Gun control is the elephant in this particular room. A cop who isn't expecting his next public contact to shoot him is not going to pull a gun when he walks into the room, much less shoot first.

Let's start with the assumption it is impossible to alter the constitution to remove or severely cripple the second amendment, which, I think, is a reasonable assumption.

How, specifically, would you define "gun control"?

How, specifically, would you define "gun control"?

We throw this terms around but nobody bothers to define it. What exactly does "Gun control is the elephant in this particular room." mean?

Again, I ask, how, specifically, would you define "gun control"?

I am not refuting anything you are saying. I am simply asking a question.

Quoting from Wikipedia, "Gun control generally refers to laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms." This is general agreement with how others use.

For example, this more policy-oriented survey of small gun laws in different countries ( http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/201... ) breaks the regulations down into:

> "how states regulate the firearm ... what types of firearms civilians may be authorized to possess and which states keep centralized records of firearms in civilian hands", "how states regulate the civilian user, including the criteria used to determine eligibility to possess a firearm, how the licensing process works, and whether states permit private sales of firearms", and "how states regulate the use of civilian firearms, including the extent to which states require a reason to possess a firearm and the conditions that apply to firearm ownership."

I see nothing particularly ambiguous in how the term is used for you to call for a need for the us, the hoi polloi, to help you understand it better.

Gun control laws fall on a spectrum. Typically people say "we need more gun control" to mean that the laws should be more restrictive on what is allowed, while "we need less gun control" means the laws should less restrictive.

Wikipedia explains the phrase "elephant in the room" well:

> The term refers to a question, problem, solution, or controversial issue which is obvious to everyone who knows about the situation, but which is deliberately ignored because to do otherwise would cause great embarrassment, or trigger arguments or is simply taboo. The idiom can imply a value judgment that the issue ought to be discussed openly, or it can simply be an acknowledgment that the issue is there and not going to go away by itself.

> The term is often used to describe an issue that involves a social taboo, such as race, religion, or even suicide. This idiomatic phrase is applicable when a subject is emotionally charged; and the people who might have spoken up decide that it is probably best avoided.[8]

The phrase "Gun control is the elephant in this particular room" refers to the top-comment's list of "tangentially relevant facts". One inference is that the stricter gun control laws of Germany mean that fewer people have guns, so police are less likely to use methods which presume the civilians are both armed and likely to response with a gunfight.

However, saying that directly brings in well-worn nearly deadlocked arguments about changes to gun control laws, Second Amendment, etc. Hence, the top-comment's indirect reference, which avoids discussing gun laws by talking about possible effects - hence, the topic of gun control is "the elephant in the room" that is being avoided, for reasons Wikipedia illuminated.

Note that "I am simply asking a question." is often used by people who are derisively said to be "JAQing off". In order to avoid that accusation, I suggest you do some research first, rather than ask Wikipedia-level questions. You say that people do not define it; what is wrong with the definition from Wikipedia? Is it incompatible with how most people use the term?

Well, I am flattered to have a loyal follower! :)

I've already admitted guilt. Note that my comment about political discussion not belonging on HN got down-voted with some passion. The conclusion being: I am wrong. People want these discussions on HN. And so, here we are. Who am I to argue with that?

By "sucked into a political discussion" I think I mostly mean getting sucked into the kind of pointless back and forth that can happen when one (me included) resorts to attacking an idea rather than discussing it. When I do that I find I am never happy with the results. It has nothing to do with the childish idea of winning an argument but rather the concept of going about exploring something using exactly the wrong approach. I am personally going to try to change my approach when participating in these kinds discussions on HN.

Going back to the question I asked. No, this isn't about JAQ-ing off. This is about asking someone what they mean when they use the term.

And no, this isn't about a Wikipedia or dictionary definition either. And it certainly isn't about what the definition of the term might be in Germany or anywhere else.

Unless that is what the person using the term meant.

I feel that lots of people use the term "gun control" out of frustration. Why? Because when asked what exactly they --that person, not Wikipedia-- means by "gun control" they have a hard time answering the question.

And the context has to be right. If I am working with a friend in the garage and, in the course of our banter, I say something like "hey, asshole, hand me a 1/2 inch socket", what did I mean? Am I insulting him or is it actually a friendly jab? Should someone ask, giving them a link to the Wikipedia definition of "asshole" would not answer the question.

