I was also taking the piss. Skip the story, just tell me what kind of gun/ammo.
Only a little .22 rifle, about two inches down and and inch right from the center of my collarbone, angled toward the armpit. Nothing terribly serious, just a flesh wound.
6 people were murdered, the 7th is the murderer who killed himself with a gun. Only 2 of the 6 victims were killed by gunfire. 3 of them were stabbed to death and 1 was killed with the murder’s car. Only 2 of the murder victims were female, the other 4 were male.
Well, that's just the price we have to pay for the freedom to carry guns, right? "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of innocents" and all that.
My initial response was an f you to your comment. You're misquoting and misrepresenting the original statement. Deliberately I'm sure.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
More people were killed without a gun in this case than with a gun. There have been mass shootings in many European countries with very strict gun control. China has seen a wave of mass stabbings. The largest school killing in the US was done with a truck bomb.
This man wanted to murder people and he did it. He did it with guns legally purchased in a state with very restrictive gun control laws. He did it without a rifle. He did it without high capacity magazines.
If there were no guns at all in the world do you believe he wouldn't have killed people?
There are always going to be people who want to kill other people in a premeditated manner. Draconian restrictions on firearms would very likely put roadblocks in their paths if their goal is a high body count. If they are as sick as this person was then I don't believe a lack of guns would stop them from achieving their aim.
We can debate gun control and reasonable gun restrictions and I'll even debate the morality of self defense and my philosophy of self defense and personal responsibility, but don't for a minute try to say that I think the murder of innocent men and women is acceptable or the price we pay for the right to own and carry guns in this country. If your insinuating that I find murder an acceptable price then you are wrong.
Mental health and the lack of accessible mental health help in the US is a greater problem than the availability of legal firearms. The lack of help and the stigma associated with mental illnesses of all kind in the US is doing a great deal of damage in the country.
The over prescription of anti depressants and other drugs to boys as a panacea for bad classroom behavior is also doing great damage and is linked to more than 30 school shootings.
We would do more to stop this kind of violence that we all agree is wrong and evil if we attacked it from an angle of preemptive treatment of the attackers rather than trying to ban one of the methods they use in the attack.
If your comment was not directed at me in particular then I offer my apologies for taking it that way. It is quite possible you meant it as a general statement and it only felt targeted because it came after my post and I've been taking the anti-restriction side.
I was being incredibly flippant, but I've seen a lot of pro-gun people latch onto the same point you made (that he killed people with a knife so guns aren't an issue at all). It's a tired argument, and I was sad to see you make it.
In all seriousness, I agree with most of your points. The state of healthcare (especially mental healthcare) in this country is abhorrent, and we should do much more (and we have the capability) to prevent these kinds of things happening.
California's gun control laws are pretty much the bare minimum that most people on the forum support, and it seems that the background check could be more comprehensive (from what I gather, it checks DMV, CA DOJ, and NCIS records). It would be interesting to see a pilot program somewhere with more comprehensive background checks, since we don't really have hard data on efficacy.
The thing is, the issue doesn't stem from a single underlying cause. Healthcare, cultural misogyny, and the ready availability of guns all play a role. The purpose of gun control is to mitigate one head of the hydra (not 100% remove the issue, because that's impossible, but bring the statistics down to those of civilized countries). Obviously, this should be combined with education and healthcare reform, and a shift of cultural attitudes.
But those last two aren't really being debated in this thread. Most people already agree that the US has serious, systemic issues on those fronts, and most people in the forum pretty much agree on the general policies to pursue (the specifics, of course, are argued out in their own threads). This is the gun control thread. Let's tackle that issue.
We will not solve the problem of violence in the country by eliminating guns. My point with the knife is to point out that a murderer is a murderer. A gun is a tool that usually makes it easier to kill. Eliminating the tool does not eliminate the murderer.
I and other law abiding gun owners should not be penalized because of the actions of criminals. Hackers in this country have caused billions of dollars in damages to real business. Child molesters use TOR and computers to propagate and distribute their sick shit. Yes I understand that I'm comparing apples to oranges, but the principle remains the same.
