved. Btw, guessing your date was meant to be 1789 and not 1769.
Just to share an opposing (and unpopular) viewpoint, I am from a country where legal ownership of firearms is basically impossible. One of the reasons I chose to move to the US was my strong belief in the 2nd amendment. And I am absolutely enjoying the newfound sense of freedom that US has offered.
> Lack of any significant gun control is one of the biggest motivations for me to consider moving out of the states
This is beyond paranoid. Go look up the leading causes of death in the USA, then realize that unless you live in the ghetto (unlikely) that your chances of dying by a bullet should be the least of your worries.
Go live in a pro gun-control state like NY or CA if this is really keeping you up at night. If you already live in one of those states, seek professional help.
It's not so much paranoia as a very human inability to recognise how much risk a threat truly poses.
Americans seem very very concerned with terrorism. Terrorism hasn't actually killed many Americans. The chance that you'll die from a terrorist attack are incredibly low, far lower than say heart disease or a traffic accident. Yet still you have these crazy privacy invasions, stupid security theatre at airports, wars in the middle east etcetera, etcetera.
As an Australian, after moving to America I had a similar feeling about guns, especially at first. I'd moved from a world where the risk of being shot was lower than being struck by lighting, into a world where shootings actually happened. It was a brand new threat that I didn't understand and basically all of my knowledge came from movies. Do the homeless people on the streets of SF have guns? Were those loud pops on the 4th of July fireworks or people celebrating by firing bullets in the air? Is the news I see about police shooting people online hype or a real risk?
Similarly, it feels wonderful to go to a place where I have less worries. When I'm in Australia, I don't have to worry about getting shot, being bankrupted by medical bills, ending up homeless ever, tipping or a variety of other problems. There's just nothing like feeling a bunch of burdens evaporate, even if, when I think about them, they're very minor.
> Americans seem very very concerned with terrorism
American government seems very concerned with terrorism. It also generates a lot of revenue which in turn produces political campaign contributions.
Do you really have less worries in Australia? I’d argue since it’s your homeland, you are simply used to the things that non-Australians would find worrisome. I don’t worry about medical bills (I have health insurance,) not concerned about ever being homeless, don’t consider tipping to be something worthy of worrying, etc.
And despite growing up in a rough neighborhood, I’ve never really worried about being shot.
> American government seems very concerned with terrorism.
I'm not sure, from what I hear they have a lot of support from the people, especially the conservatives.
> Do you really have less worries in Australia? I’d argue since it’s your homeland, you are simply used to the things that non-Australians would find worrisome. I don’t worry about medical bills (I have health insurance,) not concerned about ever being homeless, don’t consider tipping to be something worthy of worrying, etc.
I absolutely do have less worries in Australia. I think you need to turn that point about it being my homeland around. Just as there are things I might be used to as an Australian that worry foreigners (perhaps like the venomous native wildlife), the things you're used to are worriesome to me.
just because you have more chance of a heart attack or driving death at the USA, it would be very foolish to ignore the larger than zero chance of being shot in a elementary school.
The chances of that happening anywhere on earth are greater than zero. If you believe different you're delusional. Are they higher in the US? Yes, but it isn't the law abiding citizen that's doing the shooting. In most states schools are gun free zones. I can't even pick up my kids from school while carrying concealed - even if I don't get out of the car.
Your chances of being murdered in the US are not evenly distributed. I grew up in a ghetto (for example a young man was murdered across the street from my childhood home, with a blunt object when I was about 8.)
I live in a suburb now and heart disease is more likely to kill me than a gun.
Of course it isn't. And it's not in Australia either.
So if you want to compare the best parts of the USA with the best parts of Australia, you'll still be ~5x more likely to be murdered.
Why do Americans fail to grasp that we're talking about an average across entire countries, and as much as it's not accurate across the whole USA, it's also not accurate across the whole of other countries?
The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in weapon tech long after their deaths.
I agree with you on looking outside of the US, though.
I don’t know why so many people believe the founding fathers would think differently if they saw the world of weapons today.
They had just fought and won a war largely due to the ability of commoners to fight off the threat of the most powerful colonial power in the world. The second amendment was written to allow people to defend themselves collectively (hence the mention of militia) from the threat of nation states and corrupted powers, not carjackers and armed robbers. If they saw the world of weaponry today, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would interpret the second amendment to include grenade launchers and machine guns...because that is what the potential external threats (and possibly internal threats) have become.
You may believe the world has changed, but I still find it short sighted to go around disarming people. The count of people killed in genocides even in the last half of the 20th century is enough to dissuade me from putting my security solely in the hands of a government. And I say that as someone who generally hates America’s obsessive gun culture.
> The efficiency and power of modern weaponry far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of
Nonsense.
The Constitution includes provisions for hiring privateers to acts as an adjunct to the nation's navy. There were businessmen who owned ships bristling with cannon floating in Boston harbor - they didn't try to limit that, they made sure they could hire them to go blow stuff up if they felt the need.
This argument is so old. I’d guess you’ve never been trained to or handled a firearm. I suggest you learn about it and understand that it’s a tool like any other. “But it’s primary purpose is to kill!!!” Sure, and the primary purpose of alcohol is not to kill people, yet it causes as many deaths per year as gun-homicide.
I understand, you don’t like guns, and that’s ok, nobody’s forcing you to acquire or use one, but taking away that option for law-abiding Folks doesn’t make any of us safer.
The efficiency and power of modern speech far surpasses what the Founding Fathers could dream of, it's hard to fault them for not foreseeing the advancements in speech technology long after their deaths.