I am not attacking you or putting down your answer. I am simply pointing out that I was not looking for a universal definition of the terms but rather for what someone means when they use it.

Do they mean "disarm the entire population", "disarm all criminals", "disarm the mentally unstable", "institute severe penalties for doing X, Y or Z with guns", or something else?

So, again, I don't know what this person meant with "Gun control is the elephant in this particular room". In the next sentence they are talking about cops not having to worry about people shooting them. He says: "A cop who isn't expecting his next public contact to shoot him".

That, to me, implies that, to this person, "gun control" might mean something approaching total disarmament of the population, criminals included.

What else could it mean to the person using the term? How does the elephant in the room, gun control, if addressed, create a situation where a cop will never be worried about someone shooting them? What form would addressing the elephant in the room take? Again, to the person using the term. I don't want to make any assumptions or use the dictionary because that is not likely what they meant.

That's why I asked for a clarification of "gun control". Another way to put it might be:

In your opinion, what form would gun control have to take in order to provide cops with the assurance that they will not be shot the next time they have contact with civilians?

I hope that clarifies what I am asking. I am not challenging anyone, I simply want to understand how this person (or anyone else for that matter) thinks of gun control in the context of the problem he posed.

I think the question is simple. The answer, likely not.

EDIT: To clarify further. "What do you mean by gun control?" means "How would you propose to implement gun control in order for the scenario you are painting to become reality (cops not afraid of getting shot when making contact with civilians)?".

Perhaps that clarifies why me looking up the Wikipedia definition would be pointless. I want to understand what this man is thinking would create that reality.

Thanks for you input.

"Gun control", in a policy sense that you want, where people define their terms, does not mean that. I gave you two sources with similar definitions. It means simply the laws related to the the production, sale, ownership, use, etc. of a gun and its ancillary components.

If your example regulations were in place, they would be considered part of gun control. Even if they are not in place, there can still be gun control.

The question I think you want to ask is "what gun controls do you want"? Not "what is gun control."

For purposes of this discussion, define "gun control" as having policies which are essentially identical to those of (your preference) Australia, or Sweden, or Japan.

I think that's as simple and unambiguous as you are going to get, and will satisfy most people interested in stricter laws.

> In the next sentence they are talking about cops not having to worry about people shooting them

That comment is a continuation of the thread, which started with statistics of the number of civilians killed by police officers.

> That, to me, implies that, to this person, "gun control" might mean something approaching total disarmament of the population, criminals included.

Again, "gun control" here is a synecdoche to mean "stricter gun control." Countries with strict gun controls, like Australia and Sweden, have a lot of private gun ownership, for hunting and target shooting. So no, it doesn't necessarily mean 'total disarmament of the population'.

Here's a hypothetical that might help understand the difference. Suppose hunting rifles are allowed, but hand guns are not. It's pretty hard to conceal a rifle as you go around town, especially since the law requires that it be locked up in a case when in transit, or stored in the house.

This means it's less likely that a petty thief will be carrying a gun to commit a crime. This means it's less likely that a drug dealer will be carrying a gun as protection against potential thieves.

In general, many police reports which involve the forceful police attack on what turns out to be the wrong person are justified because of the likelihood that the actual criminal is likely to have a gun, and may respond with a gunfight. For example, SWAT teams are often called out for low-level drug dealers. The assumption is that a dealer is likely to be armed. The team is figuratively armed for bear; expecting the worst possible case. Sometimes they end up killing or seriously injuring innocent people, including by forceful entry of the wrong house.

If years of SWAT team calls were go out, where no one ever has a gun, then it will be increasingly hard to justify the expense of a SWAT team and the deaths that sometimes occur when in a hair-trigger mode.

That was the statistics that the OP was referring to. That was the gun control style that the earlier poster was referring to. Very few seriously propose a 'total disarmament of the population', and if you had researched the topic you would have quickly learned that.

No, that IS the question I, in fact, asked. I did not ask "what is gun control?". Actually, what I asked is a bit more subtle than "what gun controls do you want?". This is what I asked, quoting:

"How, specifically, would you define "gun control"?"

