I am personally concerned that I may be the victim of genocide, and far more people have died from genocide perpetrated by governments than by school shootings. I’m not trying to be dense, I’m simply saying that history of demonstrated this. I’m also concerned that I will be the victim of violent crime and I’ve also had to defend myself from violent criminals in the past. Have you had any of these experiences? I’m curious to hear your thoughts if you’ve ever feared for your life in this way? Call me selfish, but I personally don’t want to be hurt. Thank you for your response.

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jiggawatts 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You've talked about your feelings a lot, which is the point.

Guns make people feel safe.

They don't actually make you safer.

You're more likely to be killed by your own gun than someone else's.

Realistically, you have no hope of protecting yourself with a gun if you're surrounded by gangbangers with a bunch of guns all pointed at you.

Etc, etc...

The gun debate isn't a debate about facts, it never was. It's a debate about feelings, and scared people won't change their minds unless they stop being scared.

Nobody in America right now is trying to make people feel safe, not in an era where the President of the United States feels it is appropriate to personally attack... anyone for any perceived slight, in public, with verbal violence and in the case of anyone looking even vaguely hispanic, physical violence.

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angelgonzales 4 days ago | parent [-]

I get where you’re coming from, but I lived in Portland for years where the police were essentially suppressed by the district attorney Eric Schmidt (and other factors that were occurring during this time in Portland and in America). This led to violent criminals essentially controlling the city at night and which lead to unfortunate outcomes for my family. Simultaneously this came at a time where the previous president was threatening my job and livelihood with mandates and I was receiving emails from our national HR that we may lose our jobs if we did not comply. These two events did not make me feel safe for years, I do feel safer with the current president.

	▲	projektfu 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Mike Schmidt? I think Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Google.

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KayEss 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have had a gun pointed at me, and I've been where guns have been fired in anger around me.

I'm kind of surprised to hear somebody in America think it's a likely enough thing to happen to be worth the obvious societal cost of the wide spread weapons.

Realistically, if they did come for you, how much use would your weapon be? Do you believe that it would mean the difference between your life and death, or just that you'd feel better going having been able to put up some defence? Several genocides have happened in neighbouring countries from where I live in living memory, and it isn't at all clear that having access to a weapon allowed anybody who was targeted to survive.

The cost in mass shootings (now nearly two per day in the US) is a real cost borne by society at large. Your cost is still only hypothetical, and of unclear value if the worst did happen.

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angelgonzales 4 days ago | parent [-]

It seems you have been around violence but have concluded differently than I have.

I think that all rights are hypothetical until they are used. People in America have the right to free speech and assembly but depending on your perspective these rights are hypothetical for most people because they don’t use their speech or right to assembly very often or to the fullest extent. In some states, women have the right to have an abortion but many don’t use that right so hypothetically for them it doesn’t have any value. I think with the right to keep and bear arms it’s the same, for a good person defending themselves with a gun this hypothetical right becomes applied and has an immeasurable value to them. I don’t think we should discard any of our rights even if they are rarely used. I don’t think the risk of a genocide or civil war is infinitesimal, I think these sort of events happen often and are guaranteed over a long enough timeline. I think that people who are well armed would be better off in these situations and may even be the people who put something like a genocide to a stop.

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KayEss 4 days ago | parent [-]

You're misinterpreting what I said. I said that your ability to defend yourself and your family with a gun was hypothetical.

I can see that you like to think of yourself as a rational thinker about this, but you're refusing to answer the actual criticism: actual people are being killed every day due to the availability of weapons in your society. There are nearly two mass shootings per day. So far this year that has led to 250 deaths and more than a thousand injuries[1]. These are not hypothetical abstractions, which is all you seem interested in engaging with. These are real people, many of them children, who find themselves victims of gun violence. You are arguing that your feeling of safety is more important than their actual safety. All of your arguments amount to a continuation of your position that you put your own feelings ahead of the actual deaths of people in society around you. This is a very selfish way to engage in your society.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/us/mass-shootings-fast-facts

	▲	angelgonzales 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I understand your position, it is terrible that adults and children die by the hands of others. Genocides have happened all over the world and have led to tens of millions of people dying. These events aren’t hypothetical they’re historical but happen in big chunks rather than uniformly distributed and frequent but comparatively small events. I would suggest the statistics indicate that a person is likelier to die from a genocide than from a mass shooting by a factor of >100 and that small arms ownership and competence is more helpful rather than harmful since these tools can enable individuals to defend themselves against state actors or violent groups, or by their existence prevent groups with malicious intent from acting out on their genocidal or authoritarian desires. Something I agree with is the FBI’s assessment that people don’t commit crimes if they thinks it’s likely that they’ll be caught. I think that the collective individuals in our government (these United States of America) wouldn’t want to mandate concentration camps or a genocide because of the concentration of citizens with diverse mindsets who would provide feedback through resistance. There are of course other factors like recency bias that come into play.

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whatarethembits 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Rhetorical: What does it say about America that a large portion of its citizens (assuming OPs feelings are not unique) fear being a victim of genocide? Can't say I've met anyone from any other "developed" nation who share the same dread by simply existing as part of their country.

In other words, the sum total of America's values have resulted in a citizenry that lives with existential dread. Maybe those values need a second look?

	▲	angelgonzales 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		My thoughts on this is that genocide has been common outside of America in the last ~100 years and that Americans need to act differently than the rest of the world in an effort to keep it from happening here.

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Denote6737 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

IF you are going to be the victim of genocide they will take away your ability to defend yourself first.

	▲	KayEss 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		This of course plays into the fear US gun advocates have of any attempt to remove their gun rights. If it were to happen though, then maybe as a prepper type with a house and lands in the woods you'd stand a chance against an armed mob that came for you, but certainly not the government. If you're defending your sub-urban house (or even worse flat), I suspect that the gun you have for self defense would make very little difference to the final outcome, but might make you feel a bit better about it.