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Apples aren’t specifically designed to kill people. You don’t have mass school shootings where dozens of kids are attacked by apples and suicides caused by appl

Apples aren’t specifically designed to kill people. You don’t have mass school shootings where dozens of kids are attacked by apples and suicides caused by apples are significantly fewer than those by guns. The two aren’t even remotely equatable.

lostapathy 7y ago
Lots of guns aren’t designed to kill people either.
- pushpop 7y ago
  Indeed. But nobody is advocating a ban of water pistols, potato guns or other toys. Just the stuff that are actually lethal weapons.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      Anything is a weapon if you use it like one. However some things are actually designed to be weapons. It’s insane that people make the kind of argument you make because clearly there is a different between something that isn’t designed to be a weapon and misused; and something that is designed to kill people. The entire rest of the world has acknowledged that fact yet you’re still trying to conflate the two.
      - Accujack 7y ago
        Weapons can and are misused. They're tools, not intent.
        pushpop 7y ago
        That’s a logical fallacy. Killing some with a skirt is misuse. Killing some with a device that was purposely made to kill someone isn’t misuse. It might also be self-defence, man slaughter or any or a multitude of other things but you’re not using the gun for something it wasn’t designed to do.
        ryanmercer 7y ago
        >Killing some with a device that was purposely made to kill someone isn’t misuse. As a gun owning American with MANY firearms, never once have I bought one thinking "gee golly, I can't wait to kills me somes peoples with this here gun" I go "hey this would be great for hunting, hey this one would be great for taking to the range, hey this is like the one my late father first took me shooting with, hey this one is just neat mechanically because the entire cylinder of this nagant revolver slides forward and it has this comically long hammer". I have never shot anyone, I have never wanted to shoot anyone, I've never drawn a weapon in aggression. If you think a gun is a murder machine, yes you should never own one. I, however, see them as a functional tool for providing food for my table and as a recreational device. You go take your fancy vacations and I'll drive 10 miles down the road to the range to shoot targets with series of circles.
        pushpop 7y ago
        I’m not suggesting every gun owning American goes out looking for people to kill. All I’m saying is guns were designed to kill. You agree with this yourself since you raised the point about hunting. I mean when was the last time you killed a deer with a skirt? Honestly, I get you love your guns, but at least be rational about the arguments you’re making. A gun and a skirt are not in any way even remotely equatable yet gun owners frequently make dumbass comments like that rather than just saying “yeah, I know they’re dangerous weapons designed to kill but I try and exercise some common sense and I enjoy firing them”. At least that would be an honest opinion.
        ryanmercer 7y ago
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      The problem is that some people are going to make the argument that it's about what the tool was designed to do. At which point they're on the idiotic knife ban bandwagon.
      - pushpop 7y ago
        Knives are a grey area because some are essential kitchen utensils where as some are made as weapons (eg will have different style handles). It makes sense that the latter cannot be sold in shops but the former could still easily be used in the place of the latter. Which is why the U.K. says anything carried around the streets with the intent to cause harm is considered the same. This means if you’re carrying a knife without a good reason, that’s an offence. It’s a sane distinction imo. But the problem with guns is there literally is no reason to carry them around the streets. Sure we do actually have guns (one of my friends is into clay pidgin shooting) but the way those shotguns are stored and transported is very different in the U.K. Having gun control doesn’t mean you have to give up all of your guns without exception; it just means there are enough hurdles that people don’t accidentally kill their own family and nut jobs can’t easily get hold of them. And it works too, gun crime in the U.K. dropped massively when we tightened gun control laws. The issue we have now is with knife crime, thankfully that causes significantly fewer deaths than gun crime did but it’s still a problem; not just in the sense that it’s happening but also because it’s a harder problem to solve (what with kitchen knives actually being an essential utensil).
