From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[...]
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.
[...]
You think I'm splitting hairs maybe?
I concur with your assessment; however, if the argument
is that a certain tool was made after the fact of what it was originally
intended for to begin with, and that particular item was sold for a
specific stated or inferred use, it does not hold that the intent of the
end user is going to be consistent with the purposes under which it
was sold.
If I made 25 pound steel balls for the purposes of shot
putting, and someone else made them for paper weights, and yet
another made them as cannon balls, does it not stand to reason that
any of the three may be used to accomplish the multiple purposes?
If those products are all identical, what's the difference?
So, if vendor 'A' makes firearms for target shooting, and
vendor 'B' makes them for hunting, while vendor 'C' makes them for
killing people in time of armed conflict, and all are essentially identical,
what then is the real purpose of them? Is not the ultimate goal merely
to launch a projectile at a target? What matter the target, as long as it
is a legal target? Cannot all be employed successfully for defence,
or for killing, or for murder?
And cannot a target rifle, designed as it is to be extremely
accurate, be used to kill (or murder) more efficiently than one made
expressly to kill one's enemies? Could not the argument be well placed
that to possess an arm, is must be the type employed by the army,
so as to be less accurate?
The antis argument is corrupt in that they would assign a
singular purpose to anything to suit their politics. Their contention
that a certain tool has no good purpose - except when employed by
their favorite government agency, is what shuts down their position.
Their politics in essence forever condemns a hammer to
being relegated to do nothing more than to drive nails, when its uses
are supremely greater in scope.
It stands to reason that merely designing a tool for a specific
purpose does not in anyway forever set in stone that all such tools are
for that purpose only. And just because someone designs a tool for one
particular use, does not in any way calcify its use to that purpose only.
Finally, the position that certain arms were designed to
kill is spurious. If the more than billion plus arms in this world have
done nothing more than collect dust in the collections of those who
own them, then their expressed purpose is to be found wanting, since
as with that collection of nuclear devices which are also collecting dust,
their real purpose is to do nothing more than to act as a deterrent.
ET
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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