Are weapons evil?

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Weapons can't be said to be evil, but the purpose.


No, the purpose is what can be labeled as evil, not the tools themselves, however some tools serve a given purpose.

Is a nuclear bomb evil?


Some of your christian counterparts (ie the Catholic Church) believe so.


What is a 'crime deserving death'?

they are as moral, amoral, or immoral as their use. It's use determines its morality.

When viewed as tools, weapons still can't be used for much else than killing, and I don't see how there's such a thing as "moral killing." How sick must a society be to even have this debate?

In principle i am a pacifist - i don't think disagreements are worth killing people over. I think we could warehouse a lot of murderers if we weren't locking up so many nonviolent drug offenders.

But i figure if someone is trying to kill me i have every right to try to kill them right back.

Hmmm..........that's funny because I haven't used any of mine to kill anyone. Am I really missing out on something??


Calling us "sick" by your definition doesn't mean diddly since you obviously no nothing about what we're talking about.

It's funny how you U.S. people always discuss your little provincian issues like they're universal human questions. You throw your syllogisms and moral premises at each other without realizing gun control is more related to contingent political expediency and what the level of public paranoia is today.

You see, Raptor, one of the few good results of running an empire and having the rest of the world watch your TV shows, read your news, study your books, and listen to your music, is that you ensure the rest of the world gets to be very much acquainted with the cultural debates going on within your doors. I've never set a foot on the U.S., and even if I could ever find the patience to go through a visa application process and then try to afford the plane ticket, I would think it twice. As long as the U.S. is sick enough to still be the only 1st-world nation with a gun-friendly mindset, I won't feel comfortable going there.

*shrug* I've never owned a gun. I know how to shoot one because my grandfather owned several and dad used to take us out target shooting. Grampa was a hunter and probably an aspie hunter - he lived in a relatively desolate area - rolling hills and cedar trees - so he'd just park the rambler on a hill, mount a telescope on the roll bar, look around for an unsuspecting deer only a mile or two away, then mount his rifle-with-enormous-scope on the roll bar and shoot it.

Dad says it always went down with one shot. Usually through the heart or lung, but sometimes it would hit bone. Grampa used blunt tipped bullets so that if it hit the bone it would shatter it, and instantly knock out the deer, which would bleed out by the time they got the rambler over to it.

But the best i ever did was a perfume bottle at about 20 yards.

I'm not going to attempt to defend the NRA but it's true that the USA is a very big place with a lot of open land on which to hunt. And herds need to be thinned to keep them from wandering into traffic looking for food.

Oh, and Canada is also a gun-friendly first world country.

Dude, you live in Columbia...

Wikipedia on murder rates:

Murders per 100,000 pop.

Columbia: 38

USA: 4.8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

You're more likely to get capped on your way to the Bogotá airport than you are visiting the US.

I enjoy guns.
But the idea that they are not tools designed for killing is a bit, Naive.
long guns are designed for killing animals short and military ones for killing people.
They can be used for lots of things (like opening water melons from across a field)
but is there anything that one could say they are designed for other than killing?

Oh boy, my favorite topic.

I actually have a rifle in my safe that I built by hand at this very moment. It's designed to be aesthetically pleasing and reliably propel a projectile in as straight a line as possible, mostly for the purpose of punching holes in paper for my own personal enjoyment. Is it a weapon? Most definitely. Is it designed specifically for killing? Not really, though it would do the job in a pinch, just like the very tools I used to build it, which were also not designed for killing. A guillotine or a gibbet is designed for killing, weapons on the other hand can have many different design goals, of which killing is only one.

I'll also revisit a point I made last time this question came up. I have a number of target rifles and pistols, and the single biggest factor in their usefulness for killing is actually the ammo. You could make a similar point with bows; a target arrow could kill, but not nearly as effectively as a purpose built hunting broadhead or articulated point arrow could. No one fights with bows or javelins anymore, but they too were once deadly serious war implements, and in the future days of energy weapons I fully expect firearms to occupy a similar place in people's minds.

A hunting we will go! And what about target shooting? Nowadays just about the only thing bows and arrows are used for is target shooting, yet they are a weapon/tool that can kill.

ruveyn

I think we are in agreement in principle.
I would like to see a world were the original intent of a gun is completely lost.
But for now it is there and the second amendment is not about hobbies it is about bearing arms.

Actually bows are comonly used for hunting. That's why so many of them are camoflage.

Over 90 percent of arrows shot are shot at targets.

ruveyn

What actually kills me is that guns get dinged essentially for being too specialized. That's the thing with any tool, the more specialized it is, the better it is for that one particular task at the expense of general usefulness. I have both a milling machine and a drawer full of file; they both can perform very similar actions, but the files can do many things the mill can't, at the expense of time and effort. A knife is a tool that's very versatile, but of somewhat limited use as a weapon because it relies on physical prowess and proximity to be effective. You can't cut your steak with a pistol, but you can defend yourself from an opponent that is physically more powerful than you or a gang of such; that's it's specialized task and it does it very well at the expense of utility.

well once i was woken up by the cries of distress emanating from an AK-47 that was lain injured in a field, and was badly in need of oiling. it convinced me that i had to aim it at people and pull it's trigger, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
(not true)
weapons are not evil. sick minds are evil.
sick minds with weapons are dangerous.
sick minds with fists are not dangerous.

weapon availability clearly is a major factor in the risk of trouble.