I can't put my finger on it precisely, but it feels like there are outside influences radicalizing people via social media with an ultimate goal of destabilizing the United States.
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I think it is often coordinated but I doubt all of it is “outside influence.” It doesn’t take many extreme nazi/far right folk to make a dent and they can easily coordinate a small group to trash a subreddit to be more effective.
I think there are probably outside influences involved. But also, we've already had a civil war that predates the internet by a long shot, and I don't think we necessarily need outside influence for this to be an outcome given a lot of the incentives for radicalized viewpoints.
With such a large, expansive, and diverse population we are a country with many nations inside it. There has certainly been a long history of different viewpoints in different areas, dating back to the decades long debates over the creation of the constitution and bill of rights.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain why there's a murder problem in a country with a boatload of guns, lax restrictions on violent media, and a culture where infringing on someone's right to do anything can be interpreted as "totalitarian".
The “foreign influence” part is when mass shootings are a fraction of a fraction of the deaths, yet 50% of the news coverage. Media publishes sensational pieces about what consumers demand - consumer demand is increasingly driven by online discourse, which is free to manipulate easily.
The best kind of misinformation is misinformation that is true but not representative of the real situation. Have you checked our heart disease deaths? It is *factually* an issue many orders of magnitude more important to the average American. And yet…zero discussion seems to happen about it online?
And why wouldn’t there be foreign influence? It’s quite an easy checklist:
* do Russia and China have the technical capability to make social media accounts and post in English?: Yes, obviously.
* do Russia and China have any motive to drive fearful divisive narratives in the US?: Yes - we are their primary geopolitical opponent
With both of these true, to assume they’re not doing it for some reason out of kindness requires a lot of mental gymnastics.
I wouldn't count social media as the media. I certainly see social media and political groups/movements as having foreign influence. I see the media proper as just about the money.
It doesn't take foreign influence for shocking violence to get attention. Sensational news has been a big part of mass media as long as mass media has existed.
No but foreign influence does help when any comment pointing out that there are things more important for the country to fix than mass shootings(heart disease and obesity) are immediately downvoted and mocked.
Again, it doesn't suggest anything about foreign influence for a person to disagree with you. Telling people not to worry about (increasing) spectacular violence because they're more likely to die in a car accident reads as if you're changing the subject because you don't want to talk about it.
Thats my entire point. You’re talking about something that simply does not exist. But when nearly all of the online discourse acts as if we are less safe now, it’s easy to believe that is true. Even being aware of the statistics sometimes I feel that way/
No, I’m telling you that sensational media is driven by demand.
Demand from consumers who interact with the internet.
Consumers who, on the internet, ONLY see upvoted comments about masa shootings and see anything talking about the more deadly issue of heart disease/obesity downvoted and mocked.
In Germany there was a guy building homemade weapons who attempted to shoot up a Synagogue in Halle. It was all over the news. There is more frequent coverage because there are more shootings. No foreign power needed.
The oligarchs want us to fight each other, rather than fight them. Divide and conquer has never failed them. Push the culture wars to distract from the class war.
Or maybe American corporations amplified American problems while chasing money like usual, and then problems present themselves based on American realities.
No need to look for external causes, although blaming external actors also aligns with American historical actions.
Or it's just cathartic to laugh at the king, even by the king's vassels (Guardian). Are foreign powers weaponizing US dysfunctional to undermine US society, sure. Are their collective impact remotely as effective as dysfunctional US media weaponizing said US dysunfction for views for massive domestic and international audiences, probably not. Past some point ground reality in US is doing most of the work, pressing these buttons by external forces is just filler work to pass the time. It's not even active measures to undermine US society at this point when US society is doing most of the undermining.
Cat's out of the bag on this one. You will never get all the guns back, not without running a very real risk of instigating civil war.
Ms. Jackson Lee thinks the real cause of the problem is "guns, guns, guns" - I say it's criminals, criminals, criminals. Why's Texas have so many criminals willing to use firearms for evil?
FYI: there's a pistol sitting on my desk in front of me, right now, that I had disassembled last night to thoroughly inspect and clean. It was made in 1909.
That 114-year-old pistol is not only still functional, the only way you could tell it wasn't factory-new when I bought it a few years ago was that the black hard rubber grips were starting to turn a little brown at the edges, and the nickel finish was discolored in a few places on the slide. I've since restored the grips and carefully polished the finish to correct those two points.
Off the top of my head, I have at least two shotguns, one pistol, and four rifles that have been in my family for >100 years. One of those rifles is so old that I'm unsure who first acquired it. It's a "Pennsylvania long rifle". Made long before serial numbers were "a thing", I'd date it to about 1820 based on the style. I know my great-great-grandfather had it, because I have a photograph of him using it as an old man in the early 1900s.
It doesn't seem like criminals per se (apart from murders by highly organized crime), but rather people with severe mental health problems. Mental health problems that are seemingly due to mainlining social media memes telling them everyone is out to get them, which have been given a pass due to standing in for real political discourse. For example by the time someone is answering their front door with a gun and pointing it at whomever is there, it's clear that person is suffering from a paranoia that should make them ineligible to possess firearms. And this should be policed by other gun owners! But it's been drawn into this culture war where if we admit that Crazy Bob perhaps shouldn't have guns, then the "liberals" win or whatever.
Do you have evidence for that because psychologists disagree with you.
But let's pretend they don't. I'm all for universal mental health care. How does that help? What can we do to curtail gun violence, if we take the stance that it's a mental health issue? Evaluate everyone before letting them buy guns? Sold! Hell, I'll give mine back (after I've damaged them beyond use so no one can have them in the future).
We can play "Is it mental health?" all day but even if it is and we're going through a period of collective psychosis, I don't see how addressing mental health could ever really help here.
Evidence for what, specifically? It's pretty obvious that society is having a major mental health crisis, likely caused by social media, and this isn't particularly controversial when talked about in any other context. But in this context, the groupthink of one political tribe is to focus on extremist solutions about the tools themselves as part of the culture war, all but guaranteeing that nothing will really change.
