Schneier is talking about human reactions to tragic events e.g. Aurora, 9/11; and stating that we should use these events to discuss the wider issues surrounding such events, instead of focusing on the detail.

Of course jumping at conclusions is dumb. We do that all the time. It's human nature. Those down-voting my post are probably jumping at conclusions without even stopping to think for a moment.

All I am saying is that the media is too quick to place blame without looking at or presenting any supporting data.

Once you look at the real data --not made-up or massaged data-- it is very obvious where the problems lie. Civilian-grade "assault rifles" are far from being the issue. Knives are responsible for far more homicides.

The data also shows the tragedy that the media (both liberal and right wing) choose not to focus on: Hispanic and black young males are killing each other en-masse. Nobody focuses on this. The left doesn't want to offend potential voters and the right doesn't want to risk being labeled as racists.

Everyone wants to take Joe Blow's guns away when they spend most of their lives locked away in a safe. I have yet to see a politician take on the real problem we have in inner cities with thousands-upon-thousands of kids killing each other. Want to focus on a problem, that's the problem.

The theater massacre was a horrific event. Very sad. Twelve people died. According to FBI data ONE THOUSAND TIMES MORE PEOPLE where murdered in 2010. Nearly 13,000 people. Where is the righteous indignation there? Where is the "thinking about the broader issues"?

The broader issues are political and societal. Guns have very little to do with it.

You can't kill people using a gun if you don't have a gun. If it isn't guns that is the problem, then what is it? Something in the water? The air? Genetic? Americans just love killing each other and would happily do it with their hands or knives or cars or pillows or whatever if they couldn't legally buy guns? Maybe, but what does that say about American society? I don't think there's much wrong with society apart from your interpretation of your constitutional rights.

This guy who everyone on the left and right labelled a coward is such a coward but would have crossed the border to illegally buy a gun from (presumably) some drug-cartel gangsters and committed the crime anyway if he couldn't easily buy it legally over the internet? I don't buy it.

Guns have everything to do with it. Assault rifles have everything to do with it. He wouldn't be able to kill and maim that many people using a six shooter or a knife or a truck. End of story.

And the guy is crazy. How is that a political or societal issue? Something unique about America made him crazy? America has a higher percentage of crazy people? Again, no one believes that. There are crazy people everywhere and in all countries yet we don't see crazy people in other countries that aren't currently in civil war killing each other at this scale all the time.

You can't stop crazy people but you can at least try to limit the damage.

I live in South Africa. We have notoriously porous borders. Most of the rest of africa is flooded with assault rifles and other illegal weapons, so if you want to get a gun illegally it should be easy. Legal gun sales, gun licenses, etc are tightly regulated not unlike Australia. Whatever political or societal or cultural problem you can point out in America, we have that too. Probably worse. Yet we don't have these massacres. We have a high crime rate, yes, but we don't have this sort of thing.

You say we're jumping to conclusions, fine. What other realistic interpretation do have to offer? How do you propose America deals with the "black or hispanic inner city" problem? Make laws to take away their guns, but allow the rural whites to keep theirs? Good luck with that. I suppose you would argue that those black and hispanic youths have illegal weapons. Fine. Maybe. But where would you even find illegal weapons if there are hardly any unaccounted for legal ones to begin with?

Your homicide rate is 7 times ours.

>Legal gun sales, gun licenses, etc are tightly regulated not unlike Australia.

Yet you have 7 times the murder rate.

>If it isn't guns that is the problem, then what is it?

Obviously it's not the guns. America has 7 times the guns (per capita), but 7 times less murders (per capita).

Going by your example there is an inverse linear relationship between guns ownership and homicides.

>Maybe. But where would you even find illegal weapons if there are hardly any unaccounted for legal ones to begin with?

We have 300 million guns in America, they are nearly all unregistered. There is simply no way to remove them.

Furthermore if you tried to confiscate them, there are literally tens of thousands of heavily armed people just waiting for the government to try to take away their guns.

The death toll would dwarf any killings you could prevent.

If you banned all guns the black market price would skyrocket and many of those 300 million guns that are currently just sitting unused in basements would end up on the streets.

