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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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No, but they make it infinitely easier to shoot people.
Owning a car makes it infinitely easier to drive it into a crowd of people. Owning a knife makes it infinitely easier to stab people.
It's not an outstanding argument when they all require someone to make the decision to hurt people.
And owning a spoon makes it infinitely easier to to go on a spoon based killing spree in a school. But wierdly, despite everyone in the US owning spoons and there being far more spoons than guns, spoons based killing sprees are much less common than shooting sprees.
It's almost, almost like one is a tool specifically designed to kill people as quickly and effectively as possible and the other isn't. And in the very unlikely event that is the case, we should probably regulate them differently.
Yes, but cars and knives (of certain kinds) have functions other than hurting people. Making the assumption that they're exactly the same as a tool whose sole purpose is death and destruction is disingenuous at best.
I dont disagree that they're "just" tools, tools that people will use as they see fit. But if you can't see that some tools are inherently more destructive and less useful then I dont think you're trustworthy enough to speak on whether or not they should be regulated in any way.
I'm going to throw a curve ball here and say yes, obviously the purpose of a gun is to kill things. Americans have an inherent right to self defense through use of arms, which is the entire purpose of the 2nd amendment. Killing animals for food is of course another common task, along with livestock protection, but self defense against other humans using force was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The founders thought about the fact that these arms could be used in crime and violence, and decided that freedom comes with risk and it was worth that risk. The country was founded on principles that the government is not there to provide perfect safety to all individuals and to dictate their lives, but instead set ground rules and let people live their lives however they see fit. There are consequences for actions, not preventing all actions with negative consequences. There's a reason that the phrase "those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither" is such a famous (or infamous) quote in America.
Many people may feel they do not need to protect themselves with force of arms in modern society and would prefer more safety over more freedom, but until such time as over 3/4s of the population agree to cede their right to self defense to the government and change the 2nd with an overriding amendment, these tools are doing the job they are designed for. This argument that cars and knives and what have you serve another purpose so it's "different" just strikes me as odd. Hell, the amount of people killed by cars when killing people is in fact the opposite of it's purpose, is more concerning if you think about it because cars kill so many more people than the guns that are actually designed specifically for killing. But to do that we need to limit cars to traveling at 35mph and have internal and external airbags and giant soft air tube tires that can safely run over people without causing harm, but no one is advocating to make laws mandating such and no one would buy a car like that if it was available.