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 Hordini wrote:
..that doesn't mean it's not a tool... Sometimes you need to kill things.... could use something to kill

Target guns are still not really tools... they still only have one use; to shoot things. It's not like a hatchet - plenty of small war axes in the history books but at the end of the day you can take that weapon and use it to cut down trees, form wooden joints, strip bark/etc and use it to build yourself a house. You can take your sword and stop using it to kill people and use it instead to clear a path through undergrowth, or to chop wood, etc...

What exactly can you do with a gun other than shoot things? Except maybe use it to prop open the door of your hatchet house when it gets hot

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
While I own guns and don't think that they're evil or anything, I just don't see the need for assault weapons and such. Yeah they're fun to shoot, but a lot of things that are fun are a lot less deadly.

Hunting, protection, stuff like that I get. Civilians don't need ARs and AKs and 50 cals in my opinion, but the 2nd Amendment says we can.

Its just hard for me to take the 2nd Amendment seriously when in the same document it says we can own slaves. Times change and I think that should be reflected with stricter gun laws, not that it will happen mind.

Also fun thing to try if your ever arguing with someone who is a big blowhard about the 2nd Amendment, ask them to name the other ones.

"Assault weapon" is, purely, a political term. It doesn't mean anything. It seems to imply that it means an automatic weapon, but those are already nigh-on impossible to get legally, and in reality the term has more to do with the shape or 'look' of the firearm than anything else. People with limited firearm knowledge see an AR-15 all tacticool'd up and assume, just by its looks alone, it's mechanically different than the next semiauto .223 rifle, and therefore more dangerous.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
..that doesn't mean it's not a tool... Sometimes you need to kill things.... could use something to kill

Target guns are still not really tools... they still only have one use; to shoot things. It's not like a hatchet - plenty of small war axes in the history books but at the end of the day you can take that weapon and use it to cut down trees, form wooden joints, strip bark/etc and use it to build yourself a house. You can take your sword and stop using it to kill people and use it instead to clear a path through undergrowth, or to chop wood, etc...

What exactly can you do with a gun other than shoot things? Except maybe use it to prop open the door of your hatchet house when it gets hot

Does a tool have to have more than one purpose to make it a tool? You drive screws with a screwdriver, you hammer nails with a hammer, you shoot things with a gun. They're all tools and they all have different purposes.

 Hordini wrote:
Does a tool have to have more than one purpose to make it a tool? You drive screws with a screwdriver, you hammer nails with a hammer, you shoot things with a gun. They're all tools and they all have different purposes.

A tool is a device used to facilitate some action and from that standpoint a gun could be considered a tool; a gun in the hands of a hunter, or someone killing vermin I would more happily accept as a tool. The vast majority of guns however I would not. I guess it is the philisophical difference between looking at a battle axe and a hatchet - one is clearly a tool, while the other is a weapon.

Also an interesting note; although I have heard and am familiar with the term "driving" a screw, I have very rarely heard it in the UK where we tend to say that you "(un)screw a screw"

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
..that doesn't mean it's not a tool... Sometimes you need to kill things.... could use something to kill

Target guns are still not really tools... they still only have one use; to shoot things. It's not like a hatchet - plenty of small war axes in the history books but at the end of the day you can take that weapon and use it to cut down trees, form wooden joints, strip bark/etc and use it to build yourself a house. You can take your sword and stop using it to kill people and use it instead to clear a path through undergrowth, or to chop wood, etc...

What exactly can you do with a gun other than shoot things? Except maybe use it to prop open the door of your hatchet house when it gets hot

Having a particular function is what makes it a tool, not what exempts it.
A tool is by very definition a devise or implement used to carry out a particular function.
You are attempting to create your own criteria for a tool to exempt guns, that argument has no basis.
Guns are a tool thier function is to shoot. That shot may do a number of things in assisting you to perform a job: from starting a race, to killing someone or something it remains clear that a gun is a tool.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
..that doesn't mean it's not a tool... Sometimes you need to kill things.... could use something to kill

Target guns are still not really tools... they still only have one use; to shoot things. It's not like a hatchet - plenty of small war axes in the history books but at the end of the day you can take that weapon and use it to cut down trees, form wooden joints, strip bark/etc and use it to build yourself a house. You can take your sword and stop using it to kill people and use it instead to clear a path through undergrowth, or to chop wood, etc...