The only possible outcome is that after the initial carnage, chaos and insurrection, law abiding citizens give up their guns, while hundreds of millions of guns are still circulating in the hands of criminals.

Then once the violence stops, thousands of gun enthusiasts will start manufacturing more firearms. You cannot possibly understand how seriously many American's believe in our right to own firearms.

Discussing banning, or Australian style restrictions is a moot point--it cannot happen in the foreseeable future.

There are frequent stories of people being killed using their own guns. Guns just escalate situations and they aren't very helpful when your attackers have the initiative. I have been mugged by someone carrying a pistol and I am absolutely sure that the situation wouldn't have played out any different even if I could replay it 100 times and even if I had years of training and even if I carried my own concealed weapon: Walk home in the dark in a bad neighborhood, guy jumps out of nowhere and sticks a pistol in your face, you hand him your wallet that has no cash in it anyway, everyone walks away. Oh I suppose afterwards I could have shot him in the back (if he didn't find my hypothetical concealed weapon) and go to jail for the rest of my life. Yes I agree - it would play out exactly the same if he held a knife against my throat.

Historically, the impetus for gun control, and the turning point in the civil rights movement, can both be traced back to the awkward moment in history when American blacks came to this realization. Malcolm X and the founders of the Black Panthers were outspoken about the right to bear arms. Since then, largely by historical accident, the supposed "liberals" in America started caring about every civil right except for gun ownership, and the supposed "conservatives" started caring about guns. But make no mistake--the Second Amendment was, in the 18th, 20th, and 21st century alike, a radical liberal notion.

There would be violence if guns were confiscated. South Africa had nowhere near the guns, and you had nowhere near the gun culture if all of your countrymen allowed their guns to be taken without serious resistance.

I don't really care to get into a debate about the merits of owning a gun, I'm just trying to point out the * impossibility* in our current culture of banning firearms.

However, I will point out that it's not as clearcut as you say. The statistics for either side are hotly debated. For example the deterrent effect of criminals knowing that citizens are likely to be armed is very hard to quantify.

And yes if someone takes you by surprise a gun will be of little use, but being mugged is not the only way to be attacked. Thousands of homeowners have successfully defended themselves with firearms, and thousands of women have successfully defended themselves from sexual assaults with firearms.

(And South Africa as an example made up maybe 10% of my comment.)

That's the point--we don't either. The number of American's killed in mass shootings is statistically insignificant. You don't base public policy on a few dozen people killed per year.

There has to be some threshold before you start banning things. If for instance banning M rated video games would save 20 people per year should we do it?

If you want to talk about gun control a mass shooting that killed a dozen people is completely insignificant. No one would even bat an eyelash if 3 gangbangers killed 5 people each that same day.

What is it about American gun control in particular that causes Europeans/South Africans/Canadians/Australians to care so much about what goes on in another country?

If it were just about saving lives you should get much more upset about the smoking rate in china, or parts of europe for that matter.

For instance you won't find me insisting that Switzerland pass harsh anti-smoking laws because I think they should, regardless of what their citizens want, just because they have more smoking related deaths than we do.

>No one can argue against there being a correlation between number of guns and number of gun related crimes.

Actually there are plenty of examples of countries where that doesn't hold.

For example our gun ownership is much higher than any country in the top 20 for intentional homicides.

And Canada, Switzerland, France, Sweden and Norway have a very large amount of guns, but very low homicide rates.

Should Canada get rid of their guns as well? They have half the guns, but far less than half the murders. If guns were causing homicides what explains all of these anomalies?

In fact from comparing the wikipedia list of countries by intentional homicide rate to countries by gun ownership, I can see no obvious correlation between the two.

I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns. America is a large market for guns, which cause them to be developed and manufactured, which makes guns available and cheap. If America stopped buying guns many (most?) arms manufacturers would probably go away. Countries like America, Russia and China sell or give these guns to "problem" countries which are often our neighbors and then the guns are in the system and coming across the border (and no we don't think that us arming ourselves in turn is a good or desireable solution) and before long there are hundreds of millions of guns all over the world. Which many of us consider a problem.

