Quote:
Designed to kill
One of the arguments frequently fielded by people with an anti gun rights agenda is that "assault weapons" were designed to bring about maximum carnage in the least amount of time possible. After thinking about it for a long while, I came to the conclusion that I have never seen a gun slogan that read, "For when you need a kill." or "More time. More destruction." In fact, most are quite the opposite, GLOCK has "Perfection", Sig has "To hell and back", and FNH has "Distinct Advantage".
|
Company mottos or slogans have nothing to do with a particular model of firearm's design.
Quote:
|
I certainly know that when I buy a gun, those are the qualities I am looking for. Anybody else have thoughts on this?
|
There is a distinct difference between design and application. Guns are designed to launch projectiles down range in a controlled manner. Some are designed to do this faster than others. Ideally, they are designed such that they will do this in a reliable manner.
From a design standpoint, the gun does not care if it is launching projectiles down range at 800 rpm at an enemy combatant, innocent civilians, paper targets, or animals. These are all applications of the design and not the design itself. There is nothing unique about firearms that makes them specifically beneficial for causing death over causing dirt to splatter.
These considerations apply regardless of whether the gun was designed with the purpose in mind that it would be used for combat. We had a discussion in another thread about sniper rifles. kraigwy noted using a REM 700 sniper rifle. Strangely, the model he noted is marketed as a hunting rifle and variants are marketed as hunting, target, sporting rifles. They are all pretty much the same gun doing the exact same thing in the same manner with some slight ergonomic differences. That the sniper version is "designed" to kill whereas the target version is not would be a silly bit of conjecture.
Besides, more often than not, it is the damage of the bullet that does the killing, not the gun itself. Sure, a few people get beat to death with guns, but there aren't many guns designed to be blunt force objects.