Are guns designed to kill people?

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True. And one has to ask why such people seem to find deaths in cars, knives or hammers more acceptable or palatable, or at least more so than deaths involving guns.
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I think this is because of the intentionality of a gun death. It is unpleasant that someone intentionally uses a gun to kill or hurt someone in most gun incidents. In car crashes or medical screw ups, there is rarely an intention to do evil.

That's my guess. People don't like to think that someone is deliberately after them.

Also, if the harm is intentional we may be more likely to stop such intentions. That this may not be true is not the point of the emotional response.
 
But when someone intentionally drives a car down the sidewalk and kills or injures a few dozen people, we don't see any national movement to ban cars ... we see people asking what was wrong with the driver.
 
Guns designed to kill people, hmmmmmmmmm......

Nerf, staple, caulk, water, cap, and many more guns, are in no way, shape or form, designed to kill. Yet, they are guns.

Firearms, were invented to kill. But are all firearms now made designed to kill? Nope. Can they all kill? Yes, but to say all are designed that way is false. There are plenty designed for target only, just as there are plenty designed for killing all things, people included.

GJSchulze said:
There are many designs for firearms. Some are for killing humans in war or self defense, but others are designed for hunting, target shooting, bullseye competitions, long range target shooting, USPSA and IDPA competitions, etc. This goes for the ammunition used as well. Wadcutters are never used for self defense. I use JHBWC in my 642 for SD. So I don't agree with this last sentence....mrray13

So while guns were originally invented to kill, they are now designed for many uses; the vast majority are never used to kill.
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That sums it up the best, IMHO. And while one is going to be hard pressed to convince the other side of this explanation, it is still the truth.

So, when I'm met with the statement, "guns are designed to kill people", the above is always my answer.

And as I typed this, it occurred to me that one can always argue that guns, or firearms, are not at all designed to kill anything. The ammunition is the killing part of the equation. The bullet is to the firearm as the caulk is to the caulk gun. I have pepper ball rounds, noise maker rounds and blanks. None of which are designed to be lethal, yet are delivered by the same firearm as my slugs, birdshot and jhp rounds, which are designed to be lethal. This notwithstanding the sword guns, knife guns and such, of which I am currently unaware of any new, or current, serious manufacture. And those are the exceptions, not the rule.

Just my $.02, sorry if I repeated any arguments.
 
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Said vd. Unsaid

Since "Guns are designed to kill" usually only comes up in discussions about guns, and gun ownership, it is almost without exception only PART of what is on that person's mind.

It goes something like this...

Guns are designed to kill

the only reason for having is a gun is, to kill

If you have a gun, you must either BE a killer, or WANT to be one

Either way, you are a detestable person....unless of course, its your job, in which case, its perfectly OK...

OR, you are rich enough, and your gun is a trap& skeet shotgun, costing more than a small car...

I've seen this line of thinking played out, over and over. They fear guns (in the hands of anyone who isn't a paid professional- cops military, private security), and they feel people who LIKE guns should be feared as well, because they consider them dangerous.

SO, they despise you for having a gun (ranges from polite dislike to active hatred, depending on the person) or supporting gun rights, BUT since you DO have a gun, and therefore are a homicidal manic in the making, they won't say everything they feel, because the think you will shoot them, possibly on the spot!

I suppose it is tempting...:rolleyes:
(yes, this is sarcasm)
 
If someone says this to me my response would be "Yeah... so?"

Don't play into the anti's stupid games. I personally am done trying to win over or argue with the lost causes. The fence sitters and the uninitiated we can still reach but someone who makes that statement is a lost cause until someone mugs them at knife point, and probably still even then.

Guns are designed to kill, period. That is neither here nor there when it comes to the argument over gun rights. The questions that matter are who and why.
 
I think this is because of the intentionality of a gun death. It is unpleasant that someone intentionally uses a gun to kill or hurt someone in most gun incidents. In car crashes or medical screw ups, there is rarely an intention to do evil.
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Cars maybe, but let's not pretend that the majority of deaths from stab wounds or bludgeonings are accidental.

There is, to my mind, something quite perverse in ascribing to unlawful gun-induced death greater importance than other types of unlawful deadly violence.
 
Guns are designed to send a projectile out the barrel, What the person behind the trigger does is secondary. If we go with what you ask, All my guns are designed to make a hole in paper.
 
