This post is an excellent demonstration of why [pending] is a great idea and why discussing guns on HN is doomed to failure.

I'm in the UK and I find the US obsession with owning guns weird yet I find your post inflamatory and unconstructive.

Why not skip the pseudo-politeness and just leap the "compensating for small penis" attacks?

If you find this weird, just wait until 3d printed open source weapons platforms for consumer uavs with instructions in english and mandarin become a thing. Then you may find that big cars, "assault" rifles, and such uavs will all be grounds for "compensating for small penis" attacks (assuming only self described males are interested in such things) when not in the hands of c̶o̶p̶s̶/̶s̶o̶l̶d̶i̶e̶r̶s̶ "mercenaries" (as quoted from the grand parent post).

I disagree. The psychological element of gun ownership is a substantive issue. I find your post attributing to me an interest in "small penis" arguments inflammatory and unconstructive.

Are you are aware that you appear to be yelling at gun users that they are compensating for small penises when you say things like "weird insecurities"?

I think you read too much into that. I didn't find any innuendo in reader5000's post.

Is there any other reason for wanting to own a gun (in a non combat situation) rather than weird insecurity?

Hobby? Many people collect guns, just as others collect baseball cards, model trains, or sports cars.

I suppose you dismiss those people as obviously insecure though...

Sport or recreation I suppose. I don't own any firearms but I have gone out 'shooting' with friends that do and it's quite fun.

I never brought up penises at any point. Are you aware that you yourself said "I'm in the UK and I find the US obsession with owning guns weird"? How is my comment different from yours? HN swings fairly hyper-individualist / libertarian / conspiracy theorist so data-backed, rational gun regulation comments are going to get downvoted. But I don't think the comment was wildly out of line as you seem to think.

You think your comments are making rational data-backed points and are only being down voted by libertarians?

I am anti gun, pro gun control. I down voted your comment because it added no value to the discussion, it was purely inflammatory, and certainly had no data to support it.

You may wish to re-read your posts in this thread.

Let's just be clear: when I call gun ownership "weird", it's "purely inflammatory", but when you do, it totally adds value to the discussion.

I invite you to reread this thread and determine who derailed an enlightening discussion regarding the psychology of US gun ownership and police militarization with ad hominmen and completely off-topic attacks on another's commenting style.

>I invite you to reread this thread and determine who derailed an enlightening discussion

I just did and it appears to be you. You are making 2 kinds of comments in this thread: 1) inflammatory comments that appear to be deliberately written to cause a derailing flamewar, and 2) comments accusing everyone else of making inflammatory comments written to cause a derailing flamewar.

Without touching the gun issue, ad hominem attacks are not helpful.

Secondly, your statement shows a lack of appreciation for the heterogeneity of crime rates and public safety quality/availability in U.S.