Machine guns used to be sold over the counter at hardware stores and there wasn't an epidemic of mass shootings excluding the mob during prohibition. The gun's didn't change, society did.
I'm also saying that the measures already in place in California which I already think are unreasonably strict don't do anything to prevent violence and thus violence commited with guns. 10 rounds mags? Guess what this shooter had, 10 round magazines. Waiting period for purchase.. yup. He didn't have a rifle with a bayonet. He didn't have a flash suppressor. He wasn't using a full auto weapon.
If we have to start basing all our laws on the actions of the fringe nut jobs and criminals we might as well just let the government install monitors everywhere.
Mass killings, especially ones like this latest one, tend to shed light on broader societal issues, and raise a number of troubling questions that are very much worth discussing. It is obviously true that many of those issues require significant action; mental healthcare is no exception. However, the fact that there are plenty of other issues that gun control doesn't deal with doesn't mean it can't be effective at achieving one specific set of goals.
With regards to gun control, the crucial thing to note about mass shootings is that they are extremely atypical of gun crime - they represent something like one tenth of one percent of gun homicides. As such, mass killings are a very poor litmus test for the effectiveness of gun control measures.
Of course, some kinds of gun control measures might be of use in reducing mass killings, but to make those the main focus of a discussion on gun control is to miss the forest for the trees.
We can debate gun control and reasonable gun restrictions and I'll even debate the morality of self defense and my philosophy of self defense and personal responsibility, but don't for a minute try to say that I think the murder of innocent men and women is acceptable or the price we pay for the right to own and carry guns in this country. If your insinuating that I find murder an acceptable price then you are wrong.
All freedoms that are truly important - and in fact many that aren't - are worth some loss of life, including lives of innocents. That doesn't make loss of life acceptable, but for those freedoms it does mean you must find other ways to save those lives.
Widespread and poorly controlled availability of firearms leads to more people dying than would otherwise, so there is, in fact, a cost, even if it isn't "the price we pay". In this case, I question just how important a freedom to gun ownership is, and I think it's important to look at the tradeoffs involved. Most crucially, there is quite a lot that can be done in the area of gun control while still retaining that freedom.
I'm also saying that the measures already in place in California which I already think are unreasonably strict don't do anything to prevent violence and thus violence commited with guns. 10 rounds mags? Guess what this shooter had, 10 round magazines. Waiting period for purchase.. yup. He didn't have a rifle with a bayonet. He didn't have a flash suppressor. He wasn't using a full auto weapon.
I'd like to see the basis for your claim that California's current gun control measures do absolutely nothing to prevent violence.
More importantly, though, it's silly to judge the entire category of possible gun control measures based on an arbitrary judgement of how "strict" those measures happen to be. Other measures that you might consider less "strict" could easily be much more effective; it simply isn't a one-dimensional question.
I have a hypothesis I've mulled over for a long time.
1. Scary socially awkward dudes are scary and socially awkward.
2. They have no luck with women, leading to resentment.
3. Relying on copious masturbation, they become increasingly spiteful, and this is reflected in their choice of pornography (i.e., a sort of revenge fantasy).
4. Feedback loop, coupled with a media industry to support said loop.
You're drawing a highly arbitrary distinction between "objective" and "subjective". It seems as though you call something "subjective" or "objective" solely based on whether or not there is general agreement on the matter.
It's not necessarily that everyone is in agreement. As people can all be in agreement that women should not have the right to vote. However most people saying that will be aware internally that women SHOULD have the right to vote, and that they just don't WANT to them to have the right. There is a difference.
Yes, people can change their opinions on something being right and wrong when they change perspective, but I don't think that necessarily makes that something "subjective". Instead, I think that it's primarily evidence that those perspectives themselves can be flawed or "wrong".
My point is that there are times when right and wrong are based on where you are in life. Lets say you are poor and you think the capital gains tax is “right”. Then one day you make a ton money in the stock market, now you see the tax as “wrong”. But it is the same tax the entire time - it did not change, only you did. So when were you wrong – when you were poor or rich? Someone has to decide if the law itself on a absolute level is right or wrong and should stay on the books, should that person be poor or rich? Which is right and which is wrong?