Here, "would you define" is a very precise modifier. And the context, perhaps lost, was that the OP implied "gun control" was the "elephant in the room" when it came to police interacting with civilians.

That's a bit different from "what gun controls do you want?" but definitely NOT "what is gun control". If you think that's what I asked you misread my question.

Please don't try to push me into a corner with "if you had researched the topic". I actually know the topic very well. Here I am trying to understand what someone else thinks gun control has to be, their opinion or ideas, not the "book" definition. I know that latter very well, I care to learn the former.

Not sure how else to ask this. I thought I was clear. So, I'll try again, for the last time and then I'll unilaterally drop my attempt to understand.

What would you --not wikipedia, the dictionary or politicians-- you (or the person I originally asked) suggest would be the approach to gun control legislation that would allow police officers to not worry about whether or not civilians are armed when approaching them?

I will repeat, because this medium sucks at conveying emotion, I am not critical of anything you have said nor am I challenging anything anyone has said.

I am simply looking for someone to perhaps put up a five to ten bullet-point list delineating what form of "gun control" they think would provide a solution for the stated scenario, one where a cop is concerned about a citizen being armed when approaching them. What set of rules would constitute this version of "gun control" that would produce that reality?

BTW, I don't have an answer for that. Then again, I did not propose "gun control" was the elephant in that room.

To clarify further, I am not for or against guns. I am completely neutral about them. I am simply trying to learn because, frankly, I don't know what the solution might be or if we actually need one.

I gave one: implement national laws and policies equivalent to what's in Australia, Sweden, or Japan; wait the few years for use/presence of guns to go down; observe that the justifications for the stark use of police force have gone down; no longer permit those justifications.

To be clear, this is what I think of when I say "Australian-style gun control":

    - Same laws across all states
    - Photo permit required
    - Must justify need and "self defense" isn't a valid reason
    - Denial due to mental conditions (and more)
    - Must apply for permit to buy each weapon; 30 day wait to get it
    - Ban on most long firearms, semi-auto's included
    - Buy back program
    - Ban on import and manufacture of banned weapons and accessories
    - There's more but I think that's the basics

Their buyback program took out about 20% of civilian firearms (law-abiding citizens, I presume). In the case of the US, if we could pass such laws and achieve equivalent results, this would mean we'd have about 240 million guns in the hands of civilians rather than 300 million. Again, I presume this will exclude criminals, I think it is fair to say they, by definition, do not abide by our laws.

Let me propose we do a much better job than Australia and eliminate about 33% of guns. Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, then would go down from 300 million to 200 million.

How much of an effect would you say this would have on gun violence in the US?

Would people, cops included, be able to feel safer anywhere they go kn the knowledge that there are only 200 million guns out there?

Do you think the mentally unstable will participate in the voluntary buy back program? If so, to what degree?

None of this addressed guns in the hands of criminals, gangs or those who own guns legitimately yet might be on the "edge", psychologically speaking. How will we deal with that problem?

When it comes to these issues it is all too easy to find data on pro and anti-gun sites to support any conclusion. I opted to go to the source and grab Australian government data here:

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/vicViolentCol.html

It's a neat little tool. You can click on the various categories to enable/disable their display. This is what I conclude from quickly looking at this:

    - Homicide (all types) has remained pretty much flat before 
      and after the gun ban
    - I'll call it 300 victims per year
    - Armed robberies rose (doubled!) after the gun ban and, over 
      about 15 years, came down to slightly above pre-ban levels
    - I'll call it at, say, 6,000 incidents per year

http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/weapon.html

Quoting from that page:

"There has been a pronounced change in the type of weapons used in homicide since monitoring began. Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims."

I interpret this as meaning that access to guns might not deter those who, for whatever reason, want to kill. Of course, mass murders are far more difficult with knifes or sharp objects. Yet, I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people murdered are not killed in mass murders.

What are the roughly equivalent US stats today? Homicides, about 15,000/year; Robberies, about 400,000 per year.

That's a huge difference. In Australia the pre and post ban homicide rate was about the same. Robberies went up for several years and then settled close to the pre-ban rates.

The difference in population alone (we have about 13x more people) can't account for these numbers. I think the conclusion is that our crime rate is far greater as a percentage of population.

Might THAT be the actual "elephant in the room"?

