Would You Be Happy With A Crime Gun?

P

pythagorean

Moderator
If you have ever bought a "used" gun it could have been a "suicide gun" or some other.
As far as I have been able to tell it is quite possible to buy a "used gun" that was used to commit suicide. Perhaps in crime of other sorts as well.

When the "used gun" becomes an entertaining investment we want to know the history. Well, I do at the very least. So I ask the shop owner or clerk the "story" behind the "used gun" I am interested in. Usually it is some widow that had no fancy for guns and so she decides to sell out "his" collection after he passed. Or some other innocent endeavor.

Well, concerning buying a "suicide gun" I am a bit averted--but I also know the real tale would not be explicated by the seller! In these circumstances one has to look at the gun for marks of legal processing for crime or other. I know how to do that.

But, let us say, you have the opportunity to buy a Third Reich Luger or a Russian Kalishnakov or other most likely to oppose the forces you happen to have been aligned with. Do you assign an evil stigma to the gun or do you appreciate the gun?

Some years ago 60 Minutes or some other show was asking questions (pointed) of a man owning 100s of WWI and WWII Lugers (P-08)--his name was Shattuck. It was interesting to me that he was a collector of the P-08 and he actually stood behind his armory of P-08s saying it was "part of history."

He also appreciated the design.

So: Where do you draw the line on a handgun if it has questionable history to its use?
Do you feign away or partially appreciate or fully appreciate the weapon?

I confess the P-08 to me is a handgun to remember. Especially if it was from WWI or WWII in the hand of the "enemy."

P6230688.jpg

S/42 Mauser 1937 9mm Luger. All matching parts except for the magazine.
 
To me it's just an inanimate object. If it was used in a suicide, well, it didn't kill the poor bastard, he killed himself. The gun was just a tool he used to kill himself with.

The history is interesting, but guns don't posses souls or have spirits hanging on to them, so...

What was my point?
 
I don't really care where a used gun has been, as long as its legally been released. Police trade-ins may have been used to shoot someone, but lots of folks still buy them. I can see how some would be upset by a gun's history, just doesn't bother me I guess.
 
pythagorean, no offence intended, but has anybody ever told you that you think too much!!!
Used guns could have been used to kill someone, so could have used cars. Houses and apartments could have been the site of murders and suicides. Boats or ATV's could been involved in someones death. As long as it is not stolen, I don't worry about the history of anything I buy.
 
You think too much.
Click to expand...

Perhaps.

Thanks for observations.

The last "used guns" I bought were the Luger and the 27-2 SW. In the case of the 27-2 it was unfired. In the case of the Luger it came back directly from the Ardennes.

But the Luger is really a fine handgun and I can't help myself.
 
I owned a "crime gun" once, a police-confiscated "Old Model" Ruger Bearcat. The notch on the hammer needed to be welded up and the alloy frame still showed dings, possibly from where it had been tossed out the window of the car.

I can't think of a much more eccentric choice of hardware for a 7-11 stickup artiste...
 
At the Ford Theater Museum in D.C. they have J.W. Booth's Deringer. Patton's Colt SAA with 2 notches in the handle has been preserved, Jack Ruby's Colt Cobra. Doesn't matter if it's Big or Little History IMHO.
 
Yeah....Well....

all is good until it starts cocking itself and occassionally fires a round or two without being touched...then lets see how calm everybody is! :eek: :eek: :eek: :D
 
Guns have history, guns have "personality", but I'll stop short of saying guns have souls. No free will, they can only do good, or evil in human hands.

There isn't anything in the world that lasts, that hasn't had a death involved with it somewhere. The subject comes up fairly often on the boards, "how can you own a gun that killed somebody?" Or "how can you own a Nazi (or insert evil individual/group here) gun?

For me, I can own them the same way I own everything else I own. What it was, and what it did are only an interesting story (and oft times not that interesting), that has nothing to do with what it is and does while I own it.

It is an old idea, and has hung on, even in law, flawed though it is. Things are not evil. They have no free will, they cannot act on their own. And while they can be closely associated with groups or acts, that linkage exists only in the eye of the beholder, not in the object itself.

Swords, flags, guns, knives, and other militaria are historical items, and while they are history, their only power is to remind us of what happened in the past, and where we can go from there, for better, or worse.
 
My Colt Model of 1911 might have been used in WWI. Maybe but unlikely. My M1 rifle was used in WWII. Was the barrel worn out within two years of manufacture by bad cleaning of corrosive ammo during service in Europe or the Pacific? Barrel wiped out by garrison cleaning? Or re-barreled by Uncle Sam in the '50s after the original barrel was in use ten+ years, but with a barrel from just after WWII? Did it take lives or just train troops? Who can tell? Did my M1A1 carbine train troops? Did it serve in combat? Was it originally an M1A1? All I know is that those firearms did...something or other.

My 1944 manufacture P.38 though, that I know a little bit more about. I know it was made in Czechoslovakia, in '44. I know some nazi <<deleted>> may have had it on his hip because it was a Soviet capture- or it was in a warehouse that was captured by Soviets. Who knows. I know it was refinished with a heavy dip blue and stored, and I know it shot a LOT of lead bullets, and the primers were corrosive but somebody didn't clean the bore a time or three

The other three firearms- 'good guy' weapons- I don't care if the were used to kill. Really don't. Same for my Model of 1905 bayonet. I take no bizarre pleasure-by-proxy because of the potential; I find even the idea of taking pleasure from that disturbing. I wasn't there, thank God. Rather I am proud of their legacy and the history they represent and that they may have helped some American soldier or sailor or marine come home safe, and I am astounded I can hold that history in my hands.

The P.38 though, I hope it wasn't used to kill. If I were to learn it had, it would be an interesting side note. Perhaps a tragically interesting one. But whereas with the others, it doesn't matter to me either way, I hope the P.38 wasn't used that way. The pistol didn't learn to like blood any more than it learned to Seig Heil, though; that hunk of metal and composite plastic had no say because it's not sentient :)

A pistol used as a suicide weapon...interesting question. I wouldn't regard the weapon with horror
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's just a tool. As soon as you ascribe some sort of sentience to it, you are doing just what the anti's do. A gun can be neither good, nor evil. It is as absolutely amoral object until it is in someone's hands. And when it leaves their hands it is the same as it was.
 
It is as absolutely amoral object until it is in someone's hands. And when it leaves their hands it is the same as it was.
Click to expand...
This gun was a German Soldier's side arm. That is all.

It didn't kill 6 million.
My point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top