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Old November 29, 2012, 11:21 AM   #117
Gaerek
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 3, 2012
Location: Arizona
Posts: 939
@breakingcontact Just want to comment on a few parts of your statement here. This is all for the sake of discussion.

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TX calls it a CHL (concealed handgun license). Because that's all it is while its sitting on your hip. Just a handgun. When you draw it if attacked...then you are employing your handgun as a weapon for defense.
The flaw in this reasoning is that you're saying it's not a weapon until you use it. The problem with this is, a handgun IS a weapon, regardless of how it's used. It's purpose is as a weapon. It was produced as a weapon. Even a target only race gun is a weapon because it still can be used to stop, kill, injure, maim, etc, AND it's purpose is to emulate shooting at targets, which are, throughout history, an analog to something that you wish to stop, kill, injure or maim. Even if I give on the area that "target only" firearms are not weapons, that handgun on your hip IS still a weapon. You are lying to yourself if you believe differently. No amount of semantic jujitsu will get around the hard fact that a handgun is a weapon.

By the way, Arizona calls it a Concealed Weapons Permit because that's what the gun on your hip is...a weapon. It also covers other objects that are weapons as well.

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If we had some gun owners logo tying us all together...it could very well be a triangle with sides labeled (hunting-defense-sport).
I understand what you're saying here. But our guns are only protected BECAUSE they are weapons. Their use as weapons for defense (and as a check against the government) are the only protected uses. The fact that they can be used for hunting and sport is a side affect of having them for defensive purposes. By calling a weapon by a politically correct term, you're watering it's PROTECTED PURPOSE down.

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My point is that we as a community/culture need to not appear as hostile. We need to appear and appeal to others as normal.
Whether you call it a gun, weapon, piece, sidearm, or high pressure combustion based slug thrower is irrelevant. Non-shooters will still look at those of us with guns (which they automatically see as violent killing tools) as having dangerous objects to society. Read my first post in this thread where I mentioned paintball. The ONLY people using the politically correct term were the players themselves. Society as a whole saw paintball guns for what they were. We are absolutely not helping a thing by saying our guns aren't weapons. We are, however, watering down their true purpose, and lying to ourselves. Also, if we all as a whole decided that our guns aren't weapons anymore, we would be the only people who wouldn't call them weapons. Non-shooters would still call them what they are...weapons.

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Then we are marginalizing ourselves and our cause and for what to inflate our egos with some militaristic machismo?
We would be marginalizing ourselves and our cause if we lied about what we have, and what we shoot. And now, you just used the non-shooters stereotype. I'm not inflating my ego, or boosting some militaristic machismo by calling my guns what they are. I'm simply not willing to lie about what they are because it's not politically correct. There are some who maybe that stereotype fits, but it would be the exception, not the rule. And by not calling guns what they are isn't going to change that, and it won't change people's perception. They will see right through the lie.

Let me put it to you another way. When, um, a certain President we currently have says that he supports the 2nd Amendment, what do you think in your mind? I certainly don't think he supports the right of the individual to keep and bear arms. He might support the militia part (in the form of the NG), and therefore can say he supports the 2nd Amendment. We see right through the deception. Non-shooters will see right through us if we start watering down our language, and lie to them by saying the Glock on my hip isn't a weapon.
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