Yes, people generally agree that murder, theft, and rape are wrong, but that isn't objectively true simply because people agree about it. Similarly, there is a lot of disagreement on climate change, but that doesn't make it subjective.
Also, while I would agree that murder and rape are wrong in anything short of a ludicrous hypothetical, I don't think that that is the case for theft - I do think theft can be justifiable in some circumstances.
It's interesting you brought up climate change. I say the predictions are subjective based on what model you choose, as there are a lot of choices.
I would like to know what circumstances theft is okay to the person having their property stolen. Or when it is good for society in general to say “this kind of theft is acceptable”.
Don't legislate that I must or cannot own another human being as a slave...
If we followed your line of reasoning, it would have been unacceptable to ban slavery. After all, there was a time when people had different perspectives on slavery - some felt it was OK, and some didn't. Indeed, some people changed their minds on whether or not slavery was wrong. By your argument, that would make slavery a subjective matter, and hence to ban slavery would have been "forcing subjective opinions on the public".
I'm sorry, Belliger, but I don't buy into the concept of "subjective" right and wrong and "objective" right and wrong - only right and wrong.
My line of reasoning does not even come close to that. And the suggestion that it does is frankly ludicrous and ignores that I made myself clear that some things are wrong regardless of a persons opinion. The only reason I can think of that you would say that is to use it as a red herring because you think there is a right and wrong sexual orientation or religion and you think the government should regulate which one is allowed.
Sorry, no. People aren't saying "owning this gun is wrong to me, so you cannot have it either". This isn't simply a matter of people who have different feelings about guns. The core conceptual issue is not a disagreement between people who "like" guns and people who do not.
This is a matter of large numbers of people dying in gun-related deaths who might not be dying if at least some kinds of measures were taken. Whether or not you "like" guns, or "like" the idea of people being able to own a gun, simply isn't what's at stake here.
Moreover, it's not like the only measure that might be taken is an all-out ban of all guns - there are plenty of less extreme measures that could do plenty of good in this matter. As such, not only is your concept of "subjective right and wrong" relatively flawed, it's also not particularly relevant.
Here is why my point is relevant. You say “the only measure that might be taken is a all-out ban” but you have to keep in mind that the officials charged with making laws in the US say things like “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here.”
This is ones persons opinion. And right now they are in the minority. However I think it is important to look at what happened with the prohibition of alcohol in the 20's. It was done for the good of Americans because a small party of people gained enough influence to get the law passed. And once it was passed the US government started poisoning the alcohol used in manufacturing so it could not be consumed. By some estimated the US government killed 10,000 people trying to “protect” them from alcohol, because some deemed alcohol to be “bad”.
Is alcohol bad? According to the CDC there are 88,000 alcohol related deaths in the US every year, and that may or may not include the 12,000+ drunk driving fatalities. If it is good and it kills so many people then why are firearms bad when they kill so many fewer? How do you decide what is good and what is bad and what needs to be taken away from the public and what does not? My opinion is that neither is good or bad in itself. But as you stated we do not share the same opinions on good or bad. So tell me why one is bad and one is good. Why there needs to be more regulations on one and not the other.
Who gets to decide that this thing is good and that thing is bad? Are they deciding from their own biases or are they looking at what is (in my words) objectively good or bad? The former bans women from voting, the later does not. I think there are things that are nether right nor wrong on a universal level. You say there is always a right and wrong. Do you want the government regulating every single right or wrong? That seems to be what you are saying. If so I take issue with that.
We will not solve the problem of violence in the country by eliminating guns. My point with the knife is to point out that a murderer is a murderer. A gun is a tool that usually makes it easier to kill. Eliminating the tool does not eliminate the murderer.
I and other law abiding gun owners should not be penalized because of the actions of criminals. Hackers in this country have caused billions of dollars in damages to real business. Child molesters use TOR and computers to propagate and distribute their sick shit. Yes I understand that I'm comparing apples to oranges, but the principle remains the same.
I don't think the principle is the same, in this case. The fact of the matter is that if people use computers correctly, as they were intended to be used, nobody dies. If people use cars correctly, as they are intended to be used, nobody dies. If someone uses a gun correctly, as it is intended to be used, someone dies. It's a very big difference.
