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 grim 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.
I am actually with this. I’ve tried so hard to think of what purpose a gun has and the primary reason for it’s invention was to make killing people easier. As it was invented in time of war. Every other reason we’ve found a gun useful for, are just for some impracticality that we decided to go with when the simpler option isn’t available. But the bottom line still remains the same - the gun was made for making killing easier and it has been proven time and time again.
How do you even find this post but yes I don’t think it changed for me. When I grab a pistol the weight and precision is ominous and solemn. I know that it is specifically made to produce spills of blood and brain on the floor in split seconds. This in turn makes it impossible to lightheartedly enjoy or have fun handling it, cracking jokes left and right with beer and bbq.
I was with you up until the “I would still get one for safely” part. We must clearly live in different kinds of areas, I’ve never felt the need to own one for any reason.
The vast amount of Americans aren’t in that boat…
Every crazy person around me is carrying, all it takes these days is not driving exactly like how someone wants or unintentionally minor inconveniencing them for them to pull out a gun.
It’s not even staying out of “bad areas” anymore. It can (and does) happen everywhere. It just usually doesn’t make the news unless someone is shot in a nice area. A crazy person pulling a gun out might get media attention if it’s on video if not, cops don’t even care.
They are engineered from the ground up to take lives
of other people.I have no love for guns, but hunting for food is the reason humans created weapons in the first place. To your point, I’m pretty sure slaughterhouses aren’t using fully automatic rifles on the killing floor.
I am afraid I am not a big animal lover myself but I respect those who are. However for me human life is most important.
My point is more about the justification of firearms. It’s easy for me to forget as a city-dweller, but there are still many people who hunt for their food.
There are what I feel neutral guns and more dark guns. For example sport guns shooting .22 LR do not trigger me so to say. Maybe because I used to be a sport shooter when young. Hunting guns also. But HK MP5? Well it has no other purpose. It exists to inflict as much damage in the shortest amount of time to a human body.
You’ve never been hog hunting, I guess. Sometimes you need the ability to fire a lot of bullets quickly, and it has nothing to do with killing people.
I mean, fully automatic weapons are illegal without a tax stamp in the US, and modern automatics aren’t allowed to be sold to civilians.
This seems like a very urban viewpoint. There are still places in the world and in the US in particular where a firearm is tool for safety that has nothing to do with other humans.
Not to mention hunting is a thing.
Bows and crossbows exist.
But are comparatively wildly inefficient and cause more pain before the death of the animal.
Not disagreeing with that, but the topic at hand were alternatives to hunting with guns. I think bolt action rifles should be the only allowable gun for hunting.
Just out of curiosity, would you please point out your approximate location on this map of invasive feral swine distribution:
My thumb isn’t big enough to point it all out.
I will do the people reading along the favor of not posting images from an article titled “Penetrating Anorectal Injury Caused by a Wild Boar Attack: A Case Report”.
Suffice it to say, hunters in the marked areas have a distinct need for semi automatic rifles.
No, it’s just that rural people expect their opinions to count more, as though their lifestyles are more authentic or honorable.
And where exactly is it that a firearm is necessary to protect from wildlife? Kodiak Island?
As far as the safety argument goes, let’s examine Police. The number one cause of “in the line of duty” fatalities is auto accidents, the second is heart disease, with COVID jockeying for position. If guns were a prophylactic, you’d expect them to shoot cheeseburgers and their cruisers. But as Richard Pryor observed: “Cops don’t kill cars…”
Counterpoint: cities shouldn’t exist
There should be a commission that caps the local human population at sustainable levels
Cities are a way better way of sustainably housing our population than suburban or rural sprawl. We get to be a lot more space efficient by living in multistory housing, having public transportation, etc.
There is some truth to that idea, but not nearly as much as you think. You need about a square mile of cultivated cropland for every 180 people, whether your population is spread out in small towns or concentrated in large cities.
There is no reason to cram humanity into the tightest package possible. We are using a square mile of cropland for every 180 people; it makes more sense to spread out, allowing us to get out of each other’s way.
Congestion kills efficiency gains.
Counterpoint: we don’t need to be that space efficient, and are better off in smaller communities
With the amount of people existing, yes we do. Otherwise there will be no nature left.
Cropland is not nature. For every 180 people in your city, add a square mile of cropland to its area before trying to determine the spatial efficiency of that city.
Huh…? Is this an actual thing you actually believe in?
On a global scale, population density is about 180 people per square mile of agricultural land.
Cities don’t change that: you need a swuare mile of cultivated land for every 180 people to sustain those urban populations.
We need more, smaller, more dispersed cities. Not these urban hellscapes.
The commission bit was a joke but yes I’m not fond of cities
A firearm is necessary literally anywhere that has predators, unless you want to have all your livestock killed.
Also necessary if a tweaker decides on a midnight visit, as the police are half an hour or more away.
I agree with op. Guns are used to intimidate, and for entertainment. Men and their fascination with power by holding a gun is toxic and a failure of society.
I love guns. My reasons are my own.
Thanks for your valuable input
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It’s a tool whose primary purpose is to kill
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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.
