Cars are banned in most places. They're only allowed in roads and parking lots, and even then with severe restrictions. Start driving your car on the sidewalk or across someone's front yard and you'll be rapidy arrested.
I second that. I've blocked Reddit (even programming.reddit) because it's a productivity killer for me. Coming here still feels work-related and gives me a tremendous motivation boost, and I'd like News.YC to stay that way.
The danger of something is not the only factor in banning it. It's the danger : utility ratio. Cars are dangerous, but their utility is very high. Guns are also extremely dangerous, and their only utility is their danger - they are made to kill people (and protect, as a side effect). We ban guns because we consider their utility low compared to their danger (replacing them with police and a civil society).
Amichall, are you a troll? I mean this in the nicest possible way, but when I look at your submission record, you either don't think things through before posting, or you're deliberately trolling.
He seems to be like a troll in the sense that he likes to stir up controversy, but I don't think he has the same bad intentions as a troll. The hallmark of a troll is to engage people in long, acrimonious back-and-forths that push the thread to the right side of the page.
The editors mark content they really don't want here as "dead", which means you don't see it unless you have the "showdead" option turned on in your profile. I don't think they ever delete posts.
Yah, I've had a number of email threads with Aaron Rasmussen, the guy behind that system. Smart guy, now working on a startup call US Mechatronics
http://www.usmechatronics.com
I love that it was "just" a summer project and I love that he tested on his brother.
The "externalities" (CO2, traffic) are less extreme - at least on a per-unit basis, than threatening someone, or actually shooting them. We have the means, if not the will to make some attempts at calculating and taxing them. I wonder what those sorts of calculations would look like if you calculated a value for each person killed by guns in a given year and spread that out over their sales in a tax of some kind. Hrm. Anyway, yeah, cars are useful, guns I can and do live without.
Your comparison is invalid because you're comparing externalities from legal use of cars to externalities from illegal use of guns. Compare the externalities of legal use of cars (pollution, traffic, some crashes) to legal use of guns (pollution from lead and propellants, some accidental shootings) and illegal use of cars (crashes due to DUI, reckless driving, racing) to illegal use of guns (assault, murder).
Guns are designed to propel bullets quickly and accurately. This is used for whatever people want to use it for, including sport, murder, and saving lives.
I don't have a gun, in fact I believe that having a gun for self defense may increase your possibilities of getting killed, let me explain it.
Where I come from people are not trying to kill you, they are trying to steal your wallet or something, and if someone points a gun on me, i would prefer to give that person my wallet than to take out a gun.
Its just my opinion and I don't want to take the risk of someone shooting me because I pulled out a gun.
Actually, there's no "you" or "me" explaining it. The math behind the question is complicated and most people instantly fall into the mistake of pretending it is simple.
In retrospect, it perhaps should not have been surprising that increasing the number of civilians with guns would reduce crime rates. The possibility of armed victims reduces the expected benefits and increases the expected costs of criminal activity.
I am not anti-gun or anti-hunting. But "sport" usually means killing things (unless you're talking clay pigeons), and so does saving lives. Injuring at least. They are designed to propel bullets quickly and accurately so that the bullets can strike living things. Shooting cans isn't the intended purpose (although it can be a lot of fun).