What exactly can you do with a gun other than shoot things? Except maybe use it to prop open the door of your hatchet house when it gets hot

I have very nice example of a sixteenth century hatchet. And it would most likely break doing any of those things (use it as a boat hook, maybe..)

Think you're thinking of an adze. And a cut and thrust blade would be pretty useless against a shrubbery. You need a curved edge like a machete or a saber.

 AustonT wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
..that doesn't mean it's not a tool... Sometimes you need to kill things.... could use something to kill

Target guns are still not really tools... they still only have one use; to shoot things. It's not like a hatchet - plenty of small war axes in the history books but at the end of the day you can take that weapon and use it to cut down trees, form wooden joints, strip bark/etc and use it to build yourself a house. You can take your sword and stop using it to kill people and use it instead to clear a path through undergrowth, or to chop wood, etc...

What exactly can you do with a gun other than shoot things? Except maybe use it to prop open the door of your hatchet house when it gets hot

Having a particular function is what makes it a tool, not what exempts it.
A tool is by very definition a devise or implement used to carry out a particular function.
You are attempting to create your own criteria for a tool to exempt guns, that argument has no basis.
Guns are a tool thier function is to shoot. That shot may do a number of things in assisting you to perform a job: from starting a race, to killing someone or something it remains clear that a gun is a tool.

Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

 youbedead wrote:
Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

This is more what I was driving at.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 youbedead wrote:
Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

This is more what I was driving at.

Yup. Those are tools.

Stop blaming the inanimate object. If someone want's to kill, they'll find whatever they need to do the job.

Well Silver in his post referred to a sword as a tool...
Weapons are tools, tools of war, tools of killing but nontheless tools. They are devices and implements used to carry out a particular function: violence. Just because you may find that function unpleasant doesn't mean the tools of the trade are not tools. I find sewage repugnant, but the reclamation workers implements are still tools.
I see what you are driving at but any attempt to distinguish weapons from tools is folly. Weapons are simply a subset of the overarching tools, just like carpentery tools, or masonry tools. They simply have a specific name.
A tank as a point of fact is two types of tools. It is a vehicle and a weapon. A sword is simply a weapon. Before guns came around to be the boogey man the sword was the penultimate expression of a tool fit only for war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 youbedead wrote:
Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

This is more what I was driving at.

Really? Because while you were driving at that you said a sword was just a tool.

 AustonT wrote:
Really? Because while you were driving at that you said a sword was just a tool.

Really? Because what I actually said was that a sword is a weapon that can be used as something else, vis a tool, (however clumsily), whilst a gun will always be a gun.

Like I said you are attempting to redefine a tool, it doesn't work that way and your own example proves you don't even know where your own criteria is.

 youbedead wrote:

Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

Is the tank not a tool of the soldier or mercenaries trade?

 whembly wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 youbedead wrote:
Would you class a sword or a tank as a tool, I understand were you're coming from but there is a perceived difference in connotation between a tool and a weapon.

This is more what I was driving at.

Yup. Those are tools.

Stop blaming the inanimate object. If someone want's to kill, they'll find whatever they need to do the job.

The problem is, people are impulsive, and something that would've been an assault or battery turns into a murder, because that person had a weapon, not just their fists.

I own several guns myself (mainly for historical and plinking purposes), so I am most definitely not anti-gun, though I think there should be stricter regulations on the carrying of them perhaps?

 GalacticDefender wrote:

The problem is, people are impulsive, and something that would've been an assault or battery turns into a murder, because that person had a weapon, not just their fists.

I own several guns myself (mainly for historical and plinking purposes), so I am most definitely not anti-gun, though I think there should be stricter regulations on the carrying of them perhaps?

I think we need to look at fixing people rather then laws or guns. There has to be an underlying reason that Americans do this (seemingly) more often then the rest of the world, even those nations with similar gun laws.

It's because 70-85% of our population is made up of idiots I assume.

Yes, because "fixing people" has always worked out well in the past...