And yes, I specifically said that mental illness should make you ineligible to possess firearms (isn't this already federal law or am I getting it confused with state laws?). There likely needs to be more implementation details to make this restriction actually effective. And there needs to be buy in from actual gun owners to police their own communities, rather than it being seen as more top-down nanny state regulations to be ignored. This used to be part of common sense, but especially with the rise of social media, it isn't so common any more.
What you're saying, in the specific and the broad sense (beyond the scope of this conversation) is controversial. You're making a very bold claim. Can you share the data? Collective mental health across a single geography would be a fascinating read.
Again, let's pretend you're right. How do you bar someone from buying a gun because of mental health issues that are undiagnosed? Do we do a psych eval as part of purchasing a firearm? There's no part of common sense that allowed your local community to strip guns from you because then you'd be breaking a law by trying to steal from somebody and you'd probably get shot. We are talking about people with mental health issues that, in this scenario, have violent tendencies. I honestly see any way that declaring a mental health state of emergency can actually do anything to stop mass shootings unless it's also paired with stopping fun sales, strict red flag laws and legal confiscation of existing weapons.
Happy to hear an implementation plan that isn't just thoughts and prayers. Abbot (R, TX) says he's all in on mental health now, so let's see what that piece of sh comes up with.
> For example by the time someone is answering their front door with a gun and pointing it at whomever is there, it's clear that person is suffering from a paranoia that should make them ineligible to possess firearms.
First, let me say that "pointing at whomever is there" is a big step too far. Also, arbitrarily pointing a gun at someone who is not a threat to you in order to intimidate them is already a separate crime in the US - "brandishing". In the few states that don't have specific brandishing laws, that act typically falls under "assault" or "assault with a deadly weapon".
That said, it's very common for people to answer the door armed. I do. Generally that's a holstered pistol on my belt, but if I'm not wearing "street clothes" at the time it could be a tiny pistol in my pocket, a full-size pistol in my hand behind the door so it can't be seen, or a carbine similarly concealed.
Why? I grew up in a place where police response averaged a half hour or more. My home was a half mile (~0.8km for those of you outside the US) down a private gravel road; if someone was at my door that I didn't expect or recognize, chances are they were unwelcome. Generally that means salesmen, but we weren't the only people familiar with police response times, so precautions were well-founded.
Today it's partly a habit for me. Like many people, I have a cloud-connected camera system around my home and a doorbell camera. I never have to go to my door without knowing who to expect when I open it. It's not entirely habit though - if I'm physically answering the door and don't recognize the person on the other side, I can reasonably expect that the purpose of the interaction will be to eject them from my property. A firearm is nothing more than a tool to facilitate doing that with minimal risk to myself and my family.
> And this should be policed by other gun owners!
We do! Gun stores have the ability to deny a sale to anyone, at any time, for any reason. They exercise it regularly. If you don't believe me, find someone who can legally own a firearm and have them go into a gun store while smelling of weed, or alcohol. Alternatively, have them act erratically in the store. Then ask to buy a gun. Chances are they'll be refused service and told to leave at that point. If not, the person at the counter will give them a "Form 4473". There's a fair chance that the employee will use the time spent by the customer to fill out the 4473 to call the police. If the customer fills it out and their answers indicate that they are not a prohibited person, expect the employee to call in the background check and then pretend that the response is delayed. The customer will be instructed to come back later, at a specific time or when called. Police will be present when they're told to return.
Seriously. I've worked in a gun store and spend a fair amount of time in them, and I've seen this (or variants thereof) play out many times. If you come in and can't suppress your crazy long enough to hold a courteous conversation, you're not buying a firearm from them.
> But it's been drawn into this culture war where if we admit that Crazy Bob perhaps shouldn't have guns, then the "liberals" win or whatever.
What I see is that we're not afraid to "self-police", but see attempts to pass laws with an arbitrary means of depriving citizens of their rights without due process as a (rather obvious) attempt for the government to acquire the tools to disarm citizens at their leisure. In other words: it's not that we think Crazy Bob should be armed, but that we would much rather risk Armed Crazy Bob than to give the government the ability to apply the "Crazy" monicker to whomever they like.
> if I'm physically answering the door and don't recognize the person on the other side, I can reasonably expect that the purpose of the interaction will be to eject them from my property
This is exactly what I'm talking about. First, it's unwarranted to think that your only action will be to tell them to get lost. What if they're asking for help? (And while it's certainly one's right to refuse to help someone, that minority opinion isn't particularly interesting)
Second, using this word "eject" indicates that you have set yourself up for a confrontation - from the same exact vein as the social media fueled paranoia I'm talking about. If you cannot answer the door with your priors set to that of civil society rather than action movie, then you aren't being particularly responsible.
> We do [police other gun owners]
Sure, sometimes. But if your buddy is having some mental health problems, and rejects your casual offer to hold his guns, do you escalate the situation to compel him to relinquish them? Or do you look the other way, knowing that he would end up on some kind of permanent flag list? That's the dynamic I'm talking about, and it's ultimately one that requires trust, which has broken down.
> we would much rather risk Armed Crazy Bob than to give the government the ability to apply the "Crazy" monicker to whomever they like.
Well at this point you aren't merely "risking" Crazy Bob. Rather there is an endless supply of Crazy Bobs continually shooting up public places, often broadcasting their psychoses ahead of time, while many gun advocates cling to this possibility that government might declare someone crazy for political purposes - while many simultaneously adopt aggressive craziness as a political movement!
One way or another something is going to break, and I'd much rather have it be this simulated defiance groupthink than most everyone's basic right to self defense as referenced by the second amendment.
Doubtful. Especially considering the American Civil war was started by wealthy land owners, but fought by the poorest conscripted Southerners. I don't really think Americans are willing to give up their extremely consumerist lives to fight and potentially die over what is essentially a hobby to most.
Of course it's a convenient narrative: that Americans would take up arms in a glorious battle to defend the Second Amendment. But, ultimately it's a marketing tactic pushed by gun manufacturers, a scare tactic to get people to buy up excess inventory before the next capital 'D' Democrat takes office.
