Is it true that guns don't kill people, but...?

Question

automatic weapons make it a heck of a lot easier?

Seriously, if you are stabbing someone with a knife, or beating them to death, the violence is right there in your face. How much damage could one psychopath do?

Is large scale violence (like that of today) just a consequence of the separation from violence that guns can give someone?

It's like a video game. They shoot someone, they may see little blood and just fall to the floor. It must be easier for these shooters to make no real connection to the suffering.

OK, so the most common objection I've been hearing is that we can't ban guns because anything can be used as a weapon.

So, by that logic, should we allow anyone who wants to have a nuclear weapon or other WMD's have one?


(Also, I never really did say I wanted all guns banned. I do not. I just favor licensing, waiting periods, and keeping automatic and semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of Joe Shmoe.)

Answer 1

Of course guns kill. You are 100% correct. If I use a lamp to kill someone, then it is an instrument of death. Lamps have other purposes than killing people, though. Their main use is to give light. Guns are quite the opposite. People who take these things literally, like "But someone has to hold and shoot the gun for it to kill...", really need some classes in the benefit of metaphor and the danger inherent in such ignorance and stupidity. This crap about "Oh, well I can take a car and run down a bunch of people so we should ban cars too" makes me want to SCREAM! How low and divisive and IGNORANT can one person get? Really? The gun is a weapon USED TO KILL. Of course people kill! And they weapons they are using kill too. The media and NRA propaganda machine never address the seriousness of the issue - students, criminals, children, the mentally disturbed, all of these people can get guns. The law are bullsh*t. I don't blame people for wanting to protect themselves but without government intervention, everybody is going to have a gun (I know my father always did, although it was well-hidden from us kids) and horrific situations like the one at Virginia Tech will keep increasing. How many people dead do we want before we begin to truly lobby to make a difference in the world of gun-ownership. In the South and the West it's easier to get one than to get a tooth pulled! (I could make a redneck joke here, but I shall refrain;). These video games make guns seem like a big joke. How mature do you gamers really think the others are? Yes, when a kid sees a little blood on the screen it makes guns seem cute and fun and cool. Those of you who say it doesn't are too immature to be playing as well. Come on! THINK! These games numb the senses of children and adults alike. Remember Atari and Intellivision? I don't remember us all needing violence to make those games fun.

Ha. The President is "praying for" everyone and their families. I wonder if he prays when he sends men in to kill innocent civilians in the midst of a civil war? I wonder if he prays when he cuts funding to programs advancing truth and education and social needs? Does anyone think he prays as he creates the highest deficit in the world, or alienates and makes enemies of our allies? Screw his fake prayer. The man certainly never followed the teachings of the Christ he says he loves (just like many fundies). If there is a hell, I certainly hope he gets a one-way ticket.

The shootings today have seen me either angry or crying. When will people learn? I am reminded of Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind":

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

It is a shame that so many of stand with our backs to that wind. I can only live my life in a way that may better society and hope others do the same. Far too many of these people never learn, but perhaps their children will.

EDIT: *Cat.tuck* Just WHAT are you trying to say? Better homicidal then what? Suicidal? Are you completely out of your mind?

Answer 2

OK, guns may not kill people, but they sure do make it very easy. I agree with the concept of separation from violence you've mentioned.

Some people here seemed kind of irrational - how easy do you think it would be to kill a group of 30 people with a baseball bat? How easy would it be for one person to kill a group of people by pushing them out the window?

As for the bombs, come on... Making a bomb is rather difficult and certainly can't be done in the heat of passion. However, any kid who can get a hold of a gun can do a lot of damage very easily.

What if it had been a group of kids wanting to kill? Think of the damage that could have been done.

Do Americans really feel any safer with all these guns? Right across the border (in Canada) they have a very similar culture with few guns and this kind of thing is almost unheard of.

I think it is really sad that something happens, as it did today, & instead of looking at what we need to do to prevent this in the future so many people are immediately jumping up & defending their personal right to own a gun.

Surely a little more regulation, at the very least, i.e. gun licensing and regulations how guns are stored, is worth it for a few less innocent deaths?

