I hate people who treat them like some toys and fantasize about them. That makes me think they are in some sort of death cult. That they found socially acceptable way to love violence.
I would still get one for safety but it is a tool made for specifically one thing. To pierce the skin and rip through the inner organs of a person.
They can serve a good purpose but they are fundamentally dark tools of pain and suffering. They shouldn’t be celebrated and glorified in their own right, that is sick. They can be used to preserve something precious but at a price to pay.
You are exactly the person that shouldn’t get a gun.
No, it’s the gun aficionados that I would trust the least.
That’s like saying all cars are meant for the racetrack or all knives are made for spreading butter.
I own several guns, and none of them are so I can kill. My over/under shotgun is designed for skeet shooting. My 22 pistol is for plinking. My precision rifle weighs 30 pounds with its optic, so is incredibly impractical as a weapon.
I guess I’m the opposite then - I love guns, yet I probably wouldn’t get one even if I could. I definitely wouldn’t carry one. It’s too easy to make hasty, irreversible decisions with a firearm.
Carrying a gun means that every altercation has the potential to become life-threatening. I wouldn’t want to end up in a brawl while armed and risk having my own weapon used against me if I got overpowered. That’s something cops, for example, have to constantly be aware of.
Funny thing about carrying, at least for the sane among us, it makes one hyper-aware of one’s environment. Knowing that if you fuck up it could end with killing someone really, really, makes you less likely to take risks. Don’t know if I’m clear there. You look for danger so you can stay the hell away from it.
I’ve held this position for a long time. Guns are designed to kill. They are they threat of death even if the trigger isn’t pulled. They are there to force compliance with the bearer, for good or for ill. Even as a “tool” to put food on the table, they kill the thing that is to be food.
That said, I don’t have too much problem with guns. I have major problems with those who own them, make them, or turn them into part of identity politics.
They are exploited for profit and control, and the mulish obstinacy of gun owners in general is in part their enslavement to identity politics and those that profit from it - the politicians looking for election and money in the pockets of the manufacturers and supporting lobbies. Guns have become fashion accessories for the owners, and are often treated with similar gravity. Gun owners feed guns to criminals because of lax storage security on the owner’s part - just leave them in the car or closet unsecured - and they get stolen, used in crimes, for which they gun nuts “need” to buy more guns to leave laying about for instant access and which can be stolen. Nearly 80% of guns used in crimes are taken without permission or stolen from owners.
And the worst part are the killing sprees, workplace or schools, where gun owners just distance themselves so that the rest of society can be the victims of their refusal to regulate their hobby.
Guns can be safely kept in a society. There are plenty of countries that manage it. In this context I’m going to use this line: “Guns don’t kill people, people do”….and the people doing the killing are the owners that refuse to deal with regulating and securing guns.
Internal gun violence is such an unbelievably miniscule part of the death toll of American society.
everything made my human minds is a tool. artillery is no exception.
a gun is a tool just like a hammer, a drill, a paintbrush, a glue stick, etc. some people have favorite tools.
personally I have a carpenters pencil my father left behind on the job site we both last worked on before he died. it’s my favorite pencil and I only use it on personal projects I wish he was around to help me with. in a sense I feel like he’s there with me still, even all these years later.
I know of people who have favorite guns, because they bonded with their fathers over them while hunting.
having an emotional connection to a tool isn’t wrong or unhealthy.
that said, having an infatuation with the killing power or firepower of a gun isn’t healthy. knowing your tools is one thing but obsessing over how many rounds your gun can fire and proudly treasuring it only for that is sick.
guns are tools to be respected, and like any other tool you hold with your hands, it starts with how you perceive it in your mind.
It’s a tool whose primary purpose is to kill
not denying that.
tools kill.
but they also have alternative uses.
a knife cuts, a hammer moves, a gun hunts.
Hunting is also killing. Don’t get me wrong, among the various ways of killing animals for food it is probably the most ethical. But still.
I say this because I’ve always resented the particularly odious false equivalence that cars also kill people so if we ban machine guns wE sHoULd aLsO bAN cARs.
No. One is purpose built to maim and kill people and the other most certainly isn’t.
I don’t like guns my self, but I don’t have a problem with people who own them responsibly in a locked safe unloaded. I understand for some people a gun is needed, Hunters for one, while bow hunting is a thing a gun is just easier to use.
As much as I like bows, a lot more things can go wrong for a swift, clean, painless kill. Which is why bow hunting is illegal in places like UK.
As a sport, I prefer bows over guns, it’s more fun for me.
If I can get excited for a cordless Bosch track saw, I can get excited for a nice gun. Guns have served two purposes in my life - target shooting with friends and the meat I get from hunting. I don’t need to take on someone elses trauma and stop enjoying something to respect what they are.
I live in Australia and I theoretically love guns. I love them from an engineering and design point of view. Going shooting inanimate objects and making a skill based sport out of it looks like enormous fun. But my country has very strict gun control laws so owning one isnt worth the headaches.