What these people are missing is that it's not just consumers that would be involved. We can already see how law enforcement is split on the issue when you look at how many rural sheriffs are refusing to enforce new gun laws as they are enacted in various states. This is an issue that has a strong urban/rural divide, which means there are people in all manner of roles that could be on either side. And yes, some companies or people take advantage of that, just as other do from reporting on mass shootings while largely ignoring the everyday shootings that pose a bigger threat.
> I don't really think Americans are willing to give up their extremely consumerist lives to fight and potentially die over what is essentially a hobby to most.
I strongly disagree with the characterization that firearms are a "hobby to most".
That might have been the case as recently as the 1980s, but the push for gun control in the 1990s, culminating in the "Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994, galvanized gun owners. I believe that a comfortable majority of gun owners today see through a political lens, not as a hobby.
There's a reason the AR-15 became so prominent so quickly: they were (ineffectively) banned in 1994. When the Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004, they flew off the shelves. They became symbols of the resistance to gun control, to the point that they acquired the nickname "America's Rifle".
Now consider that in 1994, there were far, far fewer ARs in citizens' hands and a gun culture that was largely oriented around hunting. In 2023, American gun culture is firmly rooted in political activism.
A agree you can't 'get all the guns back', but there are still reasons to consider more stringent controls, two spring to mind:
1) It's about the social permission you give to people by making guns easily available. For example, in many European countries, bars, pubs and drinking are an absolutely central part of life, whereas in the US drinking establishments often have a much more 'taboo' vibe about them. Alcohol consumption is much lower in the US than Europe. Obviously there are questions about cause and effect, but I suspect that if the US made gun ownership into a more transgressive behaviour, there would be less gun crime.
2) Sometimes a tiny bit of friction makes a big difference. In the UK you can only buy paracetamol (Tylenol) 16 capsules at a time. Nothing stops you buying more by going to multiple shops, or by going back in the same shop multiple times. But that extra bit of friction has dramatically reduced the amount of paracetamol lying around in people's homes, and suicide from paracetamol has radically reduced as a result.
I get the principle you are articulating, but, in practice, it's probably quite a bit more nuanced. Texas isn't likely to be a state full of criminals, rather it's a state with different social norms around firearms, and permissive gun laws.
"Sometimes a tiny bit of friction makes a big difference."
If it is a tiny bit of friction, then SCOTUS would likely allow it. If not, it could be struck down. But what tiny bit of friction is being proposed that will have an impact on homicides?
It seems your argument is that reducing the number of guns will reduce shootings and that we can reduce them with "a tiny bit of friction". But the courts are generally holding that if the restrictions prevent qualified individuals from obtaining a gun, then it is not a tiny bit of friction, but an infringement on rights. It seems these are incompatible.
> Sometimes a tiny bit of friction makes a big difference
I have three firearms in my safe right now that were 100% legal when I purchased them. They came with a copy of a letter sent to the manufacturer by the ATF that clearly and explicitly states that they are legal as configured. January 31st of this year, the ATF decided that not only are they illegal, but they've always been illegal. If I don't destroy, modify, or register them they will each carry the same penalty as if I had manufactured machineguns in - checks calendar - 22 days.
Oh, and the registration process requires me to sign a statement indicating that I have committed a felony. The ATF has promised not to prosecute me for it, but... well, forgive me if I don't trust the ATF.
This is not the first time I've had hundreds or thousands of dollars of my legally-acquired property declared retroactively illegal.
I'd love "a tiny bit of friction", because this is ridiculous.
If you're a city dwelling blue tribe member, read and reread this comment until you can understand where it's coming from. Most "gun control" legislation has resulted in arbitrary technical restrictions, utterly ineffective for their stated purpose, enforced in a draconian manner where everything is either perfectly legal or an immediate federal felony. Calls to "ban all guns" are a choir-preaching pipe dream, and there's little reason to believe that such a push would produce a different result this time.
What we actually need is consistent legislation across the board that removes the minefield for most gun owners, while focusing on graduated regulation of the states of people who own/carry any type of gun, making sure they're mentally competent and attached to reality - especially as social media pushes more people to become detached.
The federal Assault Weapons ban started in 1994 and ran for 10 years.
Assault Rifles have universal background checks complete with fingerprints, a multi-month waiting period, and a $200 transfer tax - and have since the 1930s. No new assault rifles have been available for civilian purchase in almost 40 years.
You can slowly kill the gun culture over generations, both through legal restrictions and social ostracism of gun owners. Happy that my home country of Canada is becoming ever more anti gun.
Statistics show that laws have had the opposite effect in the US - they've fostered an anti-authoritarian cause that has become by far the dominant meme in gun culture.
Texas isn't an outlier in crime. It ranks 21st in murder rate . 84% of the population is urban (15th most urban state). Dallas and Houston are the 4th and 5th largest metro areas in the country, and struggle with the same crime problem as other big metros like New York, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta.
Yes, the article is combining suicide and murder to come up with a combined "gun violence" metric. It is not a relevant statistic when talking about crime specifically.
I am far less free now that there are daily mass shootings. Me and millions of people stay in their homes and never go to populated places. It sucks and I would be willing to go to a deeper level of hell if it meant undoing these shackles.
You didn't say if you have kids or not but as a parent, those worries are multiplied. There are lots of things we won't do because of the additional risk. The terrorists (white nationalists, red pills, etc) are winning.
Sorry, clarifying questions: Are you saying Texas has more criminals? And would that apply to red states in general, as they have the most mass shootings?
branon asks: "Why's Texas have so many criminals willing to use firearms for evil?"
What kind of a question is that? Have you ever heard of a criminal who was willing to use firearms for good? If you were in a "Criminals' Bar" and said what you say above, they would laugh you out of the room! The very definition of a criminal requires that s(he) do evil, their very reputations ride upon how evil/badass they are perceived.
I, for one, am glad to see the broad acceptance of firearms in society. They bring with them a protocol that is commonly known, demands respect (under risk of death) and that encourages the adoption of etiquette (good manners), which is a necessity in a civil society. But while firearms keep our society safe, there is a price to pay. It's a sort of tax on society: you don't want it but it is necessary.
Back to the original question:
FWIW if you're a criminal, you'll get more laughs than money by beating someone with say, a shovel or a rake (as long as you don't overdo it). But you can't make decent money in stand-up comedy these days either. Soooo...