People saying "What about a knife as a weapon?" or "What about a car as a weapon?" have to say "as a weapon" because it's not immediately obvious that the use of that thing is to cause harm. But nobody says "Use a gun as a weapon". They say "Use a gun". If a gun is NOT being used as a weapon, only THEN is it clarified.
If we have to start basing all our laws on the actions of the fringe nut jobs and criminals we might as well just let the government install monitors everywhere.
Whaaaaat?
I actually agree laws shouldn't be based on the activity of fringe nut jobs, but I'm not sure I see any logic in this.
Since when is assault with a deadly weapon the correct use of a gun? Since when is hacking not a correct use of a computer?
Is a police officer only using his gun correctly when someone dies? Is any use of a gun where someone does not die and incorrect use of a gun?
It might not be your intention but it sounds like your argument is that the only correct use of a gun is to kill and all other uses are anomalies or incorrect usage.
If I say, "John shot Pete" or "John stabbed Pete" or even "John ran over Pete with his car" the "as a weapon" is implied without being spoken. Doesn't our own linguistic history show that we have historically used all sorts of things as weapons? Why are you adding this "as a weapon" into the discission when it is not normally said?
Since when is assault with a deadly weapon the correct use of a gun? Since when is hacking not a correct use of a computer?
Is a police officer only using his gun correctly when someone dies? Is any use of a gun where someone does not die and incorrect use of a gun?
It might not be your intention but it sounds like your argument is that the only correct use of a gun is to kill and all other uses are anomalies or incorrect usage.
If I say, "John shot Pete" or "John stabbed Pete" or even "John ran over Pete with his car" the "as a weapon" is implied without being spoken. Doesn't our own linguistic history show that we have historically used all sorts of things as weapons? Why are you adding this "as a weapon" into the discission when it is not normally said?
When you say "John ran over Pete with his car" I first assume that it was an tragic accident instead of use of car as a weapon.
If you are carrying a gun for self defense, and you use that gun, then you are at a massive risk of causing someone to die. There is simply no way around that fact. Causing massive body trauma is what a gun is designed to do, if used for self defense.
If the threat of massive bodily trauma stops a criminal or in other ways controls the other party in a dispute, then it's true that the target won't be hurt. It's a semantic distinction then, as it is the threat of use, as in the execution of the intended function of the gun, that is being used.
It's true that hacking might be the correct and intended use of a computer, but when the program is executed, people don't normally die or undergo massive bodily trauma. I mean, it's not the expected or default outcome of computer hacking. Same with use of cars.
Personally I don't think "John ran over Pete with his car" immediately implies that he did it intentionally. Even if some people, when hurting someone else with a car, do so intentionally, it's so rare that it has to be stated explicitly for people to understand the situation.
Anyway, I bring this up to address the kind of language in the previous few posts in this thread. The idea that the correct and assumed use of guns (outside of a sporting or hunting context) isn't deadly force or the threat of deadly force is bullshit, and the language used to describe such incidents backs that up conceptually.
"Is alcohol bad? According to the CDC there are 88,000 alcohol related deaths in the US every year, and that may or may not include the 12,000+ drunk driving fatalities. If it is good and it kills so many people then why are firearms bad when they kill so many fewer?"
The intended and designed outcome of alcohol consumption is not death, the threat of death, or otherwise bodily trauma.
"My point with the knife is to point out that a murderer is a murderer. A gun is a tool that usually makes it easier to kill. Eliminating the tool does not eliminate the murderer."
Many tools have many other uses besides killing, the threat of kill, or other instances of bodily trauma.
"From mid-1926, Kehoe began purchasing more than a ton of pyrotol, an incendiary explosive used by farmers during the era for excavation and burning of debris. In November 1926, he drove to Lansing and purchased two boxes of dynamite at a sporting goods store.[11] As dynamite was also commonly used on farms, Kehoe's purchase of small amounts of explosives at different stores and on different dates did not raise any suspicions. "
Dynamite and explosives have many other uses besides killing, the threat of kill, or other instances of bodily trauma.
Why remove the hunting and sporting context? Sounds like a game we can all play, "outside of a cooking context knives are only used to kill and maim people."