Sortof like if America didn't buy lots of iPads and if China didn't manufacture them cheaply then they might never exist in the first place. So people smoking in China is perhaps not a perfect analogy as it doesn't affect us much. (Please don't stop buying gadgets ;)

America isn't isolated. What you do affects the whole world. What every country does affects the whole world. We're all very aware of what happens in America because it has a disproportionately large affect on us as opposed to what happens in Myanmar. But I agree that we care maybe a little too much :) I suspect you sometimes appear weird and alien and therefore interesting to us. Most civilized country in world in some ways, most uncivilized in others..

---

Edit: I guess in a way whatever you spend your money on affects the whole world just because you're the biggest economy. If you slash NASA's budget it "affects" me. If WebOS is beaten by Android it "affects" me. If you prioritize spending money on guns over something else it "affects" me indirectly just because you're such a big market. In some ways Americans control the budget, priorities and direction of the free world;)

The iPad analogy doesn't work because there isn't much a of a demand in poorer countries for iPads. There is a huge demand in these countries for guns, which again, aren't very hard to make.

Look at the kind of guns found in the third world (that could find there way into your country). When is the last time you saw a warlord running around with an M-16. They all have AK-47s for a reason, they are cheap. The AK-47s you still see running around weren't manufactured for the American market they were manufactured for war and no American gun control measures will help.

If America banned guns, at best you might see a reduction in expensive American market guns, but again those aren't the guns used in poorer countries--they would still be made.

>I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns.

Guns are what enabled the radical equality of the modern age? The reason that we don't have a dominant warrior class controlling everything.

A gun allows a 110 pound woman to stand up to a 200 pound man, a poorly trained peasant to stand up to a feudal knight, an old man to a young one.

Without guns modern society wouldn't have been possible. If you could magically wish away all the guns, how long do you think it would take for our society to stratify around a martial class again?

I don't think all guns have to go away. I don't think revolutions or changes in government have to be violent. (South Africa being a shining example). I don't think you need a right to bear arms to even violently remove the people in power either. (America gained independence without an existing inalienable right to bear arms, afterall.)

Guns or no guns, gun rights or no gun rights, democracy or not - all systems ultimately rely on there not being too many "bad people" or the government behaving properly, etc. As you hinted yourself - America could have a civil war tomorrow if the government did something the people didn't want. And that's with Democracy. Terrorism proves that you don't even need guns. The arab spring proves you don't need many guns.

Civilisation doesn't require guns - it requires civilized people. Everyone owning guns (like America) also only works when you have civilized people.

Suggestion. It is not 'less guns' that should bother you, but the intent of the people who use them.

Good guys with guns are not the problem - bad men are. And no matter what happens to the civilian fire-arms market in the US, they'll find a way to get what they want.

Most civilized country in world in some ways, most uncivilized in others..

Most of what you are calling uncivilized may just be weird and foreign.

I agree, but what politically viable solutions do you propose there? Clearly this implies regulation and clearly very few Americans want that. More difficult to get and maintain a license to drive a car and all that. Even proposals to stop people from selling guns to verifiably crazy or unstable people or convicted felons are seen as a slippery slope that should be avoided, etc. Your driver's license can be taken away but the right to own a gun is inalienable. Militia vs well regulated and properly trained militia, I guess.

Note I was not speaking not just of American bad people but people everywhere. The intent of a thug in Boston isn't much concern to you, the intent of a Jo'berg (guessing) thug is.

And has been said elsewhere - guns are stupid easy to make. Succeed in shutting down Remington Arms, guys will just buy guns (illegal or not) made elsewhere.

Anyway. You want to change intent of bad people? You can't do it.

The optimal solution is for the good guys to own the means of self-defense, and have the will to use it.

Even proposals to stop people from selling guns to verifiably crazy or unstable people or convicted felons

In the US none of these people can legally purchase firearms. Fines are steep, prison is likely, licenses will be revoked, lives will be ruined if a firearms dealer does this.

Your driver's license can be taken away but the right to own a gun is inalienable.