Again - we are stuck in not getting the idea of the core conceptualization of gun as a weapon that is designed with the intention of being an instrument of lethal force. The sporting uses are derivatives of training to use lethal force.

Doctors and cars don't have that core intentionality concept. If they kill it is violation of the core conceptualization.

The most prolific serial killers are nurses and other medical professions. Heard a presentation on that at a criminology meeting. However, that is a violation of their purpose.

We can go over this a thousand times with folks trying to deny the gun's core concept as they want to placate the antigunners or even deny they have weapons.
 
I know but it is still being civil. I am loathe to close it because folks won't admit that I am correct in analyzing the situation. Sorry - couldn't resist - :D:rolleyes:

Let the games continue.
 
Glen-While I do agree with what you say, those times where long ago. Not that they are still not developed for that purpose, but now days guns have taken a different path also. They are now every bit as much. A recreational sport as a defense mechanism. Millions of people now buy a gun for sport shooting only. The defense idea has never crossed their mind. My first rifle was to kill rabbits and such, now that is the last thing that ever crosses my mind. They are for sport shooting only.
 
Humans have made and refined tools to kill, to process meat, and to change and manipulate our immediate environment for some 2.6 million years. We are tool making and tool using creatures. We are killing creatures. As omnivores, we we kill to supplement our diet and live. We have a capacity for violence that can be either defensive or offensive. We use tools to project personal power and out-compete our adversaries.

We have constructed other tools such as culture, society, and systems of laws and social norms to protect us and allow us to live together with other humans and thrive in a complex, interdependent, economic and social system.

Liberals and pacifists would like to believe that we can overcome our baser human capacity to kill. Others might recognize that to be truly human means to embrace all that we are... including our capacity to kill and our ability of self-control that allows us to choose not to kill. As stakeholders in a complex economic and social system, we are highly motivated to not kill. We have cultural taboos and ethical prohibitions that prevent us from killing. We know that we will lose our family, job, savings and liberty if we kill... without just cause. We have the capacity to kill but the vast majority of us are well-adjusted and highly motivated to not kill.

The gun is only the latest tool we have made in over 2.6 million years of human development that gives us the capacity to kill. The ignorant can always blame the tools without truly understanding the human condition that always gives us the capacity to kill, held in check by a social contract that motivates us to not kill except in the gravest extreme.

Guns are designed for killing only because humans are designed for killing. Society is the tool we have made to keep us from not killing. Most homicidal criminals are either not stakeholders in the society, or they have become unhinged from the social norms that would otherwise prevent them from killing.
 
Glen-While I do agree with what you say, those times where long ago. Not that they are still not developed for that purpose, but now days guns have taken a different path also.
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Yours perhaps. Mine too, but if you were to take the entirety of guns around the world, my guess is that the vast majority are kept in order to apply lethal force if needed.

Even in the States: 300 million guns, estimated! Are they all for punching paper?

What about the ammo that people buy. If it was about paper, there'd be no JHP on sale. It would all be FMJ or WCs etc...

Punching paper is one reason why people buy guns; granted. However, as pointed out, even some of that paper punching is actually skills-development in the event of lethal force being needed.

I think using placatory reactions only emboldens some mindsets when what is needed are robust rebuttals.

I've seen this line of thinking played out, over and over. They fear guns (in the hands of anyone who isn't a paid professional- cops military, private security), and they feel people who LIKE guns should be feared as well, because they consider them dangerous.
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It's understandable, though, if the only thing they know about guns is either reports of them being used in murders or robberies or they way they are perceived in Hollywood blast-a-thons.

It's the same basis for almost every kind of stereotyping and prejudice: a lack of knowledge and understanding of a thing, people, religion or pursuit.
 
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There is a difference between intent and design. Guns are intended to protect and feed humans. They are designed to kill, which is the mechanism by which they protect and feed.

Both are good in responsible hands. Everything can be dangerous in irresponsible hands, even water.

TomNJVA
 
Easy answer.

YES.
The first firearms were designed for warfare.

But then again, religion was developed to bring people together, and religion has killed more people than guns.

...next question?
 
There was a very large shotgun device that was developed to blast the scale off the sides of blast furnances, IIRC. That's pretty much a tool usage.

However, when we start to discuss religion as a killer (some religions have design specs to kill and some don't - whatever), we've exhausted the topic.

Thus, it was a great run but we've reached the end.

Closed.
 
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