Answer 3

Large scale violence has been an option for single, disaffected people since the Chinese invented gunpowder in the 7th or 8th century. That's a few years before even I was born, and I'm old.

There's always a way that one human being can kill many. All you need is a manure pile and patience, and you have yourself a bomb.

I would be remiss in failing to note that Laura Bush's and Ted Kennedy's cars have killed more people than my handguns.

I don't think the problem these people have is disconnection from the act (I personally felt very connected to what I was doing when I had to point a weapon at someone).

It's their disconnection from society as a whole: turning in their humanity "membership cards," so to speak.

We cannot uninvent all manner of weaponry and technology only to deprive a disaffected few of their tools of destruction. The bell can't be unrung.

While they cannot (and I emphatically DO not) blame society for the choices of these individuals, I think societal disconnection contributes more to this than your "automatic weapons" theory.

Answer 4

-From the 1999 school year to 2006 106 students have died ether in or on the way to school from guns shots according to National School Safety security Services. That's fewer dead than school aged children that died bicycling in 2005. It is a one to nine rate compared to child deaths from lighting.
-Like road rage of the previous decade, the threat of guns in school is exaggerated in the public mind. Mass shooting are a terrible thing, but very rare.
-Guns are used in most homicides. The effectiveness of both tightening and loosening gun control can be debated. I find the easy that semi-automatic weapons, the majority of all firearms in the US, can be used in mass killings is a negligible factor in this debate.

Answer 5

People use guns (with bullets, natch) to kill people, and with powerful weapons like the one used today, it IS much easier, and much more detached, than having to actually run up and stab someone to death. There's the close-up screams, the blood, the struggle...what I call the "brutal intimacy" that signfies early forms of war.

Today, killing is much faster and less exhaustive with the right equipment. In a society that glorifies violence, and trivializes it in popular media, I'm guessing this will only become worse unless people realize that big, powerful guns aren't needed in every home, and certainly not within the grasp of whackos like today. But the NRA will lobby that if we don't pack a ton of heat, we'll be gang-raped by Osama, terrorists, space aliens, illegal aliens, liberals, drugged-out hippies, wildlife with a grudge, undead Marxists, rabid Smurfs, and of course, Daleks.

(God bless the USA!)

Answer 6

No it's not true that guns don't kill people. Every person who has trained with guns knows that every human body has a kill zone. This guy knew the kill zones, if not he would have never killed 31 people. Automatic weapons won't make it easier unless he is a trained person.

Also, don't compare real life to video games. It's been proven they have nothing to do with violence.

Answer 7

Automatic weapons are a horrible choice for mass murder. They waste ammunition, are inaccurate at high bursts, and are expensive to buy. Look at the N. Hollywood shootout; two men with some experience with firearms fired thousands of rounds of ammunition from assault rifles for 44 minutes and didn't kill a single person. Yet someone like Ted Bundy can kill more than 30 people with his bare hands.

Answer 8

The tools of War have been honed into a very lethal system to kill humans.

To ask if its justified is a long classical philosophical question:
1.) In the defense of Human Rights
2.) In the defense of Home Soil
3.) In the defense of allies

Now days wars have changed:
1.) In the act of subjugating Human rights
2.) In the act of satisfying corporate oil concerns
3.) In the act of selectively ignoring allies intelligence to support domestic political leverage.

The draft will return soon too...

Answer 9

As I've said many times before when you anti-gun nutjobs show up:

If they didn't use guns, then it would be bombs. MORE people would die then.

These things happen. There is nothing that can be done. Banning all guns will not solve this problem any more than would bringing back segregation because the kid was not white.

Start thinking with your head for a change!

Answer 10

As long as people keep asking the same question over and over, I'm just going to re-post my answer....

why do people always pick out a bad incident to make it took bad for all.....
I think they should outlaw all knives since people keep getting stabbed. I mean the knife must be bad.
Outlaw alcohol too, as it kills more and destroys more families than guns do every year.
Obesity is killing more and more people, therefore we must outlaw food.
Freedom of speech is only dependent on who you are. Some people can have it some cant.
The Internet promotes ignorance...just look at the Q&As. Down with the Internet.
Lets just take all the freedoms away......