Guns are designed to destroy, period.

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I will agree with that statement if they clarify it by adding bank accounts and in some cases relationships (as when the other leaves when one empties the bank accounts on firearms and ammo). :)
 
Guns are tools designed to facilitate certain destructive activities.
Certain destructive activites are needed to facilitate constructive activities.

Breakfast involves breaking eggs, killing pigs, crushing oranges, subjecting them to damaging temperatures, etc.
Nobody (but PETA types) objects because that destruction is needed to provide for continuing your life.

Guns are, fundamentally, designed for damaging people. Sometimes that's the only way to stop those people from killing us.

Funny how that whole Disneyesque "circle of life" kinda glosses over the "X destroys Y to survive" thing.
 
Not quite the same, but my favorite reply to "guns are only deisgned to KILL" is.....

"Mine must be defective then...it hasn't killed ANYone!" :(
 
The absolute truth is that guns are designed to destroy. Mine don't... at least they haven't since I got them so maybe they're defective. On the other hand, baseball bats are designed to play games with. Yet from time to time we hear of people being beaten to death with one.
So which is worse: A weapon used to play games or a toy used to cause harm?
:confused:
 
This whole discussion always bugs me.
The whole "it's a TOOL," argument is disingenuous.

I've heard that in NRA official classes they will not even use the word, "weapon."

I think if you carry a firearm, you had better not forget for a moment, that it is a weapon.

I don't hunt, but I have been hunted by my fellow man.
Under that circumstance I do not need a belt sander or a socket set, I need a WEAPON.

--Travis--
 
dragongoddess said:
IS it me or am I wrong. It seems that a large number of people with less than 5 posts come in and ask questions such as the one in this post. It's as if they are trying to pick a fight. IS the OP a Troll. I don't troll anti sites so why should they troll here. Just curious.
I don't get the impression that the OP is a troll. As to why the come here, I can tell you from years of hanging around liberals (higher ed types) that they can't resist causing trouble. To many liberals, conservatives are an "oddity" to be poked and prodded. They isolate themselves amongst themselves and believe that everyone in their little world is one of them. They gasp when they learn that someone with an education is a conservative. I can't remember how many of my fellow students in my PhD program stopped talking to me when I began talking politics.

So, to them, this board is full of uneducated rednecks, and they wanna stir the pot just to see how stupid we really are. When confronted with a polite reasonable argument, they just leave because they can't handle the fact that their stirring didn't work. That, and there are plenty of other pro-RKBA web sites that don't have the same attitude THR does, and the *DO* manage to stir a hornet's nest. That is why I like THR. No hornets here.
 
Also good to ask such people: what about archery? Are bows and arrows made to destroy?

I actually used this as a response to a Liberal gun-grabber telling me (at a gun show) guns were designed to kill. His respone to me was "yes but guns are a quicker more efficent way to kill many more things". :banghead:
 
I would say that explosives only destroy, but it's in that destruction that we can work, create and build. By destroying impediments to freedom and tyranny(criminal in the act) we are building the ground work for society.
 
Firearms are designed to secure and ignite a shell containing a chemical compound that turns from a solid to a gas very quickly. Much of the time, these shells contain projectiles which the firearm launches and stabilizes by passing through a barrel.

Anything else, and you have to look to the design of the human mind.
 
Not all guns are designed to destroy or kill.

Go to your favorite "gun game" venue and tell me how many of those you'd take to the sandbox. S&W makes a very nice .22 caliber target pistol. It was designed from the ground up as a target/plinker gun.

The concept of the gun was indeed to kill and destroy, but the hammer we all use to hang family pictures evolved from one caveman braining another with a rock.

An item in one's hand does not determine that persons morality, it's the other way around. If the argument starter can't grasp that, they're mentally and morally hosed anyway. Save your words for someone intelligent.
 
-quote-----
Some things need to be destroyed.
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Agree. Same response to the whine; "guns are designed to kill."

Reply: "Yes, and some things need to be killed."

It's a diversion to talk about sporting uses of guns. Just about all the gun sports are simulations of some form of killing, or some kind of firearm skills related to killing.

Killing something to eat is appropriate. Killing someone who's trying to kill you or your family is appropriate. What's the problem?
 
Not all guns are designed to destroy or kill.

1911 Guy,
There’s no use in trying to advance that argument here. You will just be shouted down by those that can’t (or won’t) admit that there is any use for a firearm other than “killing” (pardon me, “stopping”) in self defense or imposing their will on another.
When I was growing up firearms were just another part of life, now, to some, they seem to be a way of life. I don’t know if there were all that many totally one-dimensional “gun-zealots” back then and this is a new phenomenon brought on by paranoia fed by overcrowding. (See Calhoun’s study on rats), or maybe this is nothing new and only the availability of the Internet has allowed this philosophy to come out of the closet.
I feel that I fall into the category that sees firearms as something that are used for sporting and collecting and also can be used for defense. Others see them as primarily as defense with some use in the sporting/collecting area.
Then there are those that see them as useful only for defense and/or intimidation.

Somehow I just can’t imagine that my Hammerli M162 was designed as a “weapon” meant to “destroy” things.

