Calling our shotguns, tools.

[Red Label]

I have noticed that many times we gun afficianados refer to our beloved firearms as tools, especially the shotguns. I personally don't like it. I do realize it's a tool but that seems so impersonal. Lets face it, We are in love with these things. I really like my chainsaw and it does a great job but I don't spend hours on forums about Stihl chainsaws. There are no "saw and chain" magazines, no "pliers monthly". The only guys who come close to us is the woodworking guys. They really get into a fine tablesaw but its still not the same. We love our guns. They can"t be tools

Steve

 

[Sir Galahad]

I agree.

 

[sm]

perspective

Well, actually , they are tools. Just some are nicer, more expensive than others.

I have some very expensive Swedish and German made tools, thats exactly what they are...I do have some cheaper Sears stuff that'll do the same thing--kinda, not nearly as well. Just like I wouldn't expect someone to haul his $32K custom live pigeon gun out in briars/duck blind and what not and use a lesser expensive SG--I don't use the Lindstroms @ $ 65 and up when a lesser Sears needle nose plier will work on wiring either. Live -pigeons and $50k items to be worked on-- a better tool for the job is in order.

Tools--oh oughta see what some tools cost in a Hosptial OR...$500K+ for microscope, its only a tool, but its used for brain surgery.
IMO

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If you don't like to call your guns, tools, then don't call them tools. They are tools, regardless of cost, function, or sentiment. Just because you love something does not mean that it is not a tool. Guns just happen to be tools you are fixated on.

Do you have a flashlight? Is is it a tool to help you see in the dark? Have you spent any time over on candlepowerforums.com to see what truly bizarre tool fetishes are all about? Hey, one guy has a light safe. From what I gathered, it was a gun safe converted to hold his collection of flashlights. He can tell you about the candle power, lumens, beam consistency, amps, etc. all day long. He loves his lights, no doubt about it and he calls them tools.

Red Label, while I don't know of any forums dedicated to Stihl chainsaws, there are chainsaw forums. I assure you, that guns are NOT the only tool about which there are forums. See http://chainsaw.nb.nu/bb/index.php for example. Just because you have some unnatural relationships with your guns does not negate the fact that they are tools.

Move away from the computer for a while and go chat with some live people. Live people with guns will be perfectly fine, but talk with some live people, in the flesh. Really.

 

[El Tejon]

00, that is truly amazing!

Red, they are just tools. Objects that only us to accomplish a job. Nothing more.

However, that doesn't mean we can't love them.

 

[zahc]

Most people say I have toys. But all the things they call toys are really tools. My bicycle, cars, all the things I really appreciate are tools that do a job well. And that's that. I love tools/toys. They are one of the things about being a man. Tools are what seaprate us from animals.

Tools rule

 

[Red Label]

OK, I'm wrong. There are some strange people out there with flashlights and chainsaws. Double naught, don't worry, I get out plenty and most of the guys I work with are gun nuts too. My point was and is still that even though there is a gun for every use there is still something special about guns that bring us all together. Even though now I'm beginning to wonder if I should go seek some help after reading about the flashlight guys

 

[Sir Galahad]

DNS, I don't think the insulting comments towards RedLabel were called for. The man just expressed a valid opinion. You may not agree with it. But you don't have to insinuate he has some "unnatural relationship" with his guns or needs to meet "live" people. Really, could you be any more condescending? Firearms are tools in the anthropological sense, just as is a Folsom or Clovis point or a atlatl. But that's not what the man was saying. He's talking like Craftsman or Skil. Yes, I've worked in the power tool trade (repair) for several years and I know there are people who are nuts about tools. Had one guy that dropped in every day to pick my brains about tools the way some guys pick other folks' brains about ARs or 1911s. Point I'm trying to make is, RedLabel has an opinion (and, yes, I happen to agree with it and I KNOW that firearms are, in a scientific method of catagorization, TOOLS) and that doesn't mean he's wrong in the context he was speaking in. I know what he meant. Cut him a huss, fer petesake... Enough to make a Cro-Magnon want to bang his head with an Aeschulean hand-ax.:banghead:

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

I call all of my guns weapons, since that's what they are.