If we enacted Australian-style gun control and, over time, achieved similar results the conclusion, I think, might be that fifteen years later we will still have about 15K homicides per year.

I think the homicide problem is a distributed problem. What I mean by that is: Mass murders are, thankfully, a very small percentage (about 1%) of the total homicides in the US. All lives do matter, of course, but, since we are talking about the elephants in the room, I think numbers show very clearly that mass murders don't qualify. Yes, they are dramatic, particularly when TV stations focus on them and hit you with the horror ad-nauseum over days. Yet, when you look at the numbers they are --and I feel HORRIBLE saying this-- a rounding error. In other words, I think we have a FAR greater problem elsewhere.

Do you think that, in the US, gun control alone would really cut down on the MASSIVE homicide rate we have?

This document, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is very interesting (link starts at page 27):

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=27

My conclusion is that we have a real problem with violent young adults killing young adults. If we look at our crime rate being higher as the "elephant in the room", I wonder if we can conclude that young people with guns are a massive part of the problem.

And so I come full circle to "what do you mean by gun control?" and, perhaps, I can answer my own question.

I don't think Australian-type gun legislation will work in the US. The second amendment is nearly impossible to bypass. Let's get that out of the way first because proposing anything that would require altering the US constitution simply isn't sensible. If people are not moved to push for changes to the US constitution in the face of 15K homicides per year, well, I just don't think it will happen.

Not being a lawyer I could be completely off base here. My view is that it might help to setup a situation where you'd have to be, say, 30 years old, with a clean record and perhaps other requirements (not sure what is legally plausible) before you can own a gun. The constitution doesn't say WHEN you can own a gun. Meaning, at what age. Perhaps that's the loophole we need to investigate. It says you have the right to own arms yet it doesn't stipulate at what age. To me that is the opening we need to drive a truck through.

I don't personally have a problem with responsible older folks owning guns. Young folks, particularly those prone to crime, are too full of testosterone and stupidity to own a device that can be used to kill a dozen people from a lawn chair.

With this has to come a very hard-line approach to criminals with guns. I mean, a "shock and awe" kind of approach. Criminals, again, by definition, don't care about any laws we pass. You will still have 15 year old gang members with guns so long as a law is nothing more than words on a piece of paper. I can't suggest what form "shock and awe" should have but it has to be something strong enough to deter criminals from even thinking about using almost any weapon. This might be absolutely stupid, but perhaps something like a minimum of 30 years in prison for committing a crime with a gun or a knife/sharp object. Throw in another 30 years in prison for the possession of a firearm without a permit.

Then there's education. I'd rater spend $50K a year educating kids than throwing them in prison. Education is key.

It isn't a simple problem. Not at all. I find it hard to compare the US with other countries because culturally and legislatively we are very different. Our solutions will have to be uniquely American in ways I am not sure I can describe yet. What I can say is that we really need to get away from a shock-based approach to this and truly dive down into the data. Mass shootings of the kind that happened at schools and church are a rounding error in our crime statistics. We need to address the real problems because, obviously, we have them.

BTW, to add some levity, I fully agree with this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZIOE6aMBk

I don't care.

You said people didn't give details. I gave you precise details.

You limited the topic to gun control. Now with "I'd rater spend $50K a year educating kids" you broaden the topic. This shows you didn't actually care about the original question. If you want to broaden the topic, well, I live in Sweden. I think many aspects of Nordic social policies should be copied in the US, including gun control laws, parental leave, education, day care, social support, and prison rehabilitation. But you didn't ask about those.

Look at all the questions you asked that were irrelevant to your original question, and show that you were constructing a leading question so you could then followup with a barrage of additional questions.

Typical JAQ'ing off behavior.

And the responses you could get are well-worn, boring to repeat, and covered by many others in great detail. Research it for yourself.

In regards JAQing off behavior, the related term "sealioning" is relevant. Quoting from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions :

> Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation ... The questions themselves, when done properly, are normally polite - just an irrelevant distraction.

You can see that "nothing short of respectful" is therefore expected behavior for someone who is "just asking questions".

You'll also note the caution:

> A particularly toxic thing about sealioning is that people who are genuine newbies asking serious questions are easy to mistake for sealions.