Dean
 
Dean, your Hammerli was most certainly NOT designed as a weapon. But the bamboo tube wrapped with wire, loaded with crude gunpowder and rocks, then ignited by a Chinese soldier with a glowing coal just as certainly WAS. All firearms from that day to this have, as their original purpose, death and destruction of an enemy. For those of us who use our weapons for sport and play, this idea requires a stretch of our thinking processes.
I have an acquaintance who owns a small "wiener dog" that does nothing but eat, crap and sleep. Aside from the company it gives her, it's totally useless. But it shares a common ancestor with the Pit Bull - the wolf, and if it is poked, prodded or otherwise angered, it will react just like the Pit Bull, by biting.
Your Hammerli has the same ancestors as my Mauser and thus has many of the same characteristics. What we choose to do with these guns is the crux of the matter. As I pointed out earlier, a baseball bat is a toy that can be used as a weapon. That we choose to use weapons as toys is a measure of our humanity.
 
---quote-----
Somehow I just can’t imagine that my Hammerli M162 was designed as a “weapon” meant to “destroy” things.
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That's not exactly my point.

If I'm thinking correctly about your Hammerli, it's designed for marksmanship competition. Most marksmanship competitions are designed to develop, simulate, or test skills related to combat or hunting.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with that.

You can't get away from the basic fact that the primary purpose of firearms is to kill and/or incapacitate (whether for the purpose of feeding oneself or defending oneself or one's country). Marksmanship skills and competitions are mostly about developing and testing skills related to those basic two purposes. It's true that the development and testing of these kind of skills is enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding enough to be an end to itself, but that doesn't change the basic nature of the tool or the skills involved in its use.

I particularly don't think it is a helpful position when debating anti-gun people or objecting to anti-gun policies to reply that there are some firearms that are more adapted to competition than to hunting or defense. It's not a helpful reply because it lends support to their notions of wanting to ban certain firearms that have lethal potential.

If you go down that path of saying "I should be allowed to keep my Hammerli because it's designed for fun with targets and isn't very well adapted for killing," the anti's are going to come back with a policy of taking away your Hammerli and giving you a BB gun instead. They'll say "You can still have fun with the BB gun, and it's even less well adapted for killing."
 
Guns are an anti-personnel device. Handguns are designed as a defensive tool to use when one comes under an unanticipated attack upon ones person that may result in death or serious bodily harm. Only a fool or a criminal (which is the same thing) would attack with a handgun when long guns are available. It is their ability to be used to destroy that makes them useful.
 
I always get the

"Guns are intended for killing people."

my reply (similar to others above).

"No. The're good for killing lots of things. Not just people"
 
The difference between "weapons" and "game guns" is pretty minor. Small optimizations for game purposes detracts little from the primary design as a combat tool.

No, I wouldn't want a "race gun" were I "in the sandbox". Then again, I'd far rather have that race gun there than a sharp stick.

Many games (gun and otherwise) are simply derivatives, fun abstractions, of killing things. The core purpose is still there, if glossed over.
 
A gun is a tool. It is a hard heart that destroys. People were massacreing each other long before guns were around. If someone tells you that guns are 'for destruction' then take him/her shooting. Once they shoot a gun without the feeling that the gun is making him/her go berserk it is a conversion experience.
 
If you go down that path of saying "I should be allowed to keep my Hammerli because it's designed for fun with targets and isn't very well adapted for killing," the anti's are going to come back with a policy of taking away your Hammerli and giving you a BB gun instead. They'll say "You can still have fun with the BB gun, and it's even less well adapted for killing."

Careful where you are going with this. If the antis were to show up on my doorstep with a BB gun for my Hammerli, would you stand behind me even to the point of giving up your Glock or whatever?
 
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Careful where you are going with this. If the antis were to show up on my doorstep with a BB gun for my Hammerli, would you stand behind me even to the point of giving up your Glock or whatever?
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Either you are missing my point, or I am missing your point, or both.

Let me try again:

I maintain that the primary purpose of firearms is to kill and/or incapacitate, for the purpose of hunting and/or defense. Firearms competitions are generally designed to simulate or test skills related to hunting and/or defense. Such competitions are a secondary purpose for firearms. I believe that hunting, defense, and competition are ALL legitimate purposes for owning and using firearms and we should defend our interest in firearms and our right to own them on this basis.

In my earlier post, I was warning AGAINST people defending their rights and interest in firearms by pointing out how their guns are more adapted for competition than for combat or hunting. I think it is a BAD IDEA to argue that we should be allowed to keep this gun or that gun because it has specialized features for competition. I think this opens up the door for anti's to ban many kinds of firearms and restrict ownership to air rifles and bb guns (and eventually ban those too, as they have in England, by arguing that they can be adapted to criminal purposes).

I am NOT in favor of legislation to take away your Hammerli and replace it with a BB gun. I'm not willing to give up my Glock or whatever, either. We both have the right to both these kinds of guns, whether be it for competition or for lawful self-defense. That's why I think it is a dangerous and misguided tactic to respond to the anti's by saying "well, I should be allowed to keep my Hammerli because it's not ideally suited for combat." That argument plays into their hands and will eventually lead to the banning of all guns from civilian ownership.
 
Sometimes you can't win...

"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument."
- William Gibbs McAdoo

Usually the nitwit who makes such a pronouncement about firearms is too lacking in knowledge to engage in discussion. Sad but true.
 
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