It is written into the Constitution. Debate is lively about the meaning of 'militia', but that's a sign of a healthy democracy, I think.

But that amendment, in turn, is based not on a right the government gives it's citizens, but acknowledgment of already existing natural laws.

That is, everyone has the right to self-defense. Firearms are the means to accomplish that.

My argument here is isolated from data from other countries. Each country/culture has its own issues.

The data from our own Department of Justice and FBI shows that the so-called "assault rifle" is responsible for --depending on the year-- maybe 1/10 of the murders caused by knives. This, to me, means that if we are talking about the reality in the USA, knives are far more dangerous than rifles. That's a fact backed by real crime data from the FBI. Handguns are a different story. They are responsible for the bulk of homicides.

With that understood the next task is to try to understand why this is so. The data points that, by far, most of the homicides take place in the inner city and affect hispanic and black youngsters. I am not passing judgement here, just mirroring what the data shows. I don't know why it is so. I can only speculate.

As far as your comparison with South Africa, here are some thoughts, again, backed-up by data:

US Population: 300+ million (http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#...)

South Africa: 50 million (http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...)

6x more people in the US could mean more total murders (by any means) than in S.A.

Homicide rate:

US, about 5 per 100K population

SA, about 32 per 100K population

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

So, with 1/6 the population of the USA and very restrictive gun ownership laws SA manages to have SIX TIMES the homicide rate of the US. Isn't this further support for the idea that guns are not necessarily the root cause, but rather that people and other factors might be?

As far as solutions. Look, I'm an engineer. I have some thoughts on these issues but I have never claimed to have THE solution. I would like to think that it is a combination of education, illegal drug control, economic opportunity and other factors.

So, that's the data, please tell me what you think it means.

"[talk] absolute nonsense"

"[don't] think things through rather than follow like sheep"

"constantly bitch"

"sling distorted statistics [...] and rally idiot voters"

"jump at conclusions without even stopping to think for a moment"

etc etc.

You're not "[only] saying is that the media is too quick to place blame". You're also insulting and pre-emptively dismissing anyone who might disagree with you. That makes it pretty apparent that you're not interested in reasonable debate on this issue, you just want to soapbox.

That might have something to do with the downmods.

My experience in discussing the gun issue with people in person is that most anti-gun folks --not all-- tend to operate based on emotion and/or bad data pushed at them by, primarily, liberal-leaning media outlets.

HN, like it or not, does have a good liberal-leaning population. I would have been surprised if I didn't get a bunch of down-mods. It's not a matter of language. It's enough to voice opinion supporting gun ownership. It's almost the same if you say anything against Apple.

Look, I am not even a gun owner. I might go to the shooting range once or twice a year with friends. It's great fun. That's it. But I really dislike the media making generalization and accusations based on bullshit or not data at all. And, the sad reality of things is that the vast majority of the public takes what the media shovels as fact without question. Few people think of the idea of actually verifying what they are being told before forming an opinion.

It saddens me that no argument is being made based on the actual data, which is, if you read carefully, the only thing I am pushing here. That transcends socio-political beliefs and emotion. The FBI data I looked at is produced by compiling standardized crime reports across the country. Look at it and tell me that I am wrong. I'd be happy to learn so if reliable and reputable data supports it.

Look at the data. Tell me where and why I am wrong. So far nobody has offered critique of the data, just blind down-votes. That doesn't change the truth, does it?

But I can still take issue with your manner. Not because it offends me (it doesn't), not because of some imaginary "popularity contest" -- but because your arrogant tone, and your visible scorn of those who disagree with you, is going to achieve nothing but damage the quality of debate. You can't complain about getting naught but emotive responses when your posts seem structured to provoke exactly that.

State your claims, show your data, that's great. If you want people to answer your case, stop there -- dressing it up in antagonism only gives respondents the option of answering your attitude instead of your argument. Don't give them that chance if you don't want them to take it.

If they get distracted by emotion anyway, then, well, at least you tried.

What I could have contempt for is the act of arguing a matter from an ideological or emotional perspective while choosing to ignore the data and the facts. Note that I didn't say that I have contempt for the people who do this but for the "act" or process itself.

