At the most basic level a gun is designed to move a metal projectile in a relatively straight line at a hight rate of speed through the use of chemical energy stored in a propellent. Nothing more.
For what purposes? Killing people and animals, plinking targets, making fun noises. All find and dandy as far as I'm concerned, but associated fairly closely with violence? Yes; see below for details.
Let me rephrase my older post: I simply cannot believe that words from the wrong mouth are definitionally MORE dangerous than a firearm in the wrong hands. They are dangerous in different ways, and for very different reasons. Again, I have to ask, how are dangerous words empowered?
Eddie, I am disappointed in you. You are smarter than this statement, as only someone who is ignorant and believes everything the media and movies tell them would state this. Tell me how my 15 legally owned firearms are used exclusively for violent means? I'll give you a head start, they've never been used to kill anyone or anything.
Firearms were invented to kill people. At some later date they started to be used for hunting, and then target shooting. Eventually people started collections.
You are correct, I cannot prove, or hope to claim that ALL firearms, especially those privately owned, are procured in order to cause harm. My bad.
But I can make a pretty good guess that if we lived in a sunshine daisy world, nobody would have invented guns. There are an increasing number of people who can live most, if not their entire lives in something close to that world in this country. They see defensive firearms as a stain upon their attempts to perfect this existance (and many of them see hunting as an archaic, wasteful, and inhumane, and would gladly see that go too).
They
believe that firearms are inherently destructive and evil, just as you believe that restriction of possession will ultimately erode and destroy the freedoms this nation possesses (and don't let me put words in your mouth!). For the most part, they cannot imagine how putting more firearms in the hands of individuals could actually reduce crime and death. Firearms in the home evoke images of children killing themselves: simply the idea of having something so potentially dangerous in the same room with their child is repulsive and totally unacceptable.
Of course, you know all of this, and you are correct to label it all as ignorance and ultimately mis-directed.
This is just how I see it.
When somebody says, "Guns are simply tools," they immediately force the segment of the population they need to communicate with the most to shut their ears and scoff. They see it is as an over-simplification and purposefully dishonest. It is a correct and logical statment, but I just don't see it as reasonable or practicle in the long run. For me, a better thing to say might be along the lines of, "You are afraid of your children hurting themselves? That's why I've educated my children since early childhood about guns; takes the mystery out of it, actually keeps them safer." Or, "I suppose it's a remote possibility that someone will break into my house and threaten my family, but I'd just rather be safe than sorry on this one. Police can't be everywhere at once..." You've got to give them substance to hold on to, not just guns =\= evil, QED.
Jumping up and down and pointing at the 2nd Amendment doesn't work with these people either; they certainly aren't strict Constitutionalists. And we can try and find blame for all of this stuff, but honestly, I don't think it's nearly as important as just stopping the bleeding on this one. I don't even know if it can be done through official channels (school systems) anymore given the bias mounting against firearms. Handgun ownership in this country might already be in the embrace of the black hole; I just don't know.
I've actually changed a couple minds on this, and I don't even own a gun yet (no money, no time to learn properly, and no will to fight my school or mother on storage space
). My father finally said one day to me, "Guns scare me. But I think they are prevalent enough in our society that everybody ought to know something about them so at least you understand and can be safer around them. If any of you guys want to learn to shoot, we'll do it."
Having been "one of them," for quite a good while, I think it is important to make "them" view the firearm-owning community as more than just a bunch of gun nuts. I don't want to be so pretentious as to try and tell anyone how to win this fight, but think I've got a fairly good idea of what matters to the opposition, is all.