In all seriousness fighting is a physically demanding task, especially if it is necessary to survive each encounter. One seeks a tool that will maximize the harvest at least risk and least effort. The firearm comes immediately to mind. For good reason the Colt .45 revolver was call the "Great Equalizer":
The same Colt .45 revolver was called the "Peacemaker".
Finally, the more people, the more incidents of crime and thus more criminals. Texas is a growing state. For more details on crime growth maybe ask Joe Biden?
If you're queasy, don't watch any pictures or videos of the last two events, they're pretty bad and the twitter algo promoting checkmark accounts boosted them. The mall one had pictures and videos of bodies in a pile with blood all over and what looked like a kid's brains out on the sidewalk.
Maybe what the American public needs is a little gore to snap them out of whatever trance is making them constantly vote for these disasters.
Look at how vanilla and sanitized 'mass shooting' news has become:
Talking head: "Tonight another mass shooting. Over to our field correspondent..."
Field reporter: "Thanks, Mike! Another terrible mass shooting."
[Camera shows vague picture of a police car]
Police officer: "There was another mass shooting. We came here. Things happened."
[Camera shows SFW picture of a body bag that may or may not be on top of human-like form]
Bystander: "Yup, I can tell you there was a shooting and I was scared."
[Camera shows an ambulance]
Talking Head: "Well, public, you're now informed. Back to beer commercials!"
Perhaps if they actually showed the brutal, gory aftermath of these things, we might stop supporting representatives who do their best to keep them happening.
We are living in a democracy. There is a significant portion of the population that does not want any movement on gun control. I understand most Americans agree that we need some type of background checks and other common sense restrictions in place, but the hesitation to implement this is largely because of the extreme faction, and honestly the gun control that there is broad support to pass wouldn't fix the problem anyway.
All polls report a majority of Americans want gun control, it’s not about a lack of movement on gun control, it’s the opposite, controls are being removed with horrible and predictable results. We are heading in the wrong direction on that issue.
You mean the same polls that said Trump had no chance in 2016?
>controls are being removed with horrible and predictable results
Ignoring the objective fact that disarming legal citizens does nothing to quell armed crime, what controls have been removed, and what were these “horrible” results? If anything more gun control has happened in the last 8 years, what with banning bump stocks, % lowers, the attempted ban on 3D printed firearms, red flag laws, and dozens of attempted laws infringing on the 2nd Amendment.
> Ignoring the objective fact that disarming legal citizens does nothing to quell armed crime
citation needed. what's the one unique thing about the united states that makes it #1 in mass shootings? banning bump stocks or other band-aid solutions are not going to make any kind of significant dent in mass murders.
Simple logic. Guns are manufactured outside of the US throughout the entirety of Central and South America, and can be made extremely cheaply using simple parts from a home improvement store. The only way to remove guns from criminals hands is to completely block all border movement to/from Mexico and ban all Home Depots and related stores federally.
> united states… #1 in mass shootings
More information required. Considering we’re only 32nd highest in the world for gun crime[0], I highly doubt we have less annual incidents than Venezuela and El Salvador. Especially since according to my research only 12 countries have recorded mass shootings[1], most of which contain extensive gun control. Thus without mass killings to compare it to, and lacking information of countries with similar/worse rates of gun homicides, makes “mass shootings” a flawed metric used only to push narratives.
You are living in a democracy. Just one with conservatives who have not over the decades had any concern for the pile of bodies generated by a myriad of things (from AIDs to COVID to guns to healthcare to drugs) unless they could blame a Muslim.
Depends where you are if doing so represents an upgrade in safety, I live here and really want to get out, not so much due to shootings but general political corruption.
You could compare the violent crime rare where you currently live to where you want to live. I would say that there are many other concerns to weigh than simply one dimension, be it this or any other. The overall cultural values are likely a better thing to look at and would be indicated by multiple topics.
Crime rates fluctuates and have local variances. Again, a single point of comparison is not a good indicator of whether to move to some place or not. Even within the US you can move from a high crime area to a low crime area. There have been some articles on here recently about celebrities doing that.
This is like Americans being terrified of living in Australia, b/c they've been convinced by Animal Planet that they'll be killed by venomous wildlife.
There are dangerous places, but everyone you are working with will quickly let you know where they are in your area, and you can avoid them.
Have you considered emigrating? I would check out El Salvador; I hear that it's getting safer there everyday.
Mass shootings by weirdos with rifles are a tiny % of shooting deaths in the US.
The vast majority are either suicides, or are occurring in places that anyone will tell you to avoid when you arrive in the country.
> There are dangerous places, but everyone you are working with will quickly let you know where they are in your area, and you can avoid them
People were randomly shot while they were walking out of a H&M in a premium outlet mall in suburban Dallas with a Whole Foods nearby. Doubt you can classify that as a 'dangerous place'. I do agree that this is not common in the USA.
Everyone that ever violated a law including speeding or jaywalking is technically an 'illegal' including probably you and your family members. Lets stop addressing human beings as illegals.
Everybody knows Texas is like Westworld except when you get shot you die. Like OP explained: your coworkers will tell you, don't go to Texas its filled to the brim with gritty gunslingin cowboy hat wearin heeeehawin spur spinnin boot kickin sonofabitches. Ya ever heard of "Don't mess with Texas" well if you didn't now ya did.
At some point we'll be saturated enough for that "Polite Society" we've been promised by being an "Armed Society" will kick in and we're all gonna feel pretty dumb. Any day now. Any day.
I assume it gets flagged because because it's off-topic and not a new phenomenon. You see the same arguments/comments/flames on every post that comes through here. At least if it was about some new proposed system, fundamentally new analaysis/data/tech, then it would be on-topic.
No one associated with YC flagged this article; the mods didn't even see it. It was flagged by a large number of users. This was purely a community response, and others have already pointed out what is doubtless the reason. (edit: one of the flaggers was a YC alum from 14 years ago - I'm adding that for completeness, but it doesn't change the point)
> Some things are encouraged, eg being racist towards Chinese
I've poured countless hours into urging HN commenters to be more tolerant on China-related topics (as on all topics, but China-related ones have been common) and moderating and/or banning the users who won't. Here's a list that I put together for another user last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod. No one could read that history with even a glimmer of fair-mindedness and conclude that "racism towards Chinese" is "encouraged" by HN mods or anyone else at YC.