BTW, it's not "my" data, it's the FBI's and the US Department of Justice, both far more reputable than I am in these matters.

I have yet to see one post truly address the facts as reflected by the data.

So what? Showing contempt for your opposition's behaviour is hardly going to be any more conducive to reasoned debate than showing contempt for them as individuals. The difference would be scarcely noticeable to your readers.

Either way, a scornful tone does not foster the impression that you're interested in having a reasonable discussion, and no amount of protestation to the contrary ("address the facts!", "critique the data!", etc) will change that. Why bother even trying to offer a high-quality counterargument to someone who thinks you're a "sheep"?

My point remains:

If you want people to "address the facts as reflected by the data", then, yes, present the facts, as you believe them to be, and present the best data you can find to support your position -- you've got those parts down -- but stop there, so those replying can only address what you want addressed. Leave nothing else for them to reply to.

In particular, keep your own emotions out of it if you want others to do the same.

  I did read it. And I even read the other articles he linked to. 
  You know the one titled _Average Americans don't need assault weapons_ 

And of course, there's the downvote "campaign" by liberal-trending HN'ers who seem to have no interest in the facts.

I am personally scared of the idea of having people in media, government and law-making that actually think and behave this way. Ignore the facts and come-up with an alternate reality that fits the ideology being promoted. That's wrong.

Very few people actually own assault rifles (you need a tax stamp and it has to have been registered before 1986). The weapon the shooter in Colorado used wasn't an assault rifle because it was semi-automatic.

Whether you agree with it our not our constitution gives us the right to bear arms as a check against government oppression.

The second amendment clearly wasn't written to protect hunter's rights.

That being said an AR-15 can be used for hunting, target shooting, or home defense. Its not fundamentally different from any semi-automatic hunting rifle.

Previous "Assault Weapons" restrictions in the US targeted guns based on how "scary" they looked (guns with barrel shrouds, collapsible stocks etc...). Since statically these kinds of guns are almost never used in crimes, regulating them would have almost no impact on overall death rate.

What do I need a rifle for? Just because. They're fun to shoot. Because I like owning a few of them.

But the list of things one doesn't 'need' are long.

Don't need a computer. Don't need a cell phone. Don't need a nice set of dishes for special occasions. Don't need a bread machine. Don't need a microwave. Don't need a car.

Etc. I have those things not for any particular economic justification but because I _like_ having nice things.

A rifle (or two, or three) is one of those things.

That's my only answer really. They are great fun at the range and neat to own.

I can't seen any other scenario unless someone is crazy and has other motives. Those corner cases will find ways to cause death and destruction by whatever means necessary. The 9/11 hijackers used common knives to kill thousands of people. Tim McVeigh used fertilizer and a rented truck to kill hundreds and destroy a building.

This, and the underlying data is why I don't subscribe to the idea of "assault rifles" being the root cause of our problems. I think the data shows that the problems are far more related to drugs, education, social and economic root causes than anything else.

I too live in a country with tight weapon control; if I went on holiday to America and had a chance to go to a gun range and fire an AK-47 you bet I'd do it.

Of course, I'd also like to fire one of those stinger missiles, and the deck guns on a battleship. I can understand there being other considerations that conflict with my desires.

Nothing particularly useful. It's just that most people like feeling powerful (evolution at work), and guns are a means to that end. Personally, I prefer fiction.

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

To your original question, do you "need" a semi-automatic rifle for varmint hunting? No, but they are very well suited for that purpose.

How many people are killed per year with a rifle?

How many people are killed per year with a handgun?

For control: How many people are killed per year with a knife?

It turns out to be that a lot more people per year are killed with knives than with assault rifles. I saw a number somewhere less than 3% in the FBI database for rifles, whereas knives make up something in the order of 20% to 25% of homicides.

Yes, HANDGUNS are, by far, the weapon most used to commit homicides.

And, yes, the data shows that most homicides seem to affect 18 to 24 year old males.

And, yes, the data shows that hispanic and black kids in inner cities are at most risk.

