They certainly can be aimed.
Practicality is not required for ownership of one of these guns.
For a certain generation, they're just TV cool, and that's enough right there.
For others, they have their own appeal, for whatever reason.
My longer Chiappa CAN be fired from the shoulder, and aimed quite easily that way.
It can also be just as accurate as a carbine, although it's a little cramped using it on the shoulder.
It can also be fired from the hip at defensive distances, although it's not very efficient when used for that purpose.
With practice, quite possible to put hits inside a standard B27 silhouette at 25 yards & closer, without aiming.
10 feet, very easy, and can be relatively fast in action.
For aimed fire, you use both hands.
I found that a traditional fore & aft rifle hold with supporting hand on the fore-end and strong hand in the firing position at the gun's wrist allows aiming, but without a third point of contact to anchor everything together (shoulder), the arms can tend to wander & throw aim off.
One arm wants to go this way, other arm wants to go that way.
Better stance was to position with both hands together back on the stock wrist, in a more conventional handgun shooting grip.
Steadier, both hands are locked together, the arms don't work against each other.
Fairly easy to hold on target using the sights, although it's slow to re-position everything for each follow-up shot, and you still have to deal with the weight.
And as I said, even with my shortened Rossi with no sights at all, I can hit a small steel buffalo out to 35 yards or so by just aligning the receiver bridge with the barrel band.
The MLs are not particularly efficient in the way they go about it, but they CAN shoot.
As I've said before, there are three TV guns of my childhood that I've wanted for over 50 years.
The ML tops the list, the other two are The Rifleman's Winchester & the U.N.C.L.E Special P-38.
I've at least got 33% of my wants filled.
Denis