I've even had the honor of being "accused" (as if this would somehow be a bad thing) of being Chinese myself, because of how we moderate HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22608635). The funny thing is how similar that groundless accusation was to the groundless accusation you posted here. People simply make these claims up based on a small number (perhaps as small as 1, but we can be generous and say 2 or 3) data points they randomly run across and then misinterpret according to their pre-existing views. People with pro-XYZ feelings do this and conclude that the mods are anti-XYZ. People with anti-XYZ feelings do it and conclude that we're pro-XYZ. It's just projection, and works the same way in both cases. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
Mods answering questions is a form of transparency. I get that you might not believe us, but you could just as easily disbelieve any other form of transparency.
In my experience, the bulk of the community is willing to believe that we tell the truth about HN moderation, if only because it would be stupid and reckless not to. Literally the only value HN has to YC is the good will of the community. To jeopardize that for a little more moderation convenience, or whatever, would be a colossally dumb trade.
Believe it or not, our actual goal is never to do anything that isn't defensible to the community, such that if (heaven forbid) the entire HN dataset were ever published, there would be nothing inconsistent with what we've told the community over the years.
Why then, you or someone may ask, not just publish all the data? Two reasons: (1) we need to protect users; and (2) it would make it impossible to run the site.
The media seemed extremely motivated to point out race for George Floyd and other anecdotal cases. It seems only fair to then also look at race when it comes to statistics. Otherwise, one is effectively lying by cherry-picking which cases to focus on.
Besides, others seem quite confident the issue is guns. Without examining other causes, we can't be sure that's the case.
I'm confident it's white men with a history of misogyny and access to guns. The data supports that too. We love screaming about the one offs but that's smoke and mirrors.
The FBI crime statistics I cited [0] show that whites have one of the lowest per-capita homicide rates. Specifically, the white+Hispanic [1] homicide rate is 1.16 per 100k, while the Black rate is 7.98. So which data are you referring to? Because the data I can find supports the exact opposite of your claim.
[1] Due to how the FBI reports Hispanic ethnicity separately from race, it is difficult to calculate homicide rates for whites and Hispanics separately, so for this comparison the white+Hispanic rate will have to suffice.
That said, mass shootings are a small part of all homicide, so they give the wrong impression of overall violent crime and homicide, and I see no justification for ignoring non-mass homicide. But the media love to focus on them to the exclusion of all else.
Disturbing to see so many in favor of removing our bedrock rights because they are afraid of a tool. Nobody wants to end up like the UK or Australia in terms of reduced rights. That was literally the impetus for the creation of the USA.
Tiring to see so many Americans continually ignore the fact that guns, shooting enthusiasts, and hunters all still exist in Australia. Just a simple google search would reveal shooting clubs exist across this continent. Sure, shooters are not out there with a full auto Barrett 50 (which, funnily enough is now Australian owned) going rock and roll on the local fauna. But guns exist here, they're in people's homes, and this is a fact.
Guns, shooting enthusiasts and some people owning lots of guns (I know someone who lives in Brisbane, Australia, with 40 in his home) all exist in many countries. Yet the USA is the singularly the gun death problem.
It's pretty clear the difference isn't the presence of guns, or the "restrictions" (in Brisbane you need a licence that boils down to knowing gun safety), it's an attitude. The attitude in the US seems to be it's perfectly acceptable to use a gun for self defence, up to and including killing someone. In the rest of the world we are happy to delegate killing people for crimes to the government, so under no circumstances is it legal to threaten someone with a gun, let alone shoot them. Accordingly the rest of the world's population is happy to have fairly mild restrictions on gun use that allows their use for anything (sport, farming, game hunting, ...) bar personal protection from other people.
I suspect the person you are respond would disagree violently on this one point. To them the entire point of owning a gun is self defence. They insist they must have the right to kill someone.
I agree. As an expat yank I've seen both sides. I was raised in a gun heavy household and had a loaded Sig P229 and MAK-90 in my bedroom at 18.
Moving to Australia and realising I didn't like to live life with 'my head on a swivel' was quite a revelation. And the laws around proportional use of force down here are a refreshing change to the 'shoot the person and drag them in your house to claim self defense' American mentality. You'd end up being charged with murder doing that here, and rightfully so imho.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] threadBut it's also plausible that like OP says outside influences take advantage of the condition being present.
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Took less than a minute to find.
Outside of where?
No foreign influence required.
The best kind of misinformation is misinformation that is true but not representative of the real situation. Have you checked our heart disease deaths? It is *factually* an issue many orders of magnitude more important to the average American. And yet…zero discussion seems to happen about it online?
And why wouldn’t there be foreign influence? It’s quite an easy checklist:
* do Russia and China have the technical capability to make social media accounts and post in English?: Yes, obviously.
* do Russia and China have any motive to drive fearful divisive narratives in the US?: Yes - we are their primary geopolitical opponent
With both of these true, to assume they’re not doing it for some reason out of kindness requires a lot of mental gymnastics.
Not foreign influence, but simply that fear and outrage sells.
I.e. they are 100%, without a doubt, doing just that
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/crim...
Thats my entire point. You’re talking about something that simply does not exist. But when nearly all of the online discourse acts as if we are less safe now, it’s easy to believe that is true. Even being aware of the statistics sometimes I feel that way/
I wonder who is driving that narrative?
Let's be serious. Yellow Journalism was thriving in its modern birthplace of USA long before PRC or RF even existed.
Demand from consumers who interact with the internet.
Consumers who, on the internet, ONLY see upvoted comments about masa shootings and see anything talking about the more deadly issue of heart disease/obesity downvoted and mocked.
No need to look for external causes, although blaming external actors also aligns with American historical actions.
Ms. Jackson Lee thinks the real cause of the problem is "guns, guns, guns" - I say it's criminals, criminals, criminals. Why's Texas have so many criminals willing to use firearms for evil?