I have a sentimental attachment to my weapons, somewhat akin to the attachment a viking had for his axe or war hammer.


Don't ask me to explain it, because i can't.


All i know is, i can recognize which guns are mine in a pile of a bunch of others without looking at the serial numbers. even the utterly bone stock ones.

 

[Badger Arms]

My guns are tools but... at the same time they exist as both weapons and works of art. I'll admit I am more fond of most of my guns than I am of any painting, statue, or the like. I have some truly special guns like my Remington 17 and Remington model 51 pistol that are truly special works of art. Yeah, I like John Pederson. I'd consider many doubles as more art than machine or tool. I do have several shotguns I'd consider more tools than anything else. My HD gun is a smooth functional extension of my mental intent to defend myself. I pick it up and every operation is as smooth and natural as the swing of a master carpenter's hammer. As a sheet metal mechanic, the pneumatic drills I used were connected to my brain somehow. I thought about where the hole would be and it appeared. (I triggered my drills with my middle finger which made transitioning to pistols a bit dangerous!) I guess what I'm saying is that you can call anything a tool yet still love and adore it.

Gun control is personal to me for the same reason that we should think of weapons as tools... that's all they are. It is the mind that kills, the mind that misuses guns, and the mind that causes things to happen. I feel that emotionalizing guns is a tactic that will cause us to lose them. When we open the argument to emotion, human life will always win over tools. It's no great logical leap to say that it's our unreasonable love for guns rather than logic which makes us fight so hard for guns. It's our macho desire to hold a gun that, in a falic sense, gives us perverse pleasure. Cultured and civilized people repress these lusts and exist in harmony with each other. Nuts to that. The real argument -- GUNS ARE TOOLS. It's the criminals, stupid! Ban murder, not the tool. Punish murders, not their tools. Hate the crime and the person, not the tools. We are in love with the freedom that allows us to buy that 24oz hammer, that 12v power drill, that 10" cutoff saw, the 6X Rivet Gun, the Ruger M77 Express 375 H&H Magnum with sight ramp integral with the barrel. Keep calling them tools and think of them that way. When they try to take them away, they are taking away our freedom, not our tools.

AHHHhhhhh, but ain't she a beauty?

 

[Dave McCracken]

Weapons are all tools, not all tools are weapons.

Robert Audrey, in his book ,African Genesis, explains that the habit of calling artifacts of primitive cultures tools was just political correctness. ALL cultures have left weapons behind, some have also left tools, habitations and art.

Art itself probably started as nicks and grooves put on spear shafts to aid gripping, and stone worked past bare utility to pleasing symmetry.

Weapons become part of our self image. We name them Excalibur,Durandal, Ticklicker and Ol' Betsy.

The Mongols wrote love poetry to their swords, and thought of them as partners.

There's a temple in Japan where a sword over 1K years old is worshipped as a god.

In a book on Pre Columbian America here, there's a pic of a stone knife with a red tip. The stone was worked so a discoloring in the material was at the point, and the whole thing is jewelry that cuts.

While a shotgun is a tool,it's first and foremost a weapon.

However, call them what you will,semantics are not worth fussin' over...

 

[Red Label]

Thanks for joining in Dave. I didn't mean to start a semantics war or anything. This somehow seems to have hit a nerve with a few of the guys. I am a mechanic by trade, an automotive technician. I use tools everyday all day. None of my tools ignite the passion that my shotguns do. Yes they too are tools, they are art, but most of all they are a hobby and they are fun. My working tools supply my income. My guns, my toys, shatter clays and accompany me into the woods. That is the difference. Work tools and fun tools. the work tools are not for fun. The fun tools are for enjoyment.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Red Label, we have a psychological investment in our weapons.

"Power comes from the barrel of a gun"-Mao.

Colonel Cooper commented on the mystique of firearms years ago saying that they imbued people with godlike powers, the ability to smite at a distance as with a thunderbolt.

And in an uncertain and oft dangerous world, firearms are our means to living.

The GM that's my carry gun is yclept Justin Case.