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| ▲ | nine_k 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Can you get a driver's license if you're visibly insane? The same standard should apply to getting a gun. A gun is comparably lethal. | | |
| ▲ | lynndotpy 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That is different than the proposed test for sanity. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Is a proof of lack of insanity a proof of sanity? | | |
| ▲ | lynndotpy 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | To start with, "visibly insane" is a ludicrous idea. Further, yes, you can get a license despite being "visibly insane". Some people consider it insane to believe in a deity, to not to, to smoke cigarettes, to have dyed hair, to have an electric car, to have a lime car, to own a Nissan, etc. During my test, the tester said nobody should drive if they hadn't gotten 10 hours of sleep, and I admitted I had only had six or seven. I still got my license. Interpreted generously, maybe some small percentage of "insane people" are visibly so. Even then, looking at someone is not a proof of a lack of sanity. Sanity isn't a thing you can test for, it's definitely not something the government should test for. To make the implied question explicit: How do you envision positively testing for sanity? How would you feel if this test were implemented in 1940, 1900, 1860, 1820, etc? Would your feelings about that differ by the inclination of the politicians in power? | |
| ▲ | RugnirViking 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | are you aware of the history of mental institutions and insanity charges being used to suppress political dissidents around the world? Most notably in the USSR but the west has also done this sort of thing. |
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| ▲ | 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | scarecrowbob 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Just because you seem genuinely curious I will say this: Yeah, it scares the crap out of me too. I'm queer and very far to the left politically, and my neighbors all have a lot of guns and if you listen to what they say they think that queer leftists deserve to be murdered just out of principle. I am not under any illusion that firearms make any situation with the government better; I have been assaulted by DHS (pepper spray) and in that situation I am certain that going from being "non-compliant" to "violent" would result in being murdered by the government in short, short order. However, I am very worried about situations where my neighbors (who are all very well armed and very far to the right and very excited about 'interruptions in regular government') become violent. There are many, many historical and current precedents for that situation. So although the best situation would be unilateral disarmament, that isn't going to happen in the rural west of the US. All that said, what do you think my position is? Owning "sporting rifles" and training on self-defense with my cadre of trans folks and anarchists seems to be the more realistic strategy than just hoping the US doesn't get suddenly worse, especially given the path it has been taking at the federal level. Personally, I'd much prefer to be running around playing with my ham radios but here we are. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Hey, my sympathies on your plight :( I don't know what I'd do in a similar situation. Again, I don't see how carrying a gun could improve the situation, except possibly that if everyone on the left was also carrying then the folks on the right might get scared and begin to think more rationally about gun control. Statistically, though, you're safer than they are. Guns are much more likely to kill their owners than anyone else [0], so while it's obviously scary, maybe the thought that your neighbours are less likely to kill you than themselves or each other brings some comfort? [0] https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/160/10/929/140... | | |
| ▲ | abeyer 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Guns are much more likely to kill their owners than anyone else [0] That article says no such thing, despite people often claiming it does. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What do you think it says then? | | |
| ▲ | scarecrowbob 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The easy observation is that it's far more likely that guns simply do nothing than they are to kill anyone. I am about 50, and I can tell the difference between when my mental health was in a place where I might kill myself and where I am now. That makes the math around gun ownership a lot more straight forward- hoping that the bigots will off themselves before they start lynching folks again (because it wouldn't be the first time) doesn't seem like the safer bet. I am glad you live in a place that has never been touched by bigots excited by war- clearly there is no way that in Europe the bigots have or will ever (again?) require local resistance fighting (right?). | |
| ▲ | abeyer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | First, it's a bit of a silly cliché, but a true one, that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The way you've phrased it, even aside from the facts, makes it feel like FUD implying that someone's gun is going to creep up on them in the night. Second, you can just take it from the horse's mouth, since papers give you an abstract stating their findings. An even briefer snippet of what they say themselves there is: > Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns > in the home of dying from a homicide in the home. They were also at greater risk > of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person > was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in > the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in > the home. Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from > suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different > method. The first half of that regarding homicide says nothing about being killed by your own gun, only about being a homicide victim in your own home. It _could_ and likely does include some of that, but it's not captured or quantified, all we see is total homicide numbers. Nor does it have any statistics about anyone else killed, either outside the home, or someone else killed in your home, so there's no basis for comparison there. The second half only claims to be true for males in the first place, not everyone. It also explicitly acknowledges that it doesn't deal with the likely confounder of people who don't have a means of suicide in the home committing suicide _outside_ the home, and thus not being included in their numbers. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Right, but the basic point - that people who have guns are more likely to die by guns is true, right? The sophistry about whose gun killed them is kinda moot. They don't actually track whether the gun-owners died by their own gun or not, as you say. But it's likely, isn't it? We're talking about people who either kill themselves, or kill their family members. It's likely using the gun that's already in the house, rather than a new, different gun being brought in from outside. And if it is a stranger coming in from outside with a different gun, then doesn't that contradict the entire point of owning a gun? That you can protect yourself and your family from strangers with guns? | | |