Take a look at the availability of the mosin nagant rifle.
https://www.nps.gov/spar/learn/historyculture/making-guns.ht...
https://interestingengineering.com/video/guns-factory
That 114-year-old pistol is not only still functional, the only way you could tell it wasn't factory-new when I bought it a few years ago was that the black hard rubber grips were starting to turn a little brown at the edges, and the nickel finish was discolored in a few places on the slide. I've since restored the grips and carefully polished the finish to correct those two points.
Off the top of my head, I have at least two shotguns, one pistol, and four rifles that have been in my family for >100 years. One of those rifles is so old that I'm unsure who first acquired it. It's a "Pennsylvania long rifle". Made long before serial numbers were "a thing", I'd date it to about 1820 based on the style. I know my great-great-grandfather had it, because I have a photograph of him using it as an old man in the early 1900s.
But let's pretend they don't. I'm all for universal mental health care. How does that help? What can we do to curtail gun violence, if we take the stance that it's a mental health issue? Evaluate everyone before letting them buy guns? Sold! Hell, I'll give mine back (after I've damaged them beyond use so no one can have them in the future).
We can play "Is it mental health?" all day but even if it is and we're going through a period of collective psychosis, I don't see how addressing mental health could ever really help here.
And yes, I specifically said that mental illness should make you ineligible to possess firearms (isn't this already federal law or am I getting it confused with state laws?). There likely needs to be more implementation details to make this restriction actually effective. And there needs to be buy in from actual gun owners to police their own communities, rather than it being seen as more top-down nanny state regulations to be ignored. This used to be part of common sense, but especially with the rise of social media, it isn't so common any more.
Again, let's pretend you're right. How do you bar someone from buying a gun because of mental health issues that are undiagnosed? Do we do a psych eval as part of purchasing a firearm? There's no part of common sense that allowed your local community to strip guns from you because then you'd be breaking a law by trying to steal from somebody and you'd probably get shot. We are talking about people with mental health issues that, in this scenario, have violent tendencies. I honestly see any way that declaring a mental health state of emergency can actually do anything to stop mass shootings unless it's also paired with stopping fun sales, strict red flag laws and legal confiscation of existing weapons.
Happy to hear an implementation plan that isn't just thoughts and prayers. Abbot (R, TX) says he's all in on mental health now, so let's see what that piece of sh comes up with.
First, let me say that "pointing at whomever is there" is a big step too far. Also, arbitrarily pointing a gun at someone who is not a threat to you in order to intimidate them is already a separate crime in the US - "brandishing". In the few states that don't have specific brandishing laws, that act typically falls under "assault" or "assault with a deadly weapon".
That said, it's very common for people to answer the door armed. I do. Generally that's a holstered pistol on my belt, but if I'm not wearing "street clothes" at the time it could be a tiny pistol in my pocket, a full-size pistol in my hand behind the door so it can't be seen, or a carbine similarly concealed.
Why? I grew up in a place where police response averaged a half hour or more. My home was a half mile (~0.8km for those of you outside the US) down a private gravel road; if someone was at my door that I didn't expect or recognize, chances are they were unwelcome. Generally that means salesmen, but we weren't the only people familiar with police response times, so precautions were well-founded.
Today it's partly a habit for me. Like many people, I have a cloud-connected camera system around my home and a doorbell camera. I never have to go to my door without knowing who to expect when I open it. It's not entirely habit though - if I'm physically answering the door and don't recognize the person on the other side, I can reasonably expect that the purpose of the interaction will be to eject them from my property. A firearm is nothing more than a tool to facilitate doing that with minimal risk to myself and my family.
> And this should be policed by other gun owners!
We do! Gun stores have the ability to deny a sale to anyone, at any time, for any reason. They exercise it regularly. If you don't believe me, find someone who can legally own a firearm and have them go into a gun store while smelling of weed, or alcohol. Alternatively, have them act erratically in the store. Then ask to buy a gun. Chances are they'll be refused service and told to leave at that point. If not, the person at the counter will give them a "Form 4473". There's a fair chance that the employee will use the time spent by the customer to fill out the 4473 to call the police. If the customer fills it out and their answers indicate that they are not a prohibited person, expect the employee to call in the background check and then pretend that the response is delayed. The customer will be instructed to come back later, at a specific time or when called. Police will be present when they're told to return.
Seriously. I've worked in a gun store and spend a fair amount of time in them, and I've seen this (or variants thereof) play out many times. If you come in and can't suppress your crazy long enough to hold a courteous conversation, you're not buying a firearm from them.
> But it's been drawn into this culture war where if we admit that Crazy Bob perhaps shouldn't have guns, then the "liberals" win or whatever.
What I see is that we're not afraid to "self-police", but see attempts to pass laws with an arbitrary means of depriving citizens of their rights without due process as a (rather obvious) attempt for the government to acquire the tools to disarm citizens at their leisure. In other words: it's not that we think Crazy Bob should be armed, but that we would much rather risk Armed Crazy Bob than to give the government the ability to apply the "Crazy" monicker to whomever they like.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. First, it's unwarranted to think that your only action will be to tell them to get lost. What if they're asking for help? (And while it's certainly one's right to refuse to help someone, that minority opinion isn't particularly interesting)
Second, using this word "eject" indicates that you have set yourself up for a confrontation - from the same exact vein as the social media fueled paranoia I'm talking about. If you cannot answer the door with your priors set to that of civil society rather than action movie, then you aren't being particularly responsible.
> We do [police other gun owners]
Sure, sometimes. But if your buddy is having some mental health problems, and rejects your casual offer to hold his guns, do you escalate the situation to compel him to relinquish them? Or do you look the other way, knowing that he would end up on some kind of permanent flag list? That's the dynamic I'm talking about, and it's ultimately one that requires trust, which has broken down.
> we would much rather risk Armed Crazy Bob than to give the government the ability to apply the "Crazy" monicker to whomever they like.
Well at this point you aren't merely "risking" Crazy Bob. Rather there is an endless supply of Crazy Bobs continually shooting up public places, often broadcasting their psychoses ahead of time, while many gun advocates cling to this possibility that government might declare someone crazy for political purposes - while many simultaneously adopt aggressive craziness as a political movement!