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No, only some are and even then it’s not broadly accurate, it’s closer to Anthropomorphism.
Weapons are designed from the ground up to kill animals. From birdshot 10g shotgun to bolt action plastic tip single shot rifle.
Assault rifles are a category designed primarily to kill humans
Killing animals is pretty shitty as well though
Hunters hunt overpopulated animals. Humans before us killed off most predators, leaving us with the duty of filling the roles of predators to control prep populations.
Hunting is necessary, unless you want lions, bears, and wolves in your backyard, or else thousands of deer eating crops and crossing the highways.
Overpopulated? What kind of wank stain talk is this?
White rhinos? Oh sorry we killed all those.
Hunters hunt overpopulated animals. Ever heard of deer? If they aren’t hunted, their populations explode, and they start starving in winter and spreading disease. Because in earlier times people didn’t have proper hunting laws and killed off all the predators. That’s why we have laws about that now.
Poachers violate those laws to illegally destroy animals, often endangered, usually to sell body parts on the black market. I wasn’t defending poachers, numbnuts. May lions, tigers, and bears eat them all alive.
Most people don’t seem to realize the perfect deer rifle is the perfect human rifle.
Hahaha
(white tail, mule appropriate cartridges in particular)
Riigght. So it’s not about guns any more, it’s “cartridges”.
oh ffs. do you not know what a cartridge is, or its relationship to cylinder bore?
So you dont know what a gun is.
I said “cartriddge” because the bullet from a .223 and a .22 are very fucking similar in diameter, but i wouldn;t go deer hunting with a .22. So what the fuck is your point.
Is this community just popular opinions? Every comment agrees with OP.
that’s not the only purpose dude. you can use a machine gun to shoot a circle around a door knob to unlock any door.
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’m being pedantic, but many are designed to take the lives of animals rather than people. Absurdly heavy precision .22 cal target rifles are clearly only for sport.
A few are designed to launch flares high into the air for communication. A very small number are designed to trigger avalanches under controlled conditions.
What I have a problem understanding is that the native Americans were able to hunt without firearms. They literally used sharpened stones and sticks on horseback. Yet, gun enthusiasts will swear up and down they need guns for “hunting.” I get using new tech to make a job easier, but your life isn’t dependant on the kill anymore. If it was truly “for the hunt,” then wouldn’t you want to honor the hunt the way your ancestors did? I know a few bow hunters and I have mad respect for them, because bow hunting needs a high level of tracking skills as well (not to say rifle hunting doesn’t but a peice of metal being propelled by an explosion has a bigger punch than a piece of metal being propelled by a pulled bow string, thus a bigger damage output.) I get guns are fun but if your going to hunt, honor the hunt. The buck doesn’t have new upgraded antlers or legs.
You don’t know shit about their hunting practises. They didn’t have horses. they had ballistic spear chuckers, dogs, and various ways to kill large animals that weren’t your racist bullshit implications.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you live in the US - well, I sure hope you do.
In the US I believe that guns are like pick-up trucks: far more people own them to plug gaps in their personality than the number of people who own them because they need their utility.
My personal view - and a generally held one - is that guns are a tool and to fetishise a tool is… weird; and suggests to me a troubled mind.
You’ve never shot one and you’re trying to rationalize it,eh? They’re simply a lot of fun to understand mechanically and to use. I have mine for home defense and fun, nothing more. No fetish, no mental problems, I hardly even think about them. They’re simply an impractical tool.
I use guns. I use a lot of other tools, too. My chainsaw doesn’t define my personality, so why would a gun?
I really like my electric leaf blower. It’s a lot of fun to just turn it on and watch all the leaves and dirt fly off the sidewalk so effortlessly. You just squeeze the trigger and it blows, you don’t need to pull a string or prime it or anything.
I enjoy it so much that the path to the front door is always clear, despite being under a tree that constantly drops leaves.
But leaf blowers don’t kill, and I don’t have vinyl stickers on my car bragging about my leaf blower. Or shirts stating it’s my legal right to own a leaf blower. It’s just a tool that I enjoy using.
The rise of battery leaf blowers gives me hope that humanity can be saved. I hope you have many happy years with it. It’s an incredibly satisfying pastime.
See I think that’s where you’re getting lost. Most gun owners are not defined by their guns. They just own them and mind their own business. You’re seeing all gun owners as those military cosplaying scared little boys that put bullets all over their trucks with gun maker stickers to let the world know they really like guns. The vast majority of gun owners are not tools owning tools.
It’s sad to see this is an unpopular opinion (context from the community rules: if you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it’s something that’s widely accepted, give it an arrow down.)
I agree, but I doubt the majority ever will.
By majority, do you mean the people in the US? If not, please ignore the rest of this comment. People from US in the fediverse and on corporate social media sometimes assume everyone on earth lives in the US. Related post: https://fe.disroot.org/@[email protected]/posts/AZRx7njZJE1vq6fHE0
I’m not american. I don’t know what nationality has to do with my statement.
Oh sorry, I thought by majority you meant the people around you, not the people in this community.