But then I’m at the 24hr supermarket near the sketchy neighbourhood and the junkie is screaming at the cashier about something and I am so fucking happy that the likelihood of that guy having a gun is next to zero that I think “Yep, I’ll take that trade”
They’re also used to kill animals, look up some nature docs where they snipe animals
That sounds like a terrible nature documentary
every nature documentary, is super boring, then cute animal suddenly dies, then weird looking animals have sex, then they snipe some the end
I feel like every other one I was shown back in school had a scene like that, overpopulation of deer? (something like a deer) and boars can get insanely bad, they threaten all other species not just humans
we are all entitled to our opinion. i just happen to disagree with yours.
I have worked in Accident & Emergency in England and in an ER in America. Guns are a curse.
You all need to see the deserted dead body of a 15 year old laying on the table after an unsuccessful resuscitation attempt. A baby who has been shot through, or the crowds of relatives helplessly sobbing in the streets outside the emergency room.
Every gun owner thinks they are a responsible gun owner until they arent. Its simply not possible to be 100% safe 100% of the time. That’s not a thing that humans do.
And no. There are nowhere near as many knife deaths in England.
I never saw a fatal stabbing in the UK, but I’ve seen many in America. The numbers are insignificant when compared to gun accidents and murders.
All “tools” that kill this many people should absolutely be regulated.
Americans never shut up about freedom, but don’t pay attention to the freedom taken away simply by the threat that anyone around you could be carrying a gun. You’re all just used to it being your way. It’s so nice not to have to consider the possibility. The american way is like spending your lives with the sword of Damocles dangling over your heads. That’s your freedom.
Oh look, inner city bullshit stereotypes by some moron blathering about England in the later half. Fuck you and everything about you.
Haha. What a well composed rebuttal
you a liar too. worked in the ER and never saw a fatal stabbing. You work there a week?
Really dude?
Yes really,
You know, the one person who is MOST aware that you’re stupid and wrong is me.
Every gun owner thinks they are a responsible gun owner until they arent. Its simply not possible to be 100% safe 100% of the time.
Thank you. I have said something similar multiple times myself, but I have no medical experience to back that up.
I’ve played shooter games since a kid and I’ve never wanted to own a gun. it’s 100% a special kind of brainrot/power trip to want to hold and own deadly weapons and you won’t convince me otherwise
yes hunting is a thing, I promise you the vast majority of American gun owners are not hunters.
Thank you! You have a way with words.
I can appreciate guns from a technical design standpoint. Some of them can look good. I’d even consider owning an inert USFA Zip .22 as an example of spectacularly bad product design. (I’m a UI/UX guy and the total lack of consideration for ergonomics is fascinating to me.)
I have no desire to own a functioning gun, though. Very few people really need one.
Here in Germany this is a quite popular Opinion. If you have an open fascination for guns, you will be looket at like a serial killer or someone who will be going amok. And wont be allowed to be a police officer (the almost only people to wield a gun in public)
I hate why they exist. I like how they represent a mastery of engineering, material science, chemistry, and physics.
Guns are made to make a tiny piece of metal go very fast. You don’t have to use them to kill or think about using them to kill. You can, for example, use them as a remote light switch or their most popular use: remote hole punch. Healthy society shouldn’t have to ban guns since they would be used for completrly non violent things, same a swords and bows.
I mean you could shoot at the sun to combat global warming even.
I can only hope that this is satire
Making a piece of something go fast is a purpose of any accelerator. Trains go fast along the rail, and are driven by an engine - or, in case of maglev, sort of the rail itself.
Guns are engineered specifically to be most effective at killing or injuring people. Sure, it’s people who put them to action, but it’s also people who make them as deadly (or otherwise efficient at hurting people) as possible. It’s insane we just look at this industry and haven’t closed it for good, forever.
Please, use an electrical switch next time you want to turn the light off.
So are bows and swords and crossbows. But they don’t have hillbillies ruining their public image. I see no harm in having guns around for recreational and hobby purposes as long as they are only in the hands of people who can safely store and operate them.
Honestly I’d rather not have a man on the street with a real sword/bow/crossbow either, and the only reason we may find it less threatening nowadays is that we know there are more perfect weapons that could be used to take such a man down very quickly should he become a tangible threat - and that he himself would use should he go crazy about killing people.
Swords are actually the only weapons specifically designed to kill people. Every other weapon used by humanity is or was a tool for another task at one point. Axes can be used to cut down trees, maces are just fancy hammers, and spears were the first real hunting tools for large game. Swords stand above all other weapons in that it’s use is specifically engineered to be as dangerous to humans as possible. It’s too long to be used effectively as a knife and too fragile to use as any other tool. It’s almost as dangerous to the person wielding it as the person it’s used on. It’s remarkable how every other killing tool used by man has other purposes, but the sword really has just the one.
