
How to Reduce Shootings (2017) - hadrien01
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-shootings.html
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usrusr
As a German I find it a bit unsettling that the ratio in guns-per-person
between the US and Germany is smaller than that between Germany and, say,
Italy. We do like to fingerpoint a lot at American gun ownership (it really
feels absurdly archaic to the average German), but we're apparently not _that_
much ahead.

I wonder how the numbers would look if they were broken down further into
"made to be pointed at people" (designed for military, law-enforcement, or
self-defense use) and "others" (hunting, dedicated competitive marksmanship).
Hunting must be huge in the US, but the whole field of "testosterone booster"
use cases from small scale "defend my family" right up to the field of full-
scale second amendment militia fantasies (sorry if you are a believer) must
account for quite a bit as well. I guess that dedicated competitive
marksmanship might be low, I suspect that Americans who are into that kind of
thing would tend to do it with hardware from somewhere in the "designed to be
pointed at people" range.

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nicolashahn
Not sure what you mean by "fantasy", since it's the case that, _right now_ ,
widespread gun ownership would have completely prevented the catastrophe that
is current Venezuela, and probably wouldn't have allowed Hong Kong to escalate
to this point. It's always crazy that the government would turn against its
citizens, until it isn't, and it's happening.

~~~
r00fus
You are seriously positing that HK with guns would somehow have avoided its
current fate? That is surely fantasy.

~~~
nicolashahn
How so? Would the Chinese government be able to just wantonly and unilaterally
degrade HK citizen rights as they've done? They know there is no consequence
for their actions, because HK citizens have no power. The threat of force only
comes from one side. As of now, HK's only hope is to appeal to international
actors that _do_ have power.

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Zak
A frustration I have with articles like this is that it's very easy to for the
author to make the statistics support the conclusion they want to write. For
example, from this article:

> _One study by the Violence Policy Center found that in 2012 there were 259
> justifiable homicides by a private citizen using a firearm._

The implication is that firearms were only successfully used for self defense
259 times in 2012, but that's not true. Most incidents of successful self
defense using a firearm do not lead to the death of the attacker. The same
report from the VPC[0] says people used firearms in self defense an average of
67,740 times per year from 2007 to 2011.

> _Tightening Gun Laws Lowered Firearm Homicide Rates_

But did it lower homicide rates overall? I don't think it's much of a benefit
if murderers switch weapons and complete the same number of homicides. If the
overall homicide rate is reduced, that would be a much more persuasive figure
to cite, which leads me to suspect it isn't.

[0]
[http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf](http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf)
\- note that the VPC is an anti-gun advocacy group, and this study is written
to be persuasive rather than analytical.

~~~
usrusr
> I don't think it's much of a benefit if murderers switch weapons and
> complete the same number of homicides.

I guess you'd keep the deviously planned murders (even if guns are available,
I'm not sure they would be the weapon of choice in most cases), but lose most
of the escalated arguments, escalated property crime, fights that would
otherwise have ended with a fracture or two. And mass shootings. Mass
stabbings can be surprisingly deadly as well, but the same killer with a bag
of guns? Surely not less deadly than with a knife.

~~~
Zak
That _may_ be true, but if it is, why don't people quoting this statistic talk
about the overall homicide rate?

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luxuryballs
Cars getting safer is cars getting better at what they are designed for, I
think it’s a rather poor comparison and the chart of them getting safer over
time makes it seem silly in contrast with guns.

It’s also silly to say “guns keep you safe but from a birds eye view more
people die” because it has to be viewed on a case by case basis, if someone
was able to defend themselves or their family that was good, it shouldn’t be
viewed as if it was at the cost of other people who were killed by guns
unjustly.