One way or another something is going to break, and I'd much rather have it be this simulated defiance groupthink than most everyone's basic right to self defense as referenced by the second amendment.
Doubtful. Especially considering the American Civil war was started by wealthy land owners, but fought by the poorest conscripted Southerners. I don't really think Americans are willing to give up their extremely consumerist lives to fight and potentially die over what is essentially a hobby to most.
Of course it's a convenient narrative: that Americans would take up arms in a glorious battle to defend the Second Amendment. But, ultimately it's a marketing tactic pushed by gun manufacturers, a scare tactic to get people to buy up excess inventory before the next capital 'D' Democrat takes office.
I strongly disagree with the characterization that firearms are a "hobby to most".
That might have been the case as recently as the 1980s, but the push for gun control in the 1990s, culminating in the "Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994, galvanized gun owners. I believe that a comfortable majority of gun owners today see through a political lens, not as a hobby.
There's a reason the AR-15 became so prominent so quickly: they were (ineffectively) banned in 1994. When the Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004, they flew off the shelves. They became symbols of the resistance to gun control, to the point that they acquired the nickname "America's Rifle".
Now consider that in 1994, there were far, far fewer ARs in citizens' hands and a gun culture that was largely oriented around hunting. In 2023, American gun culture is firmly rooted in political activism.
1) It's about the social permission you give to people by making guns easily available. For example, in many European countries, bars, pubs and drinking are an absolutely central part of life, whereas in the US drinking establishments often have a much more 'taboo' vibe about them. Alcohol consumption is much lower in the US than Europe. Obviously there are questions about cause and effect, but I suspect that if the US made gun ownership into a more transgressive behaviour, there would be less gun crime.
2) Sometimes a tiny bit of friction makes a big difference. In the UK you can only buy paracetamol (Tylenol) 16 capsules at a time. Nothing stops you buying more by going to multiple shops, or by going back in the same shop multiple times. But that extra bit of friction has dramatically reduced the amount of paracetamol lying around in people's homes, and suicide from paracetamol has radically reduced as a result.
I get the principle you are articulating, but, in practice, it's probably quite a bit more nuanced. Texas isn't likely to be a state full of criminals, rather it's a state with different social norms around firearms, and permissive gun laws.
If it is a tiny bit of friction, then SCOTUS would likely allow it. If not, it could be struck down. But what tiny bit of friction is being proposed that will have an impact on homicides?
It seems your argument is that reducing the number of guns will reduce shootings and that we can reduce them with "a tiny bit of friction". But the courts are generally holding that if the restrictions prevent qualified individuals from obtaining a gun, then it is not a tiny bit of friction, but an infringement on rights. It seems these are incompatible.
I have three firearms in my safe right now that were 100% legal when I purchased them. They came with a copy of a letter sent to the manufacturer by the ATF that clearly and explicitly states that they are legal as configured. January 31st of this year, the ATF decided that not only are they illegal, but they've always been illegal. If I don't destroy, modify, or register them they will each carry the same penalty as if I had manufactured machineguns in - checks calendar - 22 days.
Oh, and the registration process requires me to sign a statement indicating that I have committed a felony. The ATF has promised not to prosecute me for it, but... well, forgive me if I don't trust the ATF.
This is not the first time I've had hundreds or thousands of dollars of my legally-acquired property declared retroactively illegal.
I'd love "a tiny bit of friction", because this is ridiculous.
What we actually need is consistent legislation across the board that removes the minefield for most gun owners, while focusing on graduated regulation of the states of people who own/carry any type of gun, making sure they're mentally competent and attached to reality - especially as social media pushes more people to become detached.
I'm not sure that's true, given the rise in gun violence starting when the last assault rifle ban ended in 1994.
Assault Rifles have universal background checks complete with fingerprints, a multi-month waiting period, and a $200 transfer tax - and have since the 1930s. No new assault rifles have been available for civilian purchase in almost 40 years.
D'oh! Apparently "what number is higher, 1994 or 2004?" is too much for my primitive human brain.
And for that matter the most advanced artificial brains screw up math on a regular basis too
What do you mean here by "always been illegal"?
Texas isn't an outlier in crime. It ranks 21st in murder rate . 84% of the population is urban (15th most urban state). Dallas and Houston are the 4th and 5th largest metro areas in the country, and struggle with the same crime problem as other big metros like New York, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gun-violen...
No it isn't, not in any of the 50 states is it a crime.
What kind of a question is that? Have you ever heard of a criminal who was willing to use firearms for good? If you were in a "Criminals' Bar" and said what you say above, they would laugh you out of the room! The very definition of a criminal requires that s(he) do evil, their very reputations ride upon how evil/badass they are perceived.
I, for one, am glad to see the broad acceptance of firearms in society. They bring with them a protocol that is commonly known, demands respect (under risk of death) and that encourages the adoption of etiquette (good manners), which is a necessity in a civil society. But while firearms keep our society safe, there is a price to pay. It's a sort of tax on society: you don't want it but it is necessary.
Back to the original question:
FWIW if you're a criminal, you'll get more laughs than money by beating someone with say, a shovel or a rake (as long as you don't overdo it). But you can't make decent money in stand-up comedy these days either. Soooo...
In all seriousness fighting is a physically demanding task, especially if it is necessary to survive each encounter. One seeks a tool that will maximize the harvest at least risk and least effort. The firearm comes immediately to mind. For good reason the Colt .45 revolver was call the "Great Equalizer":
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/31/the-story-of-how-samuel...
The same Colt .45 revolver was called the "Peacemaker".
Finally, the more people, the more incidents of crime and thus more criminals. Texas is a growing state. For more details on crime growth maybe ask Joe Biden?
Victims: (no gore) https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/allen-texas-outlet-m...
Look at how vanilla and sanitized 'mass shooting' news has become:
Perhaps if they actually showed the brutal, gory aftermath of these things, we might stop supporting representatives who do their best to keep them happening.Throwing fuel on the fire just leads to hastier emotional decisions not better decisions.
