cars?
Guns are exclusively designed to take lives. Would be useless without their ability to effectively kill things, and most humans outside of America don't think it's important for civilians to be armed.
And guns aren't intended to kill children in the halls of an elementary school, but here we are. Intended use isn't a relevant part of the conversation, it's cost/benefit. We pay a cost, we get a benefit. Cars cost lives. Legal guns cost lives. Vending machines cost lives. If 10,000 people a year died from vending machines, we'd be having the same conversation as we are with guns, even if their intended use is handing out snacks
We as a society need to decide where our line is with all of these things. Just because someone has a different line than you doesn't mean they are devaluing the cost, they may just place greater value on the benefit.
> most humans outside of America don't think it's important for civilians to be armed
Most people outside of America think strict religious laws are a good idea. So what?
Most of the rest of the world live in pretty restrictive societies on a large number of axis.
I stop reading after that ridiculous statement.
Um...
I know you can shoot targets with them, but that doesn't seem like the principal use.
What else do you think a gun is designed to do, beyond killing things?
The guns the biathletes use in the Winter Olympics aren’t “meant to kill”.
They have the same essential design as most low-caliber rifles that are explicitly designed for hunting - i.e., designed for killing.
That design came from centuries of seeking more efficient, efficacious ways to kill with guns.
Sure, they're tweaked to be optimal for very formalized, competitive shooting, not military combat, but they'd still serve very well for executions, sniping, and the like.
See also biathlon's roots in military training: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon#History