Based on your comment history you do not seem to be a "genuine newbie." I of course may be wrong, in which case my apologies. If that is the case, you may wish to investigate this rhetorical style in order to avoid structuring your investigatory question in a similar fashion, to avoid having others in the future respond with similar knee-jerk reactions.

However, note that earlier in this thread you said:

> "To clarify further, I am not for or against guns. I am completely neutral about them."

while 74 days ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956552 , you wrote:

> This is (some of) what I want for humanity: ...

> - No guns

which appears to mean that you are, actually, against guns.

As you said then, "Each one of those line items could be a months-long discussion as to the merits, or lack thereof, of the idea", so you must realize that the questions you ask now fundamentally cannot be addressed to your satisfaction on HN.

Which further strengthens my belief that you were not asking these questions here in good faith.

Second, you picked that completely out of context, yet there's nothing wrong with wishing humanity didn't have guns or wars. It's utopia. Outside utopia, in the real world, I am neutral. I enjoy target and skeet shooting with my kids and friends, that's about the extent of it. I don't care about personal protection. Don't need guns for that.

Third, you must be young. I learned the Socratic Method when I was in high school decades ago. It's a productive and non-confrontational way to engage in conversations where we can both discover our positions and, perhaps, but not necessarily, guide each other towards conclusions. I've had many amazing discoveries in my life through this approach. And, no, I am not always correct.

Anyhow, I wanted to have a genuine conversation with you and the original person to whom I asked that simple question. Instead it turned into a lot of wasted effort. It would have been far simpler to answer (or ignore) the simple question and engage (or not) in an exploration of ideas, which can be very enjoyable.

BTW, I own several companies. We engage in this kind of exploration every day in order to discover flaws or new ideas in the various projects we undertake. It is a really productive way to explore corners of thinking or areas previously not well understood.

Another method is the "five why's". I haven't really used it much so I can't comment.

JAQ-ing off, sealioning,..., please.

That's a pretty steep assumption for a subject of this lethality, especially about something that's called an "amendment".

A US police officer who doesn't assume a public contact might result in a lethal threat from a gun or edged weapon is an idiot.

People who break one law will still obey countless others. It's also totally reasonable to think that someone who engaged in some kind of petty larceny would readily obey gun-restriction laws--why wouldn't they?

This whole "gun control won't work because criminals ignore laws" thing always struck me as a nasty piece of nonsequitor logic and identity politics, a way to "other" a group of people (i.e. more people who live in some counterculture way than people who have actually broken some law) as wild or deranged Hollywood-esque marauders, or a way to invent a bogeyman threat that only guns (in the hands of the so-called "good guys") can stop.

Someone who uses a gun illegally today, will use one when they're illegal. At best making guns illegal would stop some domestic murders, but that would have to be weighed against a massive number of people going to jail for not obeying, country wide stop and frisk, and New Orleans style door to door SWAT raids to confiscate.

Did that happen to Australia? I see no evidence for it.

If not, why don't we use the same mandatory buy-back approach that Australia did?

Also if you look at the gun murder trend line in Australia it doesn't appear to change after the gun confiscation. Gun murders were on the decline and continued on the same pace.

I don't know where you got your 200K number. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/16/opinion/australia-gun-laws... says:

> In two nationwide, federally funded gun buybacks, plus large-scale voluntary surrenders and state gun amnesties both before and after Port Arthur, Australia collected and destroyed more than a million firearms, perhaps one-third of the national stock. No other nation had attempted anything on this scale.

I confirmed this at http://loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/australia.php , which says the 1996 buyback collected "More than 640,000 prohibited firearms", and "there were about 3.25 million guns in Australia prior to the 1996–1997 buyback program". The 2003 buyback "resulted in about 70,000 handguns" being collected. I don't know where the CNN' "more than a million firearms" comes from, but the numbers I found are still 3x what you give.

It's also mostly meaningless to compare Australia's "200K guns out of circulation" to a total US ownership of 300M guns. Those are two different statistics. It's more appropriate to compare the 3 million guns from a then-population of 18 million, to the US ownership; Australia had about 1/6th the per capita gun numbers than the US currently has.

As for door to door raids and stop and frisk, that's the only way to get guns out of american hands. How do we know this? Because many cities and states have had draconian gun laws in the past. There have been buy back programs by the dozens. None of them worked. Just life France and much of Europe, guns are easy to get in restricted jurisdictions.

