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

Indeed. But nobody is advocating a ban of water pistols, potato guns or other toys. Just the stuff that are actually lethal weapons.

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.

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/527908/768...

[2] http://potatogunwarrior.tripod.com/revxunfolded.jpg

[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

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".

What's in the water in Oregon that makes them like this?

It looks like a beautiful place, and there's got to be a lot more to it than just Portland - I mean there's the entire eastern half of the state...

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.

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”.

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.

> 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.

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.

Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

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.

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).

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.

Weapons can and are misused. They're tools, not intent.

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.

>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.

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.

>Honestly, I get you love your guns,

I love mechanical devices that have multiple functions.

> but at least be rational about the arguments you’re making.

I am. Guns do not kill people, unhinged people kill people.

First let's consider that there are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States, some estimates in fact put the number at being higher than the number of people. How do you propose to get 100% of those surrendered? More importantly, how do you propose to compensate people for turning them in? Firearms in functional condition can range from 100$ to tens of thousands of dollars for legally held fully automatic and antique firearms. I'd say the average resale value per firearm in my collection, and I only make 36k a year, is in the 400$ range.

Now let's look at some numbers.

"In 2017, gun deaths reached their highest level since 1968 with 39,773 deaths by firearm, of which 23,854 were by suicide and 14,542 were homicides." [1] the missing 1,377 were likely accidents and law enforcement-involved shootings.

IN 2017, automobile accidents killed 37,133 persons. [2] This figure almost certainly does not include suicide via exhaust either, making cars almost as dangerous IF NOT more responsible for death than firearms. If you factor in property damage/losses...

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. [3] yet cigarettes are sold in every state legally to persons as young as 18. If you buy your cigarettes from a legal dealer, you don't need to pass a background check like you do if you buy from a business selling firearms as they have to have an FFL which requires a background check, you don't need to take a safety course for cigarettes yet many states require some sort of NRA or other safety course to obtain a license to carry, if you're a felon you can buy cigarettes but you can not legally buy a firearm from an FFL,

Or should we look into prescribed opiates?

How about heart disease? It kills 647k in the US annually [4], do we outlaw fast food, animal products, vegetable oil, refined sugar? I mean, we have medical evidence that repeatedly shows that animal proteins/omega 6 fat imbalances/excessive sugar/sugar in absence of fiber/etc cause all sorts of things like inflammatory responses, arterial calcification, arterial blockage etc.

What about diabetes at more than 80k deaths in the United States annually [4]? Do we make sugary snacks and soda illegal given the former is often detrimental to our health, overly dense calorically and often largely (if not wholly lacking in meaningful micronutrients)? And soda, diet sodas are just somewhat acidic empty calories and non-diet sodas are full of sugar and sodium which can help promote diabetes. I mean, sure people can enjoy them in moderation with minimal health impact just like the vast majority of firearm owners don't commit acts of violence but they're clearly not good for us...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta... with the cited source in the wiki entry being a CNN article where they replicated another source's claims.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Just because there are other also causes of death it doesn’t mean we should just give up trying to prevent obviously avoidable causes. By your logic we might as well give up trying to cure cancer because more people die in road accidents. It’s not an either/or scenario where we have to give up on one thing because of a completely unrelated other thing.

But yes, let’s look at the stats. America is the only developed country which has looked at said stats and not though “gee, wouldn’t it be smart to have gun control.” Australia, the UK, Northern Europe; they all went through the same statistics as yourself and realised gun control was needed.

Anyway, it’s a highly divisive topic (at least in America anyway. In Europe and Australia it’s pretty one sided) and I think we’ve reached a natural impasse so I begrudgingly concede that we might just need to agree to disagree.