The fact that you want us to exclude hunting and sport shooting negates your claim that guns exist only to kill.
As for the end result of computer hacking it depends on the nature of the hacking. There have been numerous recent cases of hacking victims committing suicide (mostly due to ransomware or cyber bullying). In the case of bullying, trauma and harm is the intended result.
Correct knife usage can result in both a great meal and someone being dead. Sometimes both at the same time
I remove the hunting and sporting context because I have said, many times, over and over, repeatedly, that I have no problem with those activities.
HOWEVER!!! If you are carrying a gun FOR SELF DEFENSE then you are not carrying a sporting rifle. You are not carrying a .22 target shooting pistol. You are not carrying a shotgun.
What are you carrying? A specifically designed tool with the intended and designed capability to kill a human, cause bodily trauma to a person, or threaten to do those things.
It's like the difference between a car, a monster truck, and a tank. The tank is designed to kill and destroy. The monster truck is designed to destroy. The car is designed to get from A to B. These are different tools for different jobs.
A gun carried for self defense, or a semi-automatic rifle carried into a school, has one job.
Then be specific and use "hand gun" instead of "gun" when you make your argument. Because right now you are saying "motorized vehicle" when you mean to say "tank" and some of us are hearing "car".
No, I'm using the default words. If I say "John used a gun on Ted" you don't presume a gun designed for sporting use. If I say "John hit Ted with his motor vehicle" you presume a car, or at least a civilian mode of transport, not a tank.
When you say "gun" I don't know If it is a shotgun, long gun or pistol because all of them are legal to own. When you say "motor vehicle" I think of something that is street legal be it a car, truck or even a semi.
So yes, I would presume something legal for civilian use and not a subset of civilian use items. The more clear the argument the better off we all are.
Sure. My point is that if you want to do something with a gun like, I don't know, carry one unseen into a public place and then kill a bunch of people, there are guns designed specifically for that purpose! It is then no surprise that the people who want to do that buy the best tool for that job.
And if someone wants to carry a gun that is way more visible into a public place and kill more people as easily as possible, there are guns designed for that purpose too!
If someone uses hunting or target firearms for those purposes, then it is worthy of note and modified language.
Comments
As for injuries, According to Wikipedia: "Non-fatal injuries: 13 (8 by gunfire, 4 by blunt trauma, 1 unclear)"
This man wanted to murder people and he did it. He did it with guns legally purchased in a state with very restrictive gun control laws. He did it without a rifle. He did it without high capacity magazines.
If there were no guns at all in the world do you believe he wouldn't have killed people?
There are always going to be people who want to kill other people in a premeditated manner. Draconian restrictions on firearms would very likely put roadblocks in their paths if their goal is a high body count. If they are as sick as this person was then I don't believe a lack of guns would stop them from achieving their aim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
We can debate gun control and reasonable gun restrictions and I'll even debate the morality of self defense and my philosophy of self defense and personal responsibility, but don't for a minute try to say that I think the murder of innocent men and women is acceptable or the price we pay for the right to own and carry guns in this country. If your insinuating that I find murder an acceptable price then you are wrong.
Mental health and the lack of accessible mental health help in the US is a greater problem than the availability of legal firearms. The lack of help and the stigma associated with mental illnesses of all kind in the US is doing a great deal of damage in the country.
The over prescription of anti depressants and other drugs to boys as a panacea for bad classroom behavior is also doing great damage and is linked to more than 30 school shootings.
cchrint.org/school-shooters/
We would do more to stop this kind of violence that we all agree is wrong and evil if we attacked it from an angle of preemptive treatment of the attackers rather than trying to ban one of the methods they use in the attack.
If your comment was not directed at me in particular then I offer my apologies for taking it that way. It is quite possible you meant it as a general statement and it only felt targeted because it came after my post and I've been taking the anti-restriction side.
In all seriousness, I agree with most of your points. The state of healthcare (especially mental healthcare) in this country is abhorrent, and we should do much more (and we have the capability) to prevent these kinds of things happening.