And why would you think telling people they have to turn in their guns will work? They won't even register them when required by law.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/new-york-gun-registration-law/2015...

I asked why Australia didn't have the horrors that you predict would happen should Australian-like gun control laws be put into place in the US.

Your only answer seems to be that the US has too many guns, so therefore can't change. (Which sounds like a bank which is "too big to fail", so we have to keep feeding it taxpayer money.)

> that's the only way to get guns out of american hands

That's irrelevant. As I demonstrated, only about 1/3 of the guns got out of Australian hands. Why would anyone think those same laws would get 100% of the gun out of American hands?

merpnderp made the claim that making guns illegal would end up with a "massive number of people going to jail for not obeying, country wide stop and frisk, and New Orleans style door to door SWAT raids to confiscate."

Guns are illegal in Australia, though certainly many guns remain. (Hunting and other guns remain.)

Australia did not end up with a "massive number of people going to jail for not obeying", etc.

Therefore, it's possible to make guns be illegal, in the way Australia has, and not end up with the consequences that merpnderp predicts must necessarily be the case.

Therefore merpnderp's claims are not believable.

Plus the law at all levels, as well as pretty much everyone but I suppose the criminal class, supports making it illegal for a "violent, law-breaking gang member" to possess a firearm if he's been convicted of a violent felony (well, any felony, but we all agree about the violent ones).

During prohibition, it was much harder (and more expensive) to get beer (or liquor), and more liquor than beer was consumed at a considerably higher price. One outcome was significantly lower alcohol consumption and all that that means (lower deaths by cirrhosis, lower city drunkenness arrests).

If we take prohibition as an analogy, then sure, a dedicated criminal will still be able to get guns. However, a casual street-level criminal is going to have to work harder to get them because they're no longer available in the mall or from the pawn shop, and he's going to have to pay ten times as much to get one from Benny in the pool hall. That'll significantly reduce the number of guns out there, and that is what creates the environment and the expectation that results in cops shooting civilians.

Almost every appellate court below does in some capacity.

As does the original text of the Second Amendment (as you said.)

But again, how are you going to stop violent gang members from getting firearms without infringing on the law abiding?

Why not focus on the problem: rehabilitating the violent individuals + improving mental health, instead of hoplophobic, knee-jerk legislation.

Hasn't and won't in the foreseeable future come up for 5-6th, 8th, and 10-11th circuits. So with the score currently 1-4 at the appellate level and 0-4 with the Supremes, I don't find the Federal legal situation at all encouraging, since there's no state that forbids all unloaded movements of guns, I don't see much wiggle room for your "in some capacity".

I can go to one of those countries with strong gun control right now and turn a formidable firearm if you like - do they need better mill control?

So if you do lock your house doors when you go out, you're implicitly agreeing that you do this to make it more difficult for someone to get inside your house, reducing the likelihood of theft.

Same thing with guns.

So America has zero house burglary?

Parent claims guns shouldn't be restricted since someone can make one on a lathe if they cannot buy one at a store.

Meanwhile parent almost certainly locks their house doors despite a thief with crowbar being able to bypass their lock.

Therefore, the parent's reasoning that gun control won't work because a criminal can mill their own gun is not logically sound.

I'm going to go out on a limb and claim murders are not an opportunistic crime. People are not killing because they can and can get away with it. The comparison you are trying to make dies there because the type of crime is not comparable.

Since someone can physically go and mill a gun, should that be the reason not to enact gun control? Seems like a ridiculous reason to me, but apparently is a core bit of logic for the gun crowd.

I don't dispute that some people may own illegal firearms, but its by no means an endemic problem. Somebody getting shot in the UK is guaranteed to make the news. Just the presence of a criminal with a gun will interrupt live news channels, that's how rare it is.

While I don't doubt that the knowledge of who to talk to and where to go to get a gun is present in certain UK communities, the basic fact that everybody involved in procuring, handling and importing guns is committing a criminal act certainly acts as a pretty solid prevention mechanism to stop, say, an angry 20-something man from acquiring sufficient guns and ammo to go on a shooting rampage at a college.

