JSA wrote:
Slowman wrote:
no. the bow, as a tool, has the job of killing animals
and people. same as the rifle. if the rifle didn't perform the task of killing people, soldiers would go back and get their bows and swords. but the rifle, as we know, is pretty good at performing that task.
So, the rifle used in the Olympic Biathlon has the job of killing people?
this is going to be the last post on this, so, when i'm done, you post, you'll win the internets, and we can all move onto something more useful.
alternatively, perhaps i'm misreading you, and maybe you actually honestly want to have a meaningful exchange here, and the problem we're having is one of terms and definitions (in which case i'm happy to be the person at fault for not adequately defining my terms).
what i wrote above is that we have the "real" reason certain tech and implements came into being: spears, bows and arrows, guns, swords, etc., and that reason was to render large living things unliving. i think you know this.
over the course of the last 2,500 or so years civilization has developed a kind of peacetime homage to the survival skills and tech. boxing, wrestling, running, swimming, archery, marksmanship, heck, even the javelin throw. these are "games". we laugh during these games. we shake hands. we congratulate. we don't kill. we are not enemies when we engage in games that mimic the "real" use of the tech.
so, there is a bifurcation, which i'm sure you're aware of, between the uses of these technologies, and that bifurcation divides the "game" use from the "tool" use.
the other definition that might be helpful is what i mean by "tool". in my parlance, for the purpose of this discussion, a tool is an implement that serves a "real life" purpose, i.e., the reason the tech was developed in the first place. the marksmanship rifle was not the first rifle to be developed. the archery bow was not the first bow to be developed. the "game" versions came along afterward, to celebrate the tech in a peacefully competitive way.
the gun - just like the bow before it - has two uses as a tool: providing sustenance; and killing your human enemy (and conversely helping to remain alive in case your enemy wants to kill you). the gun, and the bow, are legitimate civilian, non-commercial (excluding police, security, etc.) possessions if, and only if, they are owned and used as either "game" implements or used as "tools" if limited to peaceful endeavors (self-protection and sustenance).
the problem we have today is that there is a conflation in the design and marketing of the "peaceful" tool (or the game version of the tech) and the wartime tool. this guy...
... is not endeavoring to redeem his deer tag. nor is he at a range. nor is he in a peaceful competition. this is the marketing you use if you want to sell a gun to somebody who wants a weapon that will do what the fellow in this picture is doing. this image is creating a picture in the mind of the consumer of the gun you buy if you want to be a sniper, and the thing you have in your sights is another human, and you want that gun to be reliably ready to deliver the payload to that human with maximum carnage. this image is backed up with terms like "tactical", and "tactical" is now a recognized genus of gun in this industry.
this is a sick culture. this is sick marketing. this marketing
works. and it worked last week in florida.
i don't know what i can do, myself, to change the culture. i obviously have my own ideas as to what policies i think would bear the most fruit. i'm very willing to hear what others have to say. i don't have all the wisdom. i only know one thing for certain: if we keep doing what we're doing, we'll keep getting what we're getting. therefore, my only adversary in this is the person who thinks the best thing to do is what we're now doing, or who provides feckless head fakes as arguments (which amounts to us changing basically nothing).
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