See why it's not a good idea to go down that road?
I looked up a couple of these and it seems like a normal jacket with hidden pockets for bullet proof plates of armor to go over your vital organs. In retrospect, I guess that is the only way they could do it - but something about the article had me imagining something higher tech, like somehow the fabric was tougher or durable enough to stop bullets. My imagination was the bullet proof spray from Richie Rich, but the reality seems closer to wearing a bulletproof vest under your coat.
My flak with Level IV SAPI plates was like 35 pounds, that was just for the armor and nylon, and it was roughly tank top shaped. God only knows what something jacket-sized would weigh if it were lined in ballistic ceramic plates.
The thought of international VIP types trudging around like a big ol' bulletproof Harrison Bergeron is actually kind of funny now that I think more about it.
I browsed one of the listings the level 3 stuff to stop small caliber hand gun bullets is listed as 4kg or about 9 lbs. probably similar to wearing a military style vest with the plates removed.
In the UK about ten years ago there was a rash of news reports about children being sent to schools in tough neighbourhoods wearing stab-proof clothing. It was never clear whether it was commonplace or just marketing from a startup.
I haven’t seen anything since then in the media but the startup from the time appears to have grown their product range significantly. (I won’t name them but a quick google will find a few outlets).
I'm honestly still baffled by how the concept of "freedom" got conflated with gun ownership in the US.
Personally I prefer the freedom of not having to be worried about being shot by any disgruntled imbecile who takes advantage of his "right" to a gun.
I would really appreciate an explanation of this. Right now it seams like just a fantastic marketing/brainwashing strategy by the NRA but I would love to hear a well explained argument for this.
Have you read a bunch of literature online about these topics?
I feel like there are many, many, pro-second amendment groups, not just the NRA, and perhaps that could shed a little light on it.
I'm willing to bet there are many reasons.
Off the top of my head:
- An organism has the basic instinct and right of self preservation. Police generally focus catching criminals after they've committed a crime. So if you want the freedom to protect your basic right to survive and defend yourself, a gun equalizes your chances with potential attackers. You don't have to be young and strong, just well versed in using the weapon and in possession of it.
- The ability of the population to make things difficult for the government to institute total martial law is a basic check on wholesale removal of civil rights or due process. People seem to think militias in the mountains of Kentucky would be completely ineffectual in this regard but fail to notice how the Taliban has been very effective for decades in Afghanistan.
Etc.
This really isn't a topic that I am expert in but there has to be more reasons if you look for them.
> An organism has the basic instinct and right of self preservation.
If you want to ensure self preservation, take steps to create an environment where the likelihood of survival is higher not lower. All the reliable evidence that I've seen points to higher gun ownership correlating strongly with higher murder and suicide rates and to the USA being an outlier in terms of violent crime as compared to other developed countries.
> Police generally focus catching criminals after they've committed a crime.
Well where that's true (and having lived in several countries, its not true everywhere) that's certainly a failing in law enforcement.
> a gun equalizes your chances with potential attackers.
This is extremely doubtful. Attackers generally attack in groups. They typically have planned their attack whilst you're taken by surprise. Also criminals are generally better versed in violence than the typical citizen. Pulling out your gun is often likely to turn a robbery into robbery and murder.
> The ability of the population to make things difficult for the government to institute total martial law is a basic check on wholesale removal of civil rights or due process.
This is the most ludicrous of all the gun lobby arguments. Seriously, you're planning on subverting the US government with your collection of handguns? The same government that spends more than 500 Billion on military expenditure/year?
> People seem to think militias in the mountains of Kentucky would be completely ineffectual in this regard but fail to notice how the Taliban has been very effective for decades in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a failed state. The Taliban are likely funded by a lot of well heeled supporters included their partners in the Heroine trade.
I feel like your initial comment was in bad faith.
You've shifted from "I don't understand the argument."
to
"I don't agree with the argument."
These are two very different things, and I would have responded very differently if you had written the latter. More precisely I wouldn't have responded at all. There are lots of topics where my personal opinions are one thing, but I do understand people's rationale for believing something very different.
And most importantly, for my peace of mind, I try to maintain the humility to realize that just because I came to a conclusion doesn't mean I am a priori correct. I am not necessarily smarter or more well informed than the people with whom I disagree, so I maintain skepticism about how substantive my opinion is.
YMMV but this general concept keeps me mellower and happier than imagining I am somehow on the right side of every issue.
Sorry, I realize I was heavy handed in my reply and I've edited it slightly.
I feel I should rephrase - I personally believe the arguments as stated are largely tools of propaganda by pro-gun lobbies and it baffles me that this isn't obvious. (And again I'd be eager to see evidence that this is not the case and there is justification for conflating freedom with gun ownership).
I appreciate you taking the time to engage in this discussion.
> This is the most ludicrous of all the gun lobby arguments. Seriously, you're planning on subverting the US government with your collection of handguns?
You’re missing a key piece here. The local law enforcement would be tasked with going house to house to collect guns. And none of them would be on board with getting shot by citizens defending their rights.
And again, what red blooded American soldier, commander, general is going to follow that order? There is a method to this madness. Is it ideal? Nope, but it works for us.
Freedom is always about increased risk (and increased potential reward). Freedom "of not having to be worried" is by definition an oxymoron, regardless of whether you're talking about gun control, healthcare or other issues.
It's OK to want less freedom, every thing is good in balance. Just don't be confused by what this word means.
Personally, I find this philosophically hard to reconcile.
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