Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian McIlmoyle
Guns ( and in particular handguns ) ARE designed for the purpose of Killing people. and they can also be used for sport.. However when a handgun is used for it's designed and intended purpose .. it kills people .. which is what it was supposed to do.. although the act is illegal.. it can hardly be considered "accidental"
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Guns are designed to fire a projectile at high velocity. Handguns are meant to be a smaller package with which to accomplish those goals. Whether the projectile kills anything at all is more a testament to the skill of the person pulling the trigger than to the design of the gun, by orders of magnitude. It wasn't the gun designed to kill, but rather designed to be used by a person to kill, with many overt actions and safeties to satisfy before this becomes even possible.
Many guns are designed not to kill at all, rather to shoot at targets and make a poor choice of weapon to employ in the act of killing anything. In fact, the choice of ammunition has a greater impact on the ability to kill than the gun itself. Fire a steel core round out of an AR vs a hollow-point hunting round and you will see.
The gun has been used as means to project force via the ability to put potentially lethal projectiles at a distance from the shooter. Whether this is done depends solely on the person using said item, be they a civillian or a soldier.
There are perhaps as many as 24 million guns in Canada as we speak. Yet there are only about 750 people killed by them every year, most by suicide, and about 200 by homicide. There are about 5 times more people who off themselves by means other than a gun, and about 8 times more people who die by drunk drivers than are murdered by guns. How many cars are in Canada, and how many people dies by their means?
The use of the word "designed" when describing an object with the potential to inflict harm is a media buzzword that, although seemingly logical, doesn't translate into real-world actions.