Firearms were NOT designed to kill

[Cosmoline]

I've put in WAY too much time arguing with antis on line. One thing I've noticed is how, when you strip away all their other nonsense they are left with one reason and one reason alone firearms should be banned--they were "designed to kill." I've even heard pro-gun people admit to this in the past. But it's not true.

Firearms were designed to fire cartridges or shells. That's it. They don't even have to have projectiles in them. Whatever motives the designers had, whether it was Browning or the Mauser Bros., is pointless. The firearms were DESIGNED to hold a cartridge or shell and fire it.

edit--actually I'd say BULLETS were also not designed to kill. Rather, they are designed to utilize the force of the cartridge pressure in different ways.

 

[stealthmode]

i think thats a ridiculous semantic argument. you are playing their game of (what sex means) guns kill and are designed to kill if you dont have ammo you smash their head in with it.

 

[MJRW]

Bah, they were designed to do that. Then again so were:

Knives
Bats (club)
Bows
Slings
etc.

 

[Cosmoline]

A knife or bat was designed to kill? I don't see how.

A firearm is a tool. It is designed to hold and fire a cartridge or shell. You can use it to shoot targets, trees, or human skulls. But that choice is a purely HUMAN element with no bearing on the design whatsoever.

Likewise, a hammer is a tool. It is designed to magnify the power of the human arm and focus it on a steel head. You can use it to pound nails or skulls, but that choice is a purely HUMAN element with no bearing on the design whatsoever.

I could go on. A screwdriver is a tool designed to focus the strength of human arm onto a specially sloted head. It can be used to screw or unscrew screws, or to stick into a skull.

A knife, likewise, could be used to slice bread or slowly torture a child to death over the course of a week. Indeed, if you confuse DESIGN with what a tool has actually been used for, knives are the most hideous invention in human history. Far more disturbing than any firearm. But that would again be confusing the OBJECT AND ITS PHYSICAL DESIGN with the various USES humans have put it to.

See my point.

SEMANTICS IS EVERYTHING. This is why antis are so sloppy about the terms "gun" and "assault weapon." THEY must keep the issues vague and undefined, because as soon as you start to examine firearms with logic and precision, their arguments fall to bits.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Firearms are designed to propel a metal projectile at a velocity great enough to cause sufficient trauma to the target that it will cease it's current activity. Whether or not it dies as a result is moot.

 

[TallPine]

I thought firearms were designed to turn money into noise ....

 

[Cosmoline]

A shotgun loaded with lima beans is by your definition not a firearm. See the problem? You are looking at end results of a choice made by a particular user. I am talking about the firearm as a piece of engineering.

This is a critical issue. If firearms were truly desgined as instruments of death, then all the "save the children" arguments have merit and there really IS justification for banning them.

Put another way. I have NEVER killed any person with a firearm, yet I have probably put ten thousand rounds through various firearms. Have I been using the firearm contrary to its intended design? If the intended design was to kill, kill, kill, then I HAVE been misusing the firearms.

 

[Cosmoline]

LOL--tallpine's right. Looking at end results then all the firearms I've owned have been designed to drain my bank account.

 

[sendec]

Firearms ARE designed to kill and there IS justification for banning them, however it's not a good justification and is outweighed by the justification for not banning them.

You say "kill" like its a bad thing.......

 

[R.H. Lee]

A shotgun loaded with lima beans is by your definition not a firearm. See the problem? You are looking at end results of a choice made by a particular user. I am talking about the firearm as a piece of engineering.

That would be like saying that an automobile whose gas tank is filled with water is no longer an automobile. I think you're just rolling around with semantics here, but I would suspect that lima beans at shotgun velocities would be lethal. Are they raw, cooked, or dry?

 

[Cosmoline]

So have I been misusing mine all these years?

 

[Cosmoline]

No. The water in the gas analogy would correspond with a firearm loaded with a dud. The car is still a car and the firearm still a firearm, but they cannot function in that configuration.

A lima bean load would correspond with a slow car used on the farm. Indeed that's a good match since lima bean loads are the traditional less-than-lethal round used on the farm. Been around for ages. Or bean around.

 

[Cosmoline]

Think of it this way. The firearm no longer exerts any influence on a projectile once it leaves the bore. Ergo its design cannot be said to have any influence on what the projectile hits. That is a matter for the user of the firearm. Thus firearms don't kill people, people kill people. Sometimes with firearms, sometimes with knives.

 

[RED-DOG 40]

I believe RileyMC nailed it right on the head. First came arrows/knives then guns. Think of dinner on the table...

 

[rayra]

i think thats a ridiculous semantic argument.

