From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[...]
Firearms were invented and developed to kill.
[...]
Well, that's like saying that cornstarch was invented
to keep our shirts pressed stiff . . .
I would challenge such an assertion on the
following:
(a) The statement cannot be proven by any
supporting and (more importantly) surviving documentation
stating such exactly, since nobody knows who it was that invented
the firearm;
(b) Most inventions that see the light of day, were
not even thought of in the way that they ended up being used,
but rather were adapted to that purpose that it finds itself.
Your argument finds validity only in the sense that
such articles are procured specifically with that thought in mind,
and the manufacturer cooperates by producing them knowing
what the intended ultimate application will be - in the hands of
the current buyer. But, that has absolutely no relationship to the
very same tool purchased by another person, for quite other
purposes.
If the government suddenly decided to buy nail guns
for the same purpose as firearms are now employed, would that
mean that nail guns were invented and developed solely to kill?
Most every tool ever made is adapted to a use for other
than what it was originally intended.
Think: hammer, wheel, blade, point, lever, arrow, sinew,
staff, chemistry, electronics, aviation, rocketry. In fact, the whole
span of scientific endeavor is rife with innumerable inventions
that have found uses in ways that were never intended, but for
which the current use is more successful than the original idea.
A classic case is the steam engine, converted to the
internal combustion engine, and the paddle wheel of the grist
mill converted to the gas turbine.
And, whoda thunk that magic rocks would one day
rule the roost of just about every aspect of modern life?
For those that have no clue about magic rocks, I speak
of semiconductors, in the name of galena, the naturally occurring
semiconductor that was first used in the cat's whisker radio
receiver, as the detector. Could anyone have imagined the world
of today by the wonder of that discovery?
No, the gun was not invented to kill, it was - if anything
- a mere curiosity that captured the imagination of the enterprising
mind. I think it quite likely that the concept was more along the lines
of observation: watching a 'gun powder' filled tube being propelled
toward the heavens, and extrapolating the reverse effects of merely
holding the container rigid and propelling an object to height
under the propulsive force of the released energy.
We err grievously when we consign a negative aspect
of thought to a simple tool, and fall prey to the worst kind of
thinking that, under the appropriate circumstances, allows that
thinking to be employed in the worst way, like for instance, the
deprivation of liberty.
You might start out defining a tool in a way that it will
have an application with lethal consequences. But, it is inevitable
that you must first have a working knowledge of the sciences you
are about to employ. In the way of the firearm, for that to have
happened, the inventor must first have to have known about
ballistics, chemistry, and structural science, and be possessed of
the idea of such a device. Why not the quantum leap and instead
have invented the LASER? Or, why didn't Flemming, the Brit inventor
of the electron valve, immediately conceive of the magnetron for radar?
And Marie Curie, the neutron bomb?
ET
--
Oh, we're not going to get into this argument again. Clearly
many firearms were designed to be used to shoot other people with.
(Although not most shotguns or airguns, which are the most
commonly owned in this country).
Maybe the china man who came up with them 2,000 years ago didn't
intend that, but GIAT, H&K etc. certainly did.
This is the reason why the target shooting argument is so worthless
when put up against campaigning parents, etc.
Yes, firearms are designed to kill, that is a perfectly legitimate
reason to own firearms, and it is by far the most common reason they
are owned as most shotguns are owned for field sports and pest
control, as are most rifles.
As you pointed out last time ET, the intention when the antis say
it is to imply that guns were designed to murder, which is not
accurate.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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