Germany: 83

California: 17

Murders per capita:

Germany: 1/124,000

California: 1/23,000

So California's murder rate is 5.4x Germany's, and its death by cop per murder rate is 4.9x Germany's.

Is it just me, or wouldn't you expect the death by cop rate to be more than a linear function of the murder rate... perhaps even a polynomial function?

A difference in murder rate of x does not necessarily mean a difference in levels of violence/danger of x.

There's also a large political faction who believe that a private right to kill people is important and inherent in gun ownership.

"private right to kill people" - hah. I assume you value the lives of criminals more than the law-abiding.

If you burglarize my home, attack me, or otherwise commit felonious acts on my property, my person, I have the right to stop that threat. You do not believe that people should have the right to protect themselves?

We have a legal system that determines innocence or guilt. Before that systems assigns one or the other, they are alleged criminals.

We, a civilized people, do not punish alleged criminals, because they are, by definition, not guilty of a crime.

Which, I should point out, isn't punishment. Which 15155 never said we could do, he only talked about what you can do in felonious acts, defend yourself, and about a value system that puts criminals above the law-abiding.

Not even alleged criminals; the right to self-defense usually requires that the threat comes from someone without a legal privilege for the act, but the requirements for actual criminality (particular mens rea) are not necessarily required to trigger the right to use force in self-defense, even lethal force.

And this makes sense: the right to self-defense is not about the criminal culpability of the one against whom violence is permitted, its about a limit on the criminal culpability of the user of violence.

Now, one can argue that in some jurisdictions the details of the rules on self-defense are drawn overly broadly, or that they are applied selectively and in a discriminatory manner. But I don't think the general principal that people will not be held criminally accountable for use of force reasonably scaled to deal with an imminent threat which had no legal privilege to be made, independently of whether the one making the threat met the legal standards for criminal culpability in so doing, should be even slightly controversial.

As long as once the threshold of lethal force is reached, all lethal force in reply until the threat is over is legitimate.

Midway through it's now almost total ban on guns the U.K. made self-defense with more force than being used on you illegal, first in the courts in the '50s and then by law in the '60s. Outlawing effective self-defense then makes it that much easier to outlaw guns altogether.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q589.htm

> The only fully legal self defence product at the moment is a rape alarm.

This is the sad state that the UK is in at the moment.

If a violent aggressor who is shot happens to survive, the court can decide their fate later, but that's completely separate from the right to self defense.

This is the law that we, a civilized society, live by. If you don't like it, there are countries (UK!) where self-defense is almost entirely illegal - they may be more fitting.

Furthermore, we decree the right to self-defense as a _natural_ right, not one that could be potentially amended away.

If you need guns, call the police.

No thanks. Try to take my right of effective self-defense away (as the U.K. started doing in the '50s) and you won't like the consequences.

I'll take my much safer area plus my immediate means to self defense over your constables that are a hour out.

Violent crime in UK is much lower than in US. UK crime statistics are more robust than US crime stats.

In particular: The US uses a different definition of violent crime. The US doesn't bother to include a bunch of crime that the UK does include.

United Kingdom: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-s...

“Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.” (THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1.)

United States: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/c...

“In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.” (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

In the UK a push that results in no physical harm could be counted as a violent crime. That same push, resulting in the same lack of physical harm, would not be counted as a violent crime in the US.

> your constables that are a hour out.

That's weirdly wrong too.

If I need guns, I'll use the one on my hip.

You know, the one that the Supreme Court of the United States of America asserted that I have a right to keep.

History has shown repeatedly that humans are prone to emotional responses. And people that were otherwise law abiding right until a moment of anger now have easy hip-level access to a 'thing' to act out their anger.

Take the case a couple years ago of the retired cop that shot a guy in the movie theatre during previews for throwing popcorn at him. (Guy called his baby sitter during previews, the retired cop yelled at him to be quiet, guy threw some popcorn back at the cop, retired cop shoots guy dead) If this retired cop, who was a law-abiding citizen his whole life and was professionally trained in firearm safety and usage couldn't control his anger during an argument about a guy using his cell phone, I don't see how the average American can be trusted.

And speaking of guns in movie theatres, there's the case of the guy who accidentally dropped his handgun under his seat during a kids movie and then left. Luckily the ushers found it and not a kid. Guy had the nerve to go back to the theatre and demand it back.

