Yes, No, and Maybe
R11D2 said:
there function is that of the user. Like target shooting, hunting, self defense.
To the one, yes, as an abstract assertion. To the other, as a response to KWHilborn's point, no.
That is to say, we hear much from gun advocates about how cars, pencils, or hammers can be used to kill people, and while this is true, none of those things were created specifically for killing. My ten-inch kitchen knife is a deadly slashing and stabbing weapon if I choose to put it to that use, but unlike a SOG Pentagon, it's designed for kitchen use.
True, there
are "target" rifles, but that classification includes AR-15s with a scope and laser sight.
Guns, unlike hammers, are designed to kill.
I believe it was Eric van Lustbader who once documented over one hundred fifty lethal objects in a hotel room, including notions like strangling someone with a phone cord. I guarantee that while I might be able to kill someone with a CAT-5 cable, it wasn't designed for that purpose. And if someone took that cable to an elementary school, how many children do you think he could kill before someone stopped him?
My solution to the American gun control debate is simple enough, but gun enthusiasts I've known and discussed it with over the years just won't put up with it:
• Every firearm is registered with the states according to a federal standard that provides baseline requirements.
• Every firearm owner must carry firearm liability insurance.
• Every firearm owner is legally and civilly responsible for the use of his or her weapons.
Correction: I've known
two gun owners who would accept these terms. Both, incidentally, are political liberals. One got rid of his firearms when he concluded that he did not need them; he's a trained martial artist who hasn't hunted in over twenty years, and decided a firearm for defense was extraneous. The other loathes the NRA, owns three guns, and finds the majority of his fellow gun owners scary for their obsessive attitudes.
Still, though, firearm registration is generally regarded as an infringement on rights. Liability insurance is regarded as an infringement on rights. And legal and civil responsibility is, apparently, too much to ask insofar as there should be no accidental shootings.
We are not all inbred or morons...
While this is true of gun owners as well as Americans in general, what the public really needs from shooting enthusiasts is some evidence of a significant faction within the firearms community that not only disagrees the extreme rhetoric of the NRA and idiotic business leaders like
James Yeager, but is willing to stand up and tell them they're wrong. While there are many firearm owners and enthusiasts who do find such rhetoric discouraging and even dangerous, the larger public still sees them as supporters, much like post-election debate among Republicans confirms that it wasn't really about Todd Akin's or Richard Mourdock's loathsome words about women and rape, but, rather, that they didn't express themselves well enough. That is, there are some points that cannot be expressed well enough to not offend general decency.