Have you ever killed someone without a gun? Not trying to be metal, but I was in a self defense situation many years ago and and something terrible happened.

Shooting a gun vs using "household chemicals and gasoline" to attack someone, to say nothing of knives or bare hands, are so apart from each other that I know for a fact that you have no experience with violence or how much easier it is to do violence with a gun vs other methods. You are just parroting teenager-level philosophy.

Besides all that, we have huge amounts of data over more than 100 years. Turns out, and this will shock you, when you have more guns you are more likely to shoot people and kill overall.

I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own an AR-15 they will never use except maybe to kill themselves or a family member (statistically, these are the no1 and no2 most likely people an American is to kill with their gun). Do as you will I guess but almost nobody needs to own a gun privately.

And I don't want people to die because a tyrannical government decides it needs to occupy the population. It's acceptable to me that some people will die as a result of gun violence, if it means the citizenry keeps its right to bear arms. Every homicide is a tragedy, but the weapons are not the problem nor the cause.

If you want to restrict the rights afforded by the 2nd amendment, would you like to restrict some others too? After all, the "freedom of the press" was designed at a time when newspapers were literally printed on a printing press. The founders couldn't have imagined the internet, so do people really need access to such a powerful way of disseminating information?

I would like to restrict only the second amendment. I don't see how a slippery slope argument is remotely relevant. There are dozens of liberal democracies in the world that have robust personal freedom and no right to bear arms. In fact, our right to bear arms is a direct descendent of the British Common Law version that existed for centuries and has been almost completely removed in the 20th century with no loss of free speech or press and no descent into tyranny. The country whose tyranny the founders were worried about.

That’s probably the worse example to use for your argument. Britain is a place where cops will come to your door to investigate over non-death threat tier posts on Twitter.

> I would like to restrict only the second amendment.

At least you admit it.

There are ways to do this. You can get a supermajority in congress to agree with you, or you can get 34 state legislatures to agree to call a convention of states. Then, and only then, you can change the constitution.

Barring that, no law or executive order can restrict the second amendment and be constitutional. Fortunately our current president has appointed justices who will ensure this remains true.

> Then, and only then, you can change the constitution

You can also just suspend parts at will during a pandemic.

Or any time a state of emergency is declared. Which, according to the Supreme Court, is pretty much whenever the executive wants it to be.

> Britain

> no loss of free speech or press and no descent into tyranny

That's a good one!

Not saying it isn't still one of the best places. But the trajectory is sadly quite clear.

You completely misunderstand reality. When the F-35 comes to liquefy your house, I’m sure your gun will do a lot to defend yourself.

You don’t have the smallest chance of defending yourself from the government, the only thing gun ownership does is let people shoot each other for no good reason. This is an incontrovertible fact proven by statistics of gun ownership countries a.k.a. the US versus others.

Gun ownership is, in aggregate, about as dangerous to the US population as car ownership.

Millions of lightly armed people have stood up well to the US military. What you're talking about isn't a fact at all -- it is a myth, that overwhelming technology can decisively determine the outcome of wars. It is certainly a factor but there is no way F-35s would be sent to bomb houses (for example): the cost, relative scarcity and long periods of maintenance for advanced weapons systems like that are all factors that limit their deployment. In limited war -- which is what all insurrections are -- application of advanced weapons is difficult.

Not to mention the repeal or overruling of the Posse Comaitus Act would itself cause waves of mutiny within the armed forces.

If you truly believe this, I would urge you to take a look at the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and the decades long occupations thereof by the US. I'd also recommend reading The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks by Josh Ramo, which examines this phenomenon in depth.

"If you want to restrict the rights afforded by the 2nd amendment, would you like to restrict some others too? After all, the "freedom of the press" was designed at a time when newspapers were literally printed on a printing press. The founders couldn't have imagined the internet, so do people really need access to such a powerful way of disseminating information?"

Slippery slope. Keep talking about how you're fine with some people killing other people but not different people killing other people, it's a philosophical point and has something resembling a legs and not a total logical fallacy.

Talking about a "Bubba" is pure flamebait.

If you switched that up for a "Tyrone" you'd get flagged pretty quickly.

Try not to bring your tired culture-war tropes to Hacker News. The rest of the internet is lousy with it, you might be happier out there.

"I was in a self defence situation and needed to kill someone" and "almost nobody needs to own a gun privately" seem to be incompatible statements to me.

As for the difficulty of killing large numbers of people, I'd stand by the assertion that it's easier with chemicals (explosives or incindiaries) than it is with guns.

They aren't incompatible statements. Certainly the parent's experience, devoid of context could easily be seen as evidence in favor of permitting the possession of firearms. But just because they may have benefitted from, or could have benefited from the owning a firearm at one point doesn't mean that they accept the broader societal trade-offs that ubiquitous gun ownership entails.

I hold a number of political convictions at odds with my personal interest, or which could/will hurt me as an individual in the future, as do many around me. But I stand by them because they would bring us closer to nation in-which I'd be happy to live.

I'm firmly on the side of gun ownership. I'd like the NFA to be revised or repealed so as to make it more coherent, and less restrictive.

Nevertheless, I can respect the parent's position, because their experience doesn't make them hypocritical or subtract from their point (though it can be used to) so much as it's a sign of social conscientiousness, and a willingness to potentially put what they believe to be the needs of the whole before the needs of the self.

That's a very fair point.

The reality is that many large terrorist attacks have been conducted with explosives, toxic gas and other methods.

Treating every gun as though it were a clear, present danger, is no more reasonable than treating every car that way. There are ~75 million gun owners in the USA; they are overwhelmingly harmless. Targeted policy is how you address something that is occasionally misused; and targeted policy seems to be the one thing that people keen on gun control do not want to think about.

I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own an AR-15 they will never use except maybe to kill themselves or a family member (statistically, these are the no1 and no2 most likely people an American is to kill with their gun).

It's true that most people who die from firearms are people ending their own lives; but the next largest group are criminals shooting one another, not "family members". The average American, not otherwise inclined to end their own life, is very unlikely to be shot with a gun.

The way you are defining "use" in your statement is just wrong. People who don't shoot other people still "use" their guns, just for sport or for hunting. It's like you're saying the only people who "use" guns are killers. What if we applied the same concept to another area? "I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own a Cessna they will never use except maybe to crash and kill themselves or a family member...". It seems absurd. There is a diminishing returns element to policy and you just can't write them in a such a way that it perfects safety.

You're also more likely to die by drowning if you own a pool. This is a silly argument.

Repeal or at least disincorporate the 2nd amendment. It's kinda ludicrous that conservative justices claim to be strict constructionists yet decided states and municipalities can't make their own rules. And yes, we should be addressing mental health regardless.

And if guns don't kill people, what vital purpose do they serve? Defend your home with a bow and arrow because it's exactly as effective as an AR-15 with 100-round clip according your reductive assertion.