Seconded.
It's a nonsense line of (un)reasoning, and a fruitless point.

 

[jamz]

Firearms aren't made to kill.


Firearms are made to stop.

They are't great killing machines, but they can do the job, when applied properly.

Let's look at how firearms stop.

Take the stereotypical mugger mugging a law abiding guy. You can substitute whatever for mugger, kidnapper, whatever.

Scenario 1:
Guy takes out gun, shoots mugger, DRT. Mugger is stopped.

Scenario 2:
Guy takes out gun, shoots mugger until he is on the ground and no longer a threat. Mugger is stopped.

Scenario 3:
Guy takes out gun, mugger decides he wants to go for a really quick run, and takes off. Mugger is stopped.

Scenario 4:

Mugger knows it is pretty likely that x percent of the population is carrying a gun. Mugging becomes increasingly risky, and some muggings may be prevented because of this fact. Those muggings that would have otherwise happened in, say, a state where CCW is verboten, are stopped.

Expanding scenario 4 is.... Scenario 5:
Invading army (mugger) really wants to take a country (guy). But because guy (country) has so many damn guns, it is gonna be a real bloodbath. Army (mugger) decides to call the whole thing off. Army (mugger) is stopped merely because of the potential threat.

See? Guns aren't designed to kill. They don't do that all that well. THey are designed to stop. Sometimes killing happens during the stopping action.

-James

 

[Cosmoline]

I'm getting a lot of one-line "that's stupid" arguments here. Anyone have any more substantive proof that firearms were designed to kill?

Stopping is again looking at what the HUMAN is doing WITH the tool. But that's irrelevant. I'm looking only at the firearm--sitting there with its various parts.

 

[Feanaro]

If firearms were truly desgined as instruments of death, then all the "save the children" arguments have merit and there really IS justification for banning them.

Whether firearms are designed to kill or not, they CAN. And they do it very well and at ranges safe to the user(assuming the kille isn't armed with one). The justification, however stupid, remains whether they were designed as party favors or to kill baby seals. The inherant fallacy here is that if it is designed to kill, there is something wrong with it. Killing is not inherantly evil, it is an act that can be at any end of the moral spectrum.

But that's irrelevant. I'm looking only at the firearm--sitting there with its various parts.

Then holding and firing cartridges isn't even part of it, that requires a human element.

 

[Cosmoline]

Yes indeed, firearms can be lethal weapons in the hands of a human. As can a cabriole leg from fine furniture or a block of ice in a pillow case. What makes them lethal is the human heart, head and hand. It's entirely a human question. That's the whole point. It's fruitless to focus on the object or tool used to kill, and pointless.

Moreover, the lethal weapon used to kill a human has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on whether the killing was justified or not. A frozen salmon is treated the same as a .50 BMG.

 

[jamz]

So are you saying that the bullets are designed to kill, or merely that bullets are designed to create the largest wound channel?

-James

 

[Cosmoline]

But there's a space for a cartridge and the firearm has been designed to cope with the dimensions and pressures of a particular cartridge or shell, strike the priming compound wherever located and direct the pressure down the bore. If a bullet is used grooves and lands are incorporated in some models to put a spin on the projectile. That's what it was designed to do. And that's all it was designed to do.

 

[Cosmoline]

I don't know about bullets. My initial thoughts were that certain HP's, solids and so on were designed with the goal of killing some particular class of game. And that some bullets were designed to do maximum damage against humans. I'm not sure on bullets.

But of course, if the antis say "let's ban bullets designed to kill humans", it's easy to point out the impossibility of such a goal. A wadcutter is prefectly lethal to humans. We don't take much lead compared with other animals.

 

[Navy joe]

As a tool, it's designed use and relevance is determined by what humans do with it. So, firearms are designed to kill. The guys you cited, Mauser and Browning, were designing a lot of firearms to meet the needs of military ordnance bureaus who wanted better ways to kill people. Browning learned his trade from his family who were making guns so that Mormons could kill folks trying to kill them.

"And you say kill like it's a bad thing" That sums it up for me. If an idiot uses that "guns are made to kill" line on me i'm either going to say "yeah so" or "good, I'm getting tired of filing bone nicks out of my knives" Some people need killing. Ask a leftist how this is bad when they will agree with you that the world's population is out of control.

 

[R.H. Lee]

I've put in WAY too much time arguing with antis on line

Suggestion. They try to keep us on the defensive. Go on the attack. Type in the word 'hoplophobia' into Google. That will give you enough 'ammunition' to throw back at them.

 

[45R]

They are tools that protect the liberties of those who cherish freedom.