| ▲ | abeyer 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | They demonstrate a correlation, but not causation. In fact they point out the reverse is likely true, too, that people more likely to die by gun might want to keep a gun at home. What you call "sophistry" others might consider "not misrepresenting what research says to fit an agenda." There's value in using precise language to communicate what the numbers actually show. And I don't even understand how the fact that a gun isn't a guarantee in any way contradicts that it _can_ be used in self defense. |
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| ▲ | nine_k 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And wtf do you need a gun for anyway? One of the reasons that Switzerland, a country te size of Bay Area, with 9M current population, has not been overrun by the many wars in Europe for last 200 years is that every citizen is expected to fight back, without formally joining a military force for that. All men have to serve in the military for a couple of months to get the basic training, obtain and master a small arms weapon, and keep it where they live. (The ammo is not provided though.) Every few years the citizens should show up for several weeks of refresher training. This is very close to the idea that an armed population is a backstop against tyranny, but much better implemented. Per-capita firearm-related deaths in Switzerland are 7 times lower than in the US, and firearm-related homicide rate, 20 times lower. Truth be told, firearm ownership per capita is still about 4 times lower in Switzerland. Maybe they also are doing something more right with mentally ill people, who in the US often receive little help. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > This is very close to the idea that an armed population is a backstop against tyranny, but much better implemented. The last few months have disproved this completely. Literal plain-clothes masked thugs seizing people off the streets en masse, and there have only been a handful of cases of armed civilians resisting. And I disagree that Switzerland preserved itself during WW2 because the forces that stomped all over the professional armies of Europe are afraid of an armed civilian population. That just doesn't make sense. | |
| ▲ | Orygin 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > has not been overrun by the many wars in Europe for last 200 years is that every citizen is expected to fight back Lol this is so gun-brained, even for an American. Switzerland has not been "overrun" because they are in the freaking mountains. Gun or not, good luck invading mountain cliffs. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Napoleon somehow did not have very much trouble doing just that back in the day. But it's of course not limited to small arms distributed among the population. There are many more preparations done in advance, like rocks prepared to block roads if an explosive charge is detonated. Same with various bridges and railroad choke points. There's a large network of shelters and bunkers, kept in a good shape. Etc, etc. The point is not that a huge army (like Hitler's in 1940) would not be able to overrun Swiss resistance. The point is that the cost of such an invasion would be prohibitively high. It serves as a good deterrent. | | |
| ▲ | Orygin a day ago | parent [-] | | You proved my point. Doesn't really have to do with the gun owning population but to the unique geography of the country giving them a massive advantage. |
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| ▲ | Dig1t 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Per-capita firearm-related deaths in Switzerland are 7 times lower than in the US If you break gun violence down in the US by race, you get results that are much closer to Europe. >Nationally, the U.S. gun homicide rate (per 100,000 people) in 2020 was 26.6 for people identified as Non-Hispanic Black, compared to 2.2 for those identified as Non-Hispanic white and 4.5 for Hispanic individuals of any race. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10209993/ And indeed you can observe the gun homicide rate in Sweden has doubled since 2016 precisely because of demographic change. Sweden: 2016: 0.301 2017: 0.398 2018: 0.423 2019: 0.438 2020: 0.463 2021:0.430 2022: 0.597 |
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| ▲ | engineer_22 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm sorry you went through a difficult time of your life, I can relate. I would like to point out a gun doesn't make destroying oneself any easier. They are heavy and cold and they have a particular smell, they taste like metal, and the hole in the end of the barrel so strongly implies destruction that even pointing it at oneself carries incredible gravity. Many people that purchase a gun for this purpose abandon the idea when they have the object in their hands. Before crystallizing strong opinions about guns I suggest you spend some time learning to wield them. It's trivial to travel to a place that embraces guns and engage in a training session. A lot of people are surprised that the reality of it is very different than they imagined. It's not like in the movies. Kind of like how driving a car is not like in the movies. I have many friends who have no interest in guns who I have introduced to shooting, and even though they have not changed their opinions they told me they enjoyed the experience. With enough familiarity guns are not feared, but respected, similar to driving a car makes first time drivers nervous. We are surrounded daily by miriad tools we take for granted daily that have awesome lethal power within them, we'd all be wise to remember. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I joined the cadets at school. I've shot pistols, rifles, even a Bren machine gun, which was fun. I'm under no illusions that guns in movies are realistic ;) edit: and the statistics on gun suicide contradict your point, which I missed earlier [0] Which partly drives my curiousity around this (and I realise that my tone on the original question was harsher than I meant - this is genuine curiosity). I just cannot envisage a situation where a gun would improve matters. I've been in a few fights, have some scars. Even in those situations, having a gun would not have improved the situation, and might very well have killed me. So, yeah, I'm really curious about why you think making guns more widely available would be good? [0] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/new-report-highlights-us-2... | |
| ▲ | Ferret7446 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well said, I will also add that the source of all fear is ignorance, and that includes everything, from guns to disease to imaginary monsters. You do not cure it through avoidance, quite the opposite. | | |
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