Subject:
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Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 15 Sep 2003 19:09:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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808 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
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A guns only inherent purpose is to shoot bullets at something.
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But a gun’s purpose isn’t interently to shoot a person; that’s an
inferential purpose. By extension, the purpose of a pair of scissors is to cut
things, therefore I can cut someone’s throat with them, so scissors should be
banned. A baseball bat is designed to hit things with tremendous force,
therefore I can hit someone’s head with tremendous force, so baseball bats
should be banned. Rat poison is used to kill things, therefore I can kill
someone with rat poison, therefore rat poison should be banned.
The problem is that an item’s inherent purpose is basically irrelevant to its
purpose-in-practice, so it’s difficult to justify the banning of something based
on inherent purpose alone.
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It’s irrefutable--less guns, less gun related injuries and deaths.
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Alas, that’s an unsubstantiated leap of logic. If you have 100 guns, and 99 of
them never fire a shot, but 1 of them is used to kill 100 people, then what’s
the value in banning the other 99? In fact, if the other 99 are eliminated,
then the person with the remaining 1 gun will be the only one so armed. Your
argument is based on the assumption that the incidence of gun violence is
equally distributed across the society-wide inventory of guns, and that’s not
the case.
Dave!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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| (...) (snipping rest of silly examples) The primary purpose of a gun is to shoot something - the primary purpose of a handgun is to shoot someone. The reason that they were developed in the first place were to shoot someone. The primary purpose of a (...) (21 years ago, 15-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
| | | Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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| (...) Hence I didn't say that the inherent purpose of a gun is to shoot someone. However, the 'usual' purpose of a gun *user* is to shoot at someone, either in an act of "defense" or in an act of crime. Maybe to scare, maybe to intimidate, and maybe (...) (21 years ago, 15-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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| (...) And scissors, pencils, and LEGO all have a primary function which has nothing to do with the ending or maiming of a life. What is a gun's *primary* function? As soon as you start realizing you can't sit there and say, "Well, such-n-such can (...) (21 years ago, 15-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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