You mean the same polls that said Trump had no chance in 2016?
>controls are being removed with horrible and predictable results
Ignoring the objective fact that disarming legal citizens does nothing to quell armed crime, what controls have been removed, and what were these “horrible” results? If anything more gun control has happened in the last 8 years, what with banning bump stocks, % lowers, the attempted ban on 3D printed firearms, red flag laws, and dozens of attempted laws infringing on the 2nd Amendment.
citation needed. what's the one unique thing about the united states that makes it #1 in mass shootings? banning bump stocks or other band-aid solutions are not going to make any kind of significant dent in mass murders.
Simple logic. Guns are manufactured outside of the US throughout the entirety of Central and South America, and can be made extremely cheaply using simple parts from a home improvement store. The only way to remove guns from criminals hands is to completely block all border movement to/from Mexico and ban all Home Depots and related stores federally.
> united states… #1 in mass shootings
More information required. Considering we’re only 32nd highest in the world for gun crime[0], I highly doubt we have less annual incidents than Venezuela and El Salvador. Especially since according to my research only 12 countries have recorded mass shootings[1], most of which contain extensive gun control. Thus without mass killings to compare it to, and lacking information of countries with similar/worse rates of gun homicides, makes “mass shootings” a flawed metric used only to push narratives.
[0] - https://web.archive.org/web/20230418110343/https://www.npr.o...
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20230506023629/https://wisevoter...
Pray tell why you think I am "a garbage person"?
We seem to agree on energy policy (and I just upvoted one of your comments), so maybe you are also "a garbage person" ;)
Checks data... that means... No to America.
So, most place since the pandemic?
Crime rates fluctuates and have local variances. Again, a single point of comparison is not a good indicator of whether to move to some place or not. Even within the US you can move from a high crime area to a low crime area. There have been some articles on here recently about celebrities doing that.
This is like Americans being terrified of living in Australia, b/c they've been convinced by Animal Planet that they'll be killed by venomous wildlife.
There are dangerous places, but everyone you are working with will quickly let you know where they are in your area, and you can avoid them.
Mass shootings by weirdos with rifles are a tiny % of shooting deaths in the US. The vast majority are either suicides, or are occurring in places that anyone will tell you to avoid when you arrive in the country.
People were randomly shot while they were walking out of a H&M in a premium outlet mall in suburban Dallas with a Whole Foods nearby. Doubt you can classify that as a 'dangerous place'. I do agree that this is not common in the USA.
I wouldn't immigrate here, especially if I wasn't white.
Everyone that ever violated a law including speeding or jaywalking is technically an 'illegal' including probably you and your family members. Lets stop addressing human beings as illegals.
Hyperventilating over the onomastics of what they get called isn't solving the illegal-entry crisis.
/s
/s
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic"
> Some things are encouraged, eg being racist towards Chinese
I've poured countless hours into urging HN commenters to be more tolerant on China-related topics (as on all topics, but China-related ones have been common) and moderating and/or banning the users who won't. Here's a list that I put together for another user last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod. No one could read that history with even a glimmer of fair-mindedness and conclude that "racism towards Chinese" is "encouraged" by HN mods or anyone else at YC.
I've even had the honor of being "accused" (as if this would somehow be a bad thing) of being Chinese myself, because of how we moderate HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22608635). The funny thing is how similar that groundless accusation was to the groundless accusation you posted here. People simply make these claims up based on a small number (perhaps as small as 1, but we can be generous and say 2 or 3) data points they randomly run across and then misinterpret according to their pre-existing views. People with pro-XYZ feelings do this and conclude that the mods are anti-XYZ. People with anti-XYZ feelings do it and conclude that we're pro-XYZ. It's just projection, and works the same way in both cases. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
But there's no transparency, so there's no reason to assume it's true and not just the usual corporate PR.
Posted in the interest of providing you the transparency you desire.
In my experience, the bulk of the community is willing to believe that we tell the truth about HN moderation, if only because it would be stupid and reckless not to. Literally the only value HN has to YC is the good will of the community. To jeopardize that for a little more moderation convenience, or whatever, would be a colossally dumb trade.
Believe it or not, our actual goal is never to do anything that isn't defensible to the community, such that if (heaven forbid) the entire HN dataset were ever published, there would be nothing inconsistent with what we've told the community over the years.
Why then, you or someone may ask, not just publish all the data? Two reasons: (1) we need to protect users; and (2) it would make it impossible to run the site.
Indeed.
> if only because it would be stupid and reckless not to
Not really, even if it was somehow proven.
> the only value HN has to YC is the good will of the community.
That's called a brand, and other brands do fine despite lying to their customers. In fact it's often considered a core part of business.
Edit: typo
Besides, others seem quite confident the issue is guns. Without examining other causes, we can't be sure that's the case.
[0] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
[1] Due to how the FBI reports Hispanic ethnicity separately from race, it is difficult to calculate homicide rates for whites and Hispanics separately, so for this comparison the white+Hispanic rate will have to suffice.
That said, mass shootings are a small part of all homicide, so they give the wrong impression of overall violent crime and homicide, and I see no justification for ignoring non-mass homicide. But the media love to focus on them to the exclusion of all else.
At least, that was the idea.
It's pretty clear the difference isn't the presence of guns, or the "restrictions" (in Brisbane you need a licence that boils down to knowing gun safety), it's an attitude. The attitude in the US seems to be it's perfectly acceptable to use a gun for self defence, up to and including killing someone. In the rest of the world we are happy to delegate killing people for crimes to the government, so under no circumstances is it legal to threaten someone with a gun, let alone shoot them. Accordingly the rest of the world's population is happy to have fairly mild restrictions on gun use that allows their use for anything (sport, farming, game hunting, ...) bar personal protection from other people.
I suspect the person you are respond would disagree violently on this one point. To them the entire point of owning a gun is self defence. They insist they must have the right to kill someone.
Moving to Australia and realising I didn't like to live life with 'my head on a swivel' was quite a revelation. And the laws around proportional use of force down here are a refreshing change to the 'shoot the person and drag them in your house to claim self defense' American mentality. You'd end up being charged with murder doing that here, and rightfully so imho.