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    Some jurisdictions consider potato guns to be firearms. California law enforcement has said in the past that non-pneumatic potato guns with bores wider than 0.6 inches are "destructive devices" (possession is a felony). I don't know if that definition has been tested in court, but I wouldn't want to be the test case. In Oregon they're considered firearms (even pneumatic ones). Can't possess them if you're a felon and if you shoot them somewhere you're not supposed to (like your own yard in some cities) you can get hit with the same charges you'd get for firing a real gun.
    - klyrs 7y ago
      There's two kinds of potato gun. [1]'s a toy, [2]'s a destructive device, and I believe that GP was referring to [1]. [1] https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/602483/files/527908/768x1024x2/schylling-retro-spud-gun.jpg https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/602483/files/527908/768... [2] http://potatogunwarrior.tripod.com/revxunfolded.jpg http://potatogunwarrior.tripod.com/revxunfolded.jpg
      - big_chungus 7y ago
        So I've worked on and shot the "destructive" version; they're not as fearsome as you'd think. The potato seldom escapes the barrel in a single fragment (unless you do a lot of tuning), and if it does, you're probably not hitting with enough force to seriously wound. That's a pretty ridiculous law, and I will probably use it in the future as an example of "nanny state gone mad", so thank you. If you ask me, this is just another case of the weapon looking "tactical".
      - Rebelgecko 7y ago
        [2] is clearly someone's overbuilt tacti-cool potato gun. The overwrought bipod doesn't really matter: A single piece of PVC pipe with a cap on one end (or even just a film canister) and some dry ice is equally felonious
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - thrower123 7y ago
  - lostapathy 7y ago
    I wasn't just talking about water guns or toys. Plenty of actual firearms were not designed to kill people, and would do a pretty poor job of it if you tried. Realistically, a pair of golf clubs would be more dangerous in trained hands than whole swaths of competition and small varmint guns. This is the problem with society at large - rather than seek to understand gun culture, you dismiss it as being all about killing people, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    You might not think that a skirt is a lethal weapon, but there's an entire family of martial arts that trains to use it as such.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      You could kill someone by drowning them in water but that doesn’t mean water should be illegal either. The distinction being that water and skirts are not weapons. They serve a very practical purpose. Guns serve no purpose other than to shoot things. How many times do you hear about school “skirtings” where a disgruntled teenager kills a dozen peers with his skirt? I’m honestly flabbergasted that intelligent people would make such obviously stupid comments as you’ve made to support something that clearly shouldn’t be as widely acceptable as it currently is. Next you’ll be defending nukes saying everyone should have them because “anything is dangerous in the wrong hands”. The line has to be drawn somewhere and the obvious place to draw that is “stuff that’s purpose is to kill people” should be on the wrong side of that line. Whichever way you decide to perform your logic gymnastics, guns still fall into the category of “this really shouldn’t be as accessible as a skirt”.
      - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        Ah, but they are weapons by any reasonable definition if used to harm another person. No one is saying that we need to ban water or skirts, only have some common sense regulations on them. There's no reason that someone should have a large quantity of water over say a gallon at a time. And your claim about something whose purpose is to kill people, it's ridiculous to allow people to sell a murder skirt. The only purpose of knives is to kill people, and we allow those to be as available as the average skirt as well.
        pushpop 7y ago
        > it's ridiculous to allow people to sell a murder skirt. “Murder skirt”? I hope future generations read this thread back as a reminder of how dumb the pro-gun arguments got before people eventually came to their senses and banned them. > The only purpose of knives is to kill people, Bullshit. I’d be interested do see you butter toast, slice a sandwich, chop carrots or calve a Christmas turkey without a knife. Some knifes are designed specifically to kill people, and those knifes shouldn’t be available either (in fact in the UK there are rules in place to say you’re not allowed to wonder the streets with kitchen knives). > We allow [knives] to be as available as the average skirt as well. You might but that’s not actually the case in most other developed countries.