All I am proposing is that we ought to look at the actual data and act accordingly. I would spend time and money to try to understand and prevent the mass killings of youngsters in the inner cities. That's where the tragedies, to the tunes of thousands of kids per year, are taking place on a daily basis.

The white guy in the suburbs who owns a couple of handguns, a couple of shotguns and a couple of "assault rifles" is not the problem.

I am more than ready to see it differently. If you have reputable data to support the idea that so-called "assault rifles" are responsible for a sizable number of murders please let me know where to find it. I'll read it. The data I looked at was from the US Department of Justice and FBI. Not sure where one would find more accurate data.

My motivation here isn't political. Let's look at the data and see what is REALLY happening as opposed to following media spokes-holes like sheep. I hope intelligent HN readers --who tend to be more analytical-- agree with this approach. We might like to believe that big-scary "assault rifles" are the culprit (and, therefore, what we should focus on) but I have found no data to support this idea. Again, feel free to uncover such data if it exists.

Now, one can always do as on of the Mythbuster guys once said when he didn't like the data: "I reject your reality and substitute my own". That's all well and fine, but it doesn't change the real and valid underlying data, does it?

In other words, you can believe whatever you want, but the truth is immutable.

"Should <killer item> be banned" should be calculated against benefit of item, not only the lives ended.

Even fewer people are killed with nuclear weapons, but they're not 'legal'. The issue of knifes vs handguns vs assault rifles also considers other uses and whether banning them encroaches on personal liberties (of the murderer).

A knife has many other purposes e.g. carving a roast chicken. In many countries it's not legal to carry round a blade most of the time - in the UK you need a good reason, such as being a chef going to a new restaurant, and you can carry a non-locking folding blade of three inches or less in length.

A gun is only used for shooting. It limits my freedoms less to say "You can't hunt game or take a handgun to a shooting range" than it does to say "You cannot buy knives to eat your dinner with".

It's true that a lot of people in the USA own handguns for "self-protection" in the home. Perhaps the best questions are not "How many people are killed per year with a rifle?" etc, but "How many people are killed per rifle?", in which case I think knives would be vastly lower than firearms.

It also raises the point that even though there are fewer assault rifle deaths, maybe it is more often a murder weapon among its owners - there are perhaps many more people who own handguns who have never hurt anyone with them. Why? One reason is that an assault rifle is a greater upgrade over a handgun when you're on a shooting spree than when you are trying to repel an intruder from your house. After all, one intruder only need a few bullets to repel, whereas in a shooting spree even an assault rifle could often do with more bullets in a magazine (from the attacker's perspective).

>How many people are killed per year with a handgun?

I don't think these are interesting questions in this context at all. Can a crazy shooter (ok, not you ;) kill more effectively with an assault rifle? Absolutely. That is the only important question, I think.

And if you want to ask these particular questions, it would be also interesting to know how many assault rifles are out there? How many handguns and knives? Perhaps there are fewer people killed by rifles because there are much less rifles?

Option 1:

None. I don't shoot people and don't own any guns.

Option 2:

Just as many, particularly if they are confined and unarmed.

Option 3:

It depends, if it's a Glock the fucking thing might jam half-way through a clip (had it happen at the gun range with a rental).

These are dumb questions because you can shoot a gun almost just as fast as a rifle and switching magazines takes no time at all. Spend some time at a gun range, will ya? Anyone who's done so would probably laugh at these arguments and questions. All guns are deadly and, in the wrong hands, and, in the wrong circumstances, any shooter can kill dozens of people with handguns or rifles.

But the real reason these questions are dumb is that the data shows that far more people are killed with handguns than with rifles. So your perception that a rifle might allow someone to just strafe a crowd and do more damage doesn't seem to jive with the reality of published DOJ and FBI crime statistics.

I know that someone is going to bring up machine guns next. Fuck it! Let's also introduce gattling guns. The fact remains: More homicides are committed with knives than with rifles every year. I don't think you'll find machine-gun-caused homicides in FBI data. This, despite how scary they might be. Show me reputable data to refute that and we can have a different conversation.