California's gun control laws are pretty much the bare minimum that most people on the forum support, and it seems that the background check could be more comprehensive (from what I gather, it checks DMV, CA DOJ, and NCIS records). It would be interesting to see a pilot program somewhere with more comprehensive background checks, since we don't really have hard data on efficacy.
The thing is, the issue doesn't stem from a single underlying cause. Healthcare, cultural misogyny, and the ready availability of guns all play a role. The purpose of gun control is to mitigate one head of the hydra (not 100% remove the issue, because that's impossible, but bring the statistics down to those of civilized countries). Obviously, this should be combined with education and healthcare reform, and a shift of cultural attitudes.
But those last two aren't really being debated in this thread. Most people already agree that the US has serious, systemic issues on those fronts, and most people in the forum pretty much agree on the general policies to pursue (the specifics, of course, are argued out in their own threads). This is the gun control thread. Let's tackle that issue.
I and other law abiding gun owners should not be penalized because of the actions of criminals. Hackers in this country have caused billions of dollars in damages to real business. Child molesters use TOR and computers to propagate and distribute their sick shit. Yes I understand that I'm comparing apples to oranges, but the principle remains the same.
Machine guns used to be sold over the counter at hardware stores and there wasn't an epidemic of mass shootings excluding the mob during prohibition. The gun's didn't change, society did.
I'm also saying that the measures already in place in California which I already think are unreasonably strict don't do anything to prevent violence and thus violence commited with guns. 10 rounds mags? Guess what this shooter had, 10 round magazines. Waiting period for purchase.. yup. He didn't have a rifle with a bayonet. He didn't have a flash suppressor. He wasn't using a full auto weapon.
If we have to start basing all our laws on the actions of the fringe nut jobs and criminals we might as well just let the government install monitors everywhere.
With regards to gun control, the crucial thing to note about mass shootings is that they are extremely atypical of gun crime - they represent something like one tenth of one percent of gun homicides. As such, mass killings are a very poor litmus test for the effectiveness of gun control measures.
Of course, some kinds of gun control measures might be of use in reducing mass killings, but to make those the main focus of a discussion on gun control is to miss the forest for the trees.
Widespread and poorly controlled availability of firearms leads to more people dying than would otherwise, so there is, in fact, a cost, even if it isn't "the price we pay". In this case, I question just how important a freedom to gun ownership is, and I think it's important to look at the tradeoffs involved. Most crucially, there is quite a lot that can be done in the area of gun control while still retaining that freedom.
This is exactly the type of deeply flawed black and white thinking I called you on before.
I'd like to see the basis for your claim that California's current gun control measures do absolutely nothing to prevent violence.
More importantly, though, it's silly to judge the entire category of possible gun control measures based on an arbitrary judgement of how "strict" those measures happen to be. Other measures that you might consider less "strict" could easily be much more effective; it simply isn't a one-dimensional question.
I would like to know what circumstances theft is okay to the person having their property stolen. Or when it is good for society in general to say “this kind of theft is acceptable”. My line of reasoning does not even come close to that. And the suggestion that it does is frankly ludicrous and ignores that I made myself clear that some things are wrong regardless of a persons opinion. The only reason I can think of that you would say that is to use it as a red herring because you think there is a right and wrong sexual orientation or religion and you think the government should regulate which one is allowed. Here is why my point is relevant. You say “the only measure that might be taken is a all-out ban” but you have to keep in mind that the officials charged with making laws in the US say things like “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here.”
This is ones persons opinion. And right now they are in the minority. However I think it is important to look at what happened with the prohibition of alcohol in the 20's. It was done for the good of Americans because a small party of people gained enough influence to get the law passed. And once it was passed the US government started poisoning the alcohol used in manufacturing so it could not be consumed. By some estimated the US government killed 10,000 people trying to “protect” them from alcohol, because some deemed alcohol to be “bad”.
Is alcohol bad? According to the CDC there are 88,000 alcohol related deaths in the US every year, and that may or may not include the 12,000+ drunk driving fatalities. If it is good and it kills so many people then why are firearms bad when they kill so many fewer? How do you decide what is good and what is bad and what needs to be taken away from the public and what does not? My opinion is that neither is good or bad in itself. But as you stated we do not share the same opinions on good or bad. So tell me why one is bad and one is good. Why there needs to be more regulations on one and not the other.
