Thread by @dan_abramov

I’ve lived 80% of my life in Russia and 20% in the UK. Both countries have some strange or unpleasant aspects. (For example, one of them poisons its own citizens with a nerve agent.)

Neither of them has news reports every other week about some random person shooting up a store.

The most fascinating to me is that while there seems to be majority support for stricter laws, there’s also majority opposition to e.g. outright banning handguns. I’m perplexed as to what kind of experiences one needs to have to be convinced that weapons with bullets are needed.

I know some people say guns are their hobby. My thinking process is, like, maybe you could pick a different hobby? How about making bombs, is that a reasonable hobby too?

Though a designated park where people who like to shoot can hang out with each other seems like an OK idea.

Someone mentioned stabbings in UK but then deleted. The “nice” thing about stabbings is that unless you’re dealing with a specially trained assassin, you can’t be stabbed while running away. This adds a natural limit on how many people can get stabbed at the same time.

To me, the problem with guns is the same as with bombs. They work remotely. The normal intuition that you can keep distance with a suspicious person or try to run away doesn’t apply. They’re like a cheat code. Of course all violence is bad but I prefer direct contact.

Re: cops. Ideally I wouldn’t want them to have access to lethal weapons either. Just some kind of stun weapons that paralyze the person for a few days as a last resort. Idk how that would work, maybe this exists already? I don’t get why you’d want a cop to be able to murder.

If temporarily paralyzing weapons in the hands of cops sound terrifying, imagine how bad it would be if they had weapons that could literally END YOUR LIFE? Oh wait that’s what we have now.

Anyway, look at this “tech” guy (me) thinking about solving problems with “tech”, it’s really something isn’t it. How is this website free

narrator: they run ads

Someone should tell Americans that video games exist

If you really like guns why can’t you just play Fortnite. It has many guns. They periodically get vaulted and unvaulted. Some of them are “epic” and “mythical”. You can defend yourself against the Mandalorians

The government angle I don’t follow. Do you think a govt would *let* you overthrow it? If it was vulnerable it would use both physical power and laws against you. And if you’re okay breaking its laws, why do you need its permission to have a gun? I thought you’re overthrowing it.

When the question is about giving up guns, the dark market comes up as an argument — that’s where the bad people will get them anyway. Why doesn’t the same argument come up when we’re talking about the original supposed purpose — overthrowing the government? Surely it can help.

I guess some people believe that they can *legally* overthrow the government. Like “bro, it’s in the constitution”. I don’t even need to guess, there are people who literally tried that a few months ago and said they thought it was legal.

Bad news, governments don’t like to be overthrown. This is like Government Overthrow 101. Not that I have any experience in this. I just like posting

This thread will get me fucking deported. I’ll go to bed.

Btw I forgot to say the strange thing about the UK. It has an actual “queen”.

Night

I look forward to the day that I no longer have to worry when a friend moves to US that they’ll die such a senseless death instead of, say, getting run over by a car like the rest of us. I know this day will come. Even pessimistically, I know I won’t have to worry after I’m dead

Loved reading all the counter-arguments. Really convincing compared to, *checks notes*, literally living in two very different countries in neither of which this is a thing.