Um, yeah - for killing shit. The only reason we “have fun target shooting” is because humans usually have to practice to get better at stuff. Regardless if its me sighting in my rifle for my annual deer hunt, or a police officer/soldier training it’s all a means to the same end.
Sure I suppose we can glorify and celebrate it like MMA or Olympic Fencing why not? Humans love violence without a doubt. I just wonder why we have to candy coat it and lie to ourselves.
OK - I just don’t know if people using firearms in a reckless manner is really the REAL problem here vs the higher number of people using them for crime, and the higher number who use them for suicides.
But in general if you misuse your gun in public, there are already laws and consequences for that. If I shot someone I might be charged with manslaughter or negligent homicide. Most cities don’t allow fire arms to be discharged in the city, period. Carrying concealed with out a license is illegal almost everywhere. I mean maybe there is some old coot somewhere who is a menace to his city, but most of the worst violence are small, localized areas in big cities and most of the victims have a history of illicit activities.
I know people who would never properly merge if that was the case.
I don’t think the intent of a gun’s manufacture makes it more deadly. But it’s purpose should, rationally, be considered in any discussion about reducing their use in the deaths of innocent people. The intent of its possession and use are found in its purpose of manufacture. I doubt many people buy guns because they needed a firearm to match the drapes in their living room. Pretending that the purpose of a gun doesn’t have a direct effect on its use would just be irrational.
When people die due to car accidents, we try to make cars safer. When drivers commit errors that lead to pedestrian deaths, we try to correct those kinds of errors with more traffic signs, lights, police presence on the roads, increasing pedestrian visibility, etc. If a car company produced a vehicle with the purpose of it being used to kill people and advertised that as its purpose, it would be banned immediately.
So you’ve bought into the lie that “guns are only for killing people.” If that is true, why are they so very bad at it, considering that there are 300 million guns in this country, and only about 30,000 dead per year from them? If the rest of my tools only worked 0.01% of the time, I’d be trying to get rid of them, too, but for a different reason.
FYI - in general guns are much safer. A modern gun NEVER just “goes off” unless there is some mechanical defect. A modern gun won’t go off if dropped. The only way for a modern gun to fire is someone or something pressing the trigger. Any one who says it went off while cleaning or what ever is covering up for their error in handling.
I don’t practice to kill things. I practice for better accuracy and faster timed runs. It’s a development of skill like anything else. With your logic all those kids and adults in martial arts are just waiting for the day they kick someone’s ass.
I wouldn’t say “killing people” just killing in general. I suppose theres also the authority that comes from being the person in control of the gun, or control of the people with the guns. But at the end of the day where does that authority come from? Violence, or atleast the threat of it. Right?
Bring it 
Oh bullshit. They’re waiting for the day they have to “defend” themselves.
I think for too many it’s waiting for the day they get to “defend” themselves.
25-lb. toddlers, 10 lb triggers, what’s up with that? Are people still dialing down the safety and blowing off whatever passes as phone cases for hold-all class holding?
Giant bathtubs kids can throw…not hiding the guns there anymore!
OK then.
You have a strange definition of logic and rationale, to include fearmongering as a part of it.
it isn’t exactly means-independant, and it’s not exactly means-dependant.
[citation needed]. 
Wikipedia says that the means are only one of the major risk factors, and, as currently written, it’s very much a subordinate risk.
Meanwhile, attempts to increase the restrictions on guns never stop, and liberalizations are few and far between. (And most of those liberalizations happen in the courts, when they overturn a law that goes too far, which is to say that they only return us to the status quo ante!)
Did you know that there are about 22,000 laws restricting guns in this country? You aren’t subject to all of them all the time, but that only means that something perfectly legal where you are now may be illegal just because you crossed some invisible line. You are expected to know all of those laws, because ignorance is not a defense, right?
(Why is that, anyway? It takes 6 years of study and a notoriously difficult examination to be licensed to practice law in this country, and even then, that license applies to only one of the 50 states. These professionals are expected to practice continually, and yet they still have to go to court occasionally to hold a ritualized battle with some other practitioner who disagrees about what the law means. Meanwhile, we normals are expected to know every law that applies to us where we live, and also those in any place where we may travel as well.)
We have enough gun laws in this country already. Let’s try something different.
Who is fear-mongering? I’m not talking about hypothetical deaths here. I’m not saying everyone in the country will die by gunfire if we don’t ban all guns now. I’m saying statistically we’re going to continue to have unacceptable rates of intentional and accidental gun deaths if we do nothing to reduce access to guns and/or bullets.
As opposed to the fear-mongering arguments in favor of guns such as “the gubbermint is gonna take my freedoms if I don’t have my guns to defend myself!” even though if the government wanted to get you, they have drones and aircraft and armored vehicles and a standing army that is equipped with more than a few AR-15s.
FTFY
Ben Carson, American Gun Advocates, and the Fantasy of Individual Heroism
The delusion that one person with a rifle can fend off doomsday explains how many on the right see their relationship with the government.
When we see the rates of sword deaths and mass stabbings match that of guns, I will indeed hold a similar opinion about sword control.
I don’t believe that most gun owners are irresponsible homicidal maniacs intending to kill other people. But that doesn’t change the purpose and ability of the weapons they purchase. If you want to hunt, go for it. Single shot rifles aren’t typically the gun of choice for mass shooters (unless they want to play sniper). We could reduce the availability of bullets to those with hunting licenses and ban them inside city limits. That would be something at least. It wouldn’t completely stop every intentional or accidental gun death, but reducing that number would be great.
You are, and they are. You are focusing on a narrative and not the numbers; so are they.
we’re going to continue to have unacceptable rates of intentional and accidental gun deaths
So what is “acceptable”? Zero? No source of mishap ever goes to zero.
The majority of gun deaths in this country aren’t mishaps anyway. Gun control advocates like to lump in suicide, criminality, and defensive shootings with mishaps, but the fact is that cars are about three times more deadly than guns when compared on a purely accidental basis, yet there are more guns in this country than cars.
(And it could be more skewed than my sources show, since we do not yet have gun registration in this country, thankfully.)
Why is “gun control” the answer to this problem when removing the proximate causes of many more common types of accidental death (cars, pools, ladders, prescription drugs…) not the answer?
if the government wanted to get you, they have drones and aircraft and armored vehicles and a standing army that is equipped with more than a few AR-15s.
Yes, if the government wants to send their entire might after a single person, that one person is going to lose.
However, if you consider the US population as a whole, well, let me offer some instructive test cases: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan… The US government can’t even suppress the population of a much smaller country where the population is far less well-armed than the US citizenry. And the US isn’t alone here in its general failure to put down armed insurrection. As a rule, armed insurrections stop only when the aggressor goes away or the insurrectionists are coopted into the government. Both of which are ways of saying “peace.” Sounds good to me.
Anyone trying to set off a state of civil war in this country would have to be insane.
The absence of numbers does not make what I’m saying into fear-mongering. Quote whatever numbers you like about how many gun deaths there are. It will be too many.
So “success” is only achieved when the number of deaths is zero? How will gun control or any other legal solution achieve that?
Go get medical mistakes under control first. Bigger bang for the buck, so to speak.