I don't see how the average American can be trusted to keep their gun safe.

Pearl clutchers have warned us of "blood in the streets!" and "Dodge City!" every time a state switched to shall issue licensing. Well, there are now 45 shall issue states, holding more than 2/3rd of the population, and its never happened, history does not show what you claim. Sure, there are occasional bad incidents (the VPC paper did find a few) ... but if in this HN topic you're going to claim police are the acme of responsible gun use, we're not living in the same reality.

This isn't a hypothetical and happened to me 15 years ago. I yelled I had a gun and would shoot him if he came through. He kicked a few more times then ran away.

The cops didn't show up for 17 more minutes.

His/her life matters, so you can't take it even if it means defending your own.

(Obviously sarcasm, but that's the thought process of these people)

One reason I bring this up is that a "duty to retreat" requirement manufactured by the Massachusetts courts was used to convict a man in the early '80s who wasn't willing to do that. There's a previous better known case were a woman was convicted because she didn't try to climb out of the high windows in her basement apartment.

Massachusetts is viciously anti-gun. Except, of course, towards the connected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_University_of_Alabama_in_...

(Can't wait to see the study cited that considers suicide a "risk to you and your wife's lives")

Just because you have an easy button for homicide doesn't mean it's called for in every hostile situation. Courts agree. Try killing someone for robbing your house.

There is no such thing as shooting to disable. You always aim for center of mass and if you do not feel threatened enough to shoot to kill then you shouldn't be shooting at all.

Now the caveat to this is if you shot an intruder and they're still alive, but now injured to the degree where you can safely disarm them and keep a gun drawn on them; current U.S law makes this a problem. You can get in legal trouble/sued by someone who broke into your home with a weapon intent on killing you, but only if they live.

This means not only are you shooting to kill - you're now dumping an entire magazine into the person to make sure they are dead.

E:

To the people who downvoted, how would you disarm an intruder with a gun? Ask them politely to put the weapon down? Run at them with a baseball bat (and risk getting shot)?

Or maybe shoot them in the arm or leg? Where major arteries are and the shot is still likely to be fatal and also has a higher chance of missing entirely.

Life isn't Call of Duty and shots to the legs/arm don't just "injure", they kill. So I'll repeat myself: there is no such thing as shooting to disarm or disable in real life. Only in fantasy first-person-shooter land.

In either case, their survival puts you in legal trouble under current law. You should be shooting to kill if you feel deadly force is justified. If your intent is not to kill, then deadly force was not justified.

Good luck aiming for a hand. I advise you go to a firing range and see how often you can hit the arm of a moving target without taking time to aim (remember: taking time to aim = you are now the one being shot). You'll have fractions of a second to get someone in your sights and take the shot.

It'll cost $30-40 to use a range, rent a gun, and buy ammunition for an hour. You'll leave with a more informed opinion of how operating a firearm works.

[0] https://www.pfoa.co.uk/110/shooting-to-wound

My post was in response to you making it sound like wounds to the extremities would be equally likely to kill as wounds to the center of mass, which is definitely not true.

And thanks, I've already got a range membership.

My point was you should never shoot to harm, only to kill. That means no hand shots. Period. Regardless of the chances of a fatally wounding shot.

My point - furthermore - was that it isn't a guaranteed "disabling" shot. It's still possible to kill. The thought of "shoot to disable" is a misinformed thought educated on nothing but Hollywood movies and video games.

Sorry, I don't care about a violent criminal's life enough to try and take a well-placed shot at a small, moving extremity.

No police officer would attempt this, either, if they're following their training.

Center-mass shots are more reliable, and more importantly, more reliable under stress (larger target).

"Patching up" my aggressor is the least of my concerns morally and legally.

In most jurisdictions this is completely legal under most circumstances. You can't always kill someone fleeing your just-robbed home (state-specific laws), though.

If someone breaks into your home with the intent to felony, in my state, yes, you can use lethal force to stop the threat or apprehend the alleged felon.

In terms of law, case law is critical here, to my knowledge only Texas allows that, after a verbal warning. And like e.g. Oklahoma, I expect judges to eventually nullify that.

Have you ever tried to apprehend a violent felon? They'll typically attack you, resulting in a case for traditional self-defense.