I’m about as left as they come but weirdly enough I’m also a hunter, and I have to disagree, the guns I own are tools designed for specific purposes that aren’t killing humans. Hunting turkey, hunting deer, hunting duck, I even have a muzzleloader for that season, and a gun for back packing and hunting out of a saddle in a tree.
Hunting IMO is way more sustainable and ethical than buying store bought meat and it connects me with nature and let’s me first hand observe, appreciate, value, and want to protect ecology of my area.
Killing animals isn’t ethical. Inevitably the false dilemma gets painted between killing them or overpopulation, but the overpopulation is also a human-created problem, both through overdevelopment and killing off natural predators - the actual antidote is to scale back our development and reintroduce predators. Plant-based/vegan diet is far more ethical (nonsense about “plants feel pain”, “mice killed by plows”, “I can’t eat vegan because of my blood type” and other vegan bingo card BS aside).
Inevitably the false dilemma gets painted between killing them or overpopulation
it’s not a false dilemma. it’s a real dilemma. and your solution is also to kill them.
Taking just the “solution” of reintroducing predators - it’s still not the same. Predation specifically targets old, weak, sick members of a herd. What do hunters do? It’s what, a tag limit and age limit, and that’s it.
This whole conversation always seems so disingenuous. People doing hunting claim these altruistic motives, but have every adverse incentive that has nothing to do with those motives, from stocking their freezers to just bragging about what they hunted. Let’s be for real here, you’re not scientists or veterinarians carefully monitoring and managing a population, what you’re doing is taking the first justification you can find for what you already wanted to do.
it’s still not the same.
no, it’s not the same, but your solution is also to kill them. if that happens, and people can benefit above and beyond balancing the ecosystem, that’s even better.
Uh-huh. So of all the options - just shooting adult deer, or restoring the ecosystem to the way it was, or actual scientific approaches like sterilization, you’re only interested in the one that benefits you, and then you start ignoring the moral implications, and associated risks like humans getting shot. See, the conversation would go smoother if you just declare from the outset that you only care about what benefits you, and we could drop the pretense that this is about what’s actually the best solution.
the conversation would go smoother if you just declare from the outset that you only care about what benefits you, and we could drop the pretense that this is about what’s actually the best solution.
being snide is unnecessary. you can apologize.
you start ignoring the moral implications
you didn’t raise any moral implications. like what?
This comment right here. Carnists are always arguing in bad faith.
How is hunting sustainable? It’s currently sustainable because a small number of people do it. I can’t see how it would be more sustainable than farmed, storebought meat.
It might be if all the humans not hunting their meat starved to death - orwere never born. I think it really depends on what counterfactual you want to dream up.
You could argue that modern farming techniques created the agricultural surplus and enbled population growth and urbanisation and maybe helped the human population to grow to a level that hunter gatherers woud not be likely to have reached.
I think it is the scale of human population that is challenges sustainability of any tech, either method would be sustainable at some scale. I’m not convinced that modern farming practices are very sustainable for 10+bn people , for all that long. But I guess we’ll see.
Over the long term i think hunter gathering humans were around a lot longer than farmers have been, and a much much longer than modern intnsive monocultural/ pesticide / fertilizer based methods. So you’d have to wait a few thousand years to know how sustainable modern farming is.
From what I understand, it’s sustainable because hunters kill overpopulated species like deer. The deer become overpopulated due to lack of predators in the area and end up damaging the ecosystem by eating all the plants
Indeed. “Hunting is more sustainable than farming” is an idiotic assertion.
Hunting IMO is way more sustainable
Right whales would like a word.
sustainable and ethical than buying store bought meat
- it doesn’t scale
- it’s inconsistent
- zombie deer
Hunting […] [lets] me […] want to protect ecology of my area
Worry, which part of killing animals fixes a landscape or its residents? What are you protecting by killing something? Does Fonzie need to give Ritchie another speech about Two Wrongs and a Right?
WTF, whales have NOTHING to do with anything they said.
Derailing with strawman fallacy and red herrings undermines anything you say coming across as broken AI chatbot
You pushed the predators out of the area you live by living there. Not just your ancestors are guilty, you participate in disrupting the ecosystem by simply living. Without predators, prey animals overpopulate and destroy the ecosystem themselves.
Either give up your living space for the predators to balance out the ecosystem you live in, or do the balancing yourself. Don’t sit here being a self-righteous prat and bitch about people hunting when you’re fucking up the local habitat yourself.
I am anti gun in almost every way, but I know where I live, deer populations get out of control. I’ve never hunted, nor do I have any desire to, but the fact is that if we didn’t cull the deer population periodically, they would breed themselves into starvation and cause who knows what kinds of damage to themselves and their ecosystem.
As unfortunate as it is, it’s a thing that has to be done for their own good and for the good of this area. I’m sure it’s like that in lots of places with lots of different species.
Agreed; and want to add it’s probably because people killed off the predators that kept the deer population in check.
Either that or they were brought to places where they didn’t have predators. Either way, it’s definitely our fault. We love fucking up natural habits.