Who gets to decide that this thing is good and that thing is bad? Are they deciding from their own biases or are they looking at what is (in my words) objectively good or bad? The former bans women from voting, the later does not. I think there are things that are nether right nor wrong on a universal level. You say there is always a right and wrong. Do you want the government regulating every single right or wrong? That seems to be what you are saying. If so I take issue with that.
I don't think the principle is the same, in this case. The fact of the matter is that if people use computers correctly, as they were intended to be used, nobody dies. If people use cars correctly, as they are intended to be used, nobody dies. If someone uses a gun correctly, as it is intended to be used, someone dies. It's a very big difference.
People saying "What about a knife as a weapon?" or "What about a car as a weapon?" have to say "as a weapon" because it's not immediately obvious that the use of that thing is to cause harm. But nobody says "Use a gun as a weapon". They say "Use a gun". If a gun is NOT being used as a weapon, only THEN is it clarified.
Whaaaaat?
I actually agree laws shouldn't be based on the activity of fringe nut jobs, but I'm not sure I see any logic in this.
Is a police officer only using his gun correctly when someone dies? Is any use of a gun where someone does not die and incorrect use of a gun?
It might not be your intention but it sounds like your argument is that the only correct use of a gun is to kill and all other uses are anomalies or incorrect usage.
If I say, "John shot Pete" or "John stabbed Pete" or even "John ran over Pete with his car" the "as a weapon" is implied without being spoken. Doesn't our own linguistic history show that we have historically used all sorts of things as weapons? Why are you adding this "as a weapon" into the discission when it is not normally said?
If the threat of massive bodily trauma stops a criminal or in other ways controls the other party in a dispute, then it's true that the target won't be hurt. It's a semantic distinction then, as it is the threat of use, as in the execution of the intended function of the gun, that is being used.
It's true that hacking might be the correct and intended use of a computer, but when the program is executed, people don't normally die or undergo massive bodily trauma. I mean, it's not the expected or default outcome of computer hacking. Same with use of cars.
Personally I don't think "John ran over Pete with his car" immediately implies that he did it intentionally. Even if some people, when hurting someone else with a car, do so intentionally, it's so rare that it has to be stated explicitly for people to understand the situation.
Anyway, I bring this up to address the kind of language in the previous few posts in this thread. The idea that the correct and assumed use of guns (outside of a sporting or hunting context) isn't deadly force or the threat of deadly force is bullshit, and the language used to describe such incidents backs that up conceptually.
The intended and designed outcome of alcohol consumption is not death, the threat of death, or otherwise bodily trauma.
Many tools have many other uses besides killing, the threat of kill, or other instances of bodily trauma.
Dynamite and explosives have many other uses besides killing, the threat of kill, or other instances of bodily trauma.
The fact that you want us to exclude hunting and sport shooting negates your claim that guns exist only to kill.
As for the end result of computer hacking it depends on the nature of the hacking. There have been numerous recent cases of hacking victims committing suicide (mostly due to ransomware or cyber bullying). In the case of bullying, trauma and harm is the intended result.
Correct knife usage can result in both a great meal and someone being dead. Sometimes both at the same time
HOWEVER!!! If you are carrying a gun FOR SELF DEFENSE then you are not carrying a sporting rifle. You are not carrying a .22 target shooting pistol. You are not carrying a shotgun.
What are you carrying? A specifically designed tool with the intended and designed capability to kill a human, cause bodily trauma to a person, or threaten to do those things.
It's like the difference between a car, a monster truck, and a tank. The tank is designed to kill and destroy. The monster truck is designed to destroy. The car is designed to get from A to B. These are different tools for different jobs.
A gun carried for self defense, or a semi-automatic rifle carried into a school, has one job.
So yes, I would presume something legal for civilian use and not a subset of civilian use items. The more clear the argument the better off we all are.
And if someone wants to carry a gun that is way more visible into a public place and kill more people as easily as possible, there are guns designed for that purpose too!
If someone uses hunting or target firearms for those purposes, then it is worthy of note and modified language.