lostapathy 7y ago

Lots of guns aren’t designed to kill people either.

pushpop 7y ago
Indeed. But nobody is advocating a ban of water pistols, potato guns or other toys. Just the stuff that are actually lethal weapons.
- Accujack 7y ago
  Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
  - pushpop 7y ago
    Anything is a weapon if you use it like one. However some things are actually designed to be weapons. It’s insane that people make the kind of argument you make because clearly there is a different between something that isn’t designed to be a weapon and misused; and something that is designed to kill people. The entire rest of the world has acknowledged that fact yet you’re still trying to conflate the two.
    - Accujack 7y ago
      Weapons can and are misused. They're tools, not intent.
      - pushpop 7y ago
        That’s a logical fallacy. Killing some with a skirt is misuse. Killing some with a device that was purposely made to kill someone isn’t misuse. It might also be self-defence, man slaughter or any or a multitude of other things but you’re not using the gun for something it wasn’t designed to do.
        ryanmercer 7y ago
        >Killing some with a device that was purposely made to kill someone isn’t misuse. As a gun owning American with MANY firearms, never once have I bought one thinking "gee golly, I can't wait to kills me somes peoples with this here gun" I go "hey this would be great for hunting, hey this one would be great for taking to the range, hey this is like the one my late father first took me shooting with, hey this one is just neat mechanically because the entire cylinder of this nagant revolver slides forward and it has this comically long hammer". I have never shot anyone, I have never wanted to shoot anyone, I've never drawn a weapon in aggression. If you think a gun is a murder machine, yes you should never own one. I, however, see them as a functional tool for providing food for my table and as a recreational device. You go take your fancy vacations and I'll drive 10 miles down the road to the range to shoot targets with series of circles.
        pushpop 7y ago
        I’m not suggesting every gun owning American goes out looking for people to kill. All I’m saying is guns were designed to kill. You agree with this yourself since you raised the point about hunting. I mean when was the last time you killed a deer with a skirt? Honestly, I get you love your guns, but at least be rational about the arguments you’re making. A gun and a skirt are not in any way even remotely equatable yet gun owners frequently make dumbass comments like that rather than just saying “yeah, I know they’re dangerous weapons designed to kill but I try and exercise some common sense and I enjoy firing them”. At least that would be an honest opinion.
        ryanmercer 7y ago
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    The problem is that some people are going to make the argument that it's about what the tool was designed to do. At which point they're on the idiotic knife ban bandwagon.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      Knives are a grey area because some are essential kitchen utensils where as some are made as weapons (eg will have different style handles). It makes sense that the latter cannot be sold in shops but the former could still easily be used in the place of the latter. Which is why the U.K. says anything carried around the streets with the intent to cause harm is considered the same. This means if you’re carrying a knife without a good reason, that’s an offence. It’s a sane distinction imo. But the problem with guns is there literally is no reason to carry them around the streets. Sure we do actually have guns (one of my friends is into clay pidgin shooting) but the way those shotguns are stored and transported is very different in the U.K. Having gun control doesn’t mean you have to give up all of your guns without exception; it just means there are enough hurdles that people don’t accidentally kill their own family and nut jobs can’t easily get hold of them. And it works too, gun crime in the U.K. dropped massively when we tightened gun control laws. The issue we have now is with knife crime, thankfully that causes significantly fewer deaths than gun crime did but it’s still a problem; not just in the sense that it’s happening but also because it’s a harder problem to solve (what with kitchen knives actually being an essential utensil).
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  Some jurisdictions consider potato guns to be firearms. California law enforcement has said in the past that non-pneumatic potato guns with bores wider than 0.6 inches are "destructive devices" (possession is a felony). I don't know if that definition has been tested in court, but I wouldn't want to be the test case. In Oregon they're considered firearms (even pneumatic ones). Can't possess them if you're a felon and if you shoot them somewhere you're not supposed to (like your own yard in some cities) you can get hit with the same charges you'd get for firing a real gun.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    There's two kinds of potato gun. [1]'s a toy, [2]'s a destructive device, and I believe that GP was referring to [1]. [1] https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/602483/files/527908/768x1024x2/schylling-retro-spud-gun.jpg https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/602483/files/527908/768... [2] http://potatogunwarrior.tripod.com/revxunfolded.jpg http://potatogunwarrior.tripod.com/revxunfolded.jpg
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      So I've worked on and shot the "destructive" version; they're not as fearsome as you'd think. The potato seldom escapes the barrel in a single fragment (unless you do a lot of tuning), and if it does, you're probably not hitting with enough force to seriously wound. That's a pretty ridiculous law, and I will probably use it in the future as an example of "nanny state gone mad", so thank you. If you ask me, this is just another case of the weapon looking "tactical".
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      [2] is clearly someone's overbuilt tacti-cool potato gun. The overwrought bipod doesn't really matter: A single piece of PVC pipe with a cap on one end (or even just a film canister) and some dry ice is equally felonious
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - thrower123 7y ago
- lostapathy 7y ago
  I wasn't just talking about water guns or toys. Plenty of actual firearms were not designed to kill people, and would do a pretty poor job of it if you tried. Realistically, a pair of golf clubs would be more dangerous in trained hands than whole swaths of competition and small varmint guns. This is the problem with society at large - rather than seek to understand gun culture, you dismiss it as being all about killing people, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  You might not think that a skirt is a lethal weapon, but there's an entire family of martial arts that trains to use it as such.
  - pushpop 7y ago
    You could kill someone by drowning them in water but that doesn’t mean water should be illegal either. The distinction being that water and skirts are not weapons. They serve a very practical purpose. Guns serve no purpose other than to shoot things. How many times do you hear about school “skirtings” where a disgruntled teenager kills a dozen peers with his skirt? I’m honestly flabbergasted that intelligent people would make such obviously stupid comments as you’ve made to support something that clearly shouldn’t be as widely acceptable as it currently is. Next you’ll be defending nukes saying everyone should have them because “anything is dangerous in the wrong hands”. The line has to be drawn somewhere and the obvious place to draw that is “stuff that’s purpose is to kill people” should be on the wrong side of that line. Whichever way you decide to perform your logic gymnastics, guns still fall into the category of “this really shouldn’t be as accessible as a skirt”.
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      Ah, but they are weapons by any reasonable definition if used to harm another person. No one is saying that we need to ban water or skirts, only have some common sense regulations on them. There's no reason that someone should have a large quantity of water over say a gallon at a time. And your claim about something whose purpose is to kill people, it's ridiculous to allow people to sell a murder skirt. The only purpose of knives is to kill people, and we allow those to be as available as the average skirt as well.
      - pushpop 7y ago
        > it's ridiculous to allow people to sell a murder skirt. “Murder skirt”? I hope future generations read this thread back as a reminder of how dumb the pro-gun arguments got before people eventually came to their senses and banned them. > The only purpose of knives is to kill people, Bullshit. I’d be interested do see you butter toast, slice a sandwich, chop carrots or calve a Christmas turkey without a knife. Some knifes are designed specifically to kill people, and those knifes shouldn’t be available either (in fact in the UK there are rules in place to say you’re not allowed to wonder the streets with kitchen knives). > We allow [knives] to be as available as the average skirt as well. You might but that’s not actually the case in most other developed countries.