I hate guns. They are engineered from the ground up to take lives of other people. That is their sole purpose. To kill

I'm being pedantic, but many are designed to take the lives of animals rather than people. Absurdly heavy precision .22 cal target rifles are clearly only for sport.

A few are designed to launch flares high into the air for communication. A very small number are designed to trigger avalanches under controlled conditions.

I have worked in Accident & Emergency in England and in an ER in America. Guns are a curse.

You all need to see the deserted dead body of a 15 year old laying on the table after an unsuccessful resuscitation attempt. A baby who has been shot through, or the crowds of relatives helplessly sobbing in the streets outside the emergency room.

Every gun owner thinks they are a responsible gun owner until they arent. Its simply not possible to be 100% safe 100% of the time. That's not a thing that humans do.

And no. There are nowhere near as many knife deaths in England.

I never saw a fatal stabbing in the UK, but I've seen many in America. The numbers are insignificant when compared to gun accidents and murders.

All "tools" that kill this many people should absolutely be regulated.

Americans never shut up about freedom, but don't pay attention to the freedom taken away simply by the threat that anyone around you could be carrying a gun. You're all just used to it being your way. It's so nice not to have to consider the possibility. The american way is like spending your lives with the sword of Damocles dangling over your heads. That's your freedom.

I agree with you. You hate them, that's reasonable. They represent humanity's failure at cooperation.

You're also totally justified to hate those who fetishize them.

You are wrong about them being designed only to kill, though. The point of them is to wield deadly force, and they are designed to send a high-speed projectile in order to achieve that goal, of deadly force. It's alittle semantic, but an important distinction imo, because the point of wielding deadly force is to make opponents compliant even if you never use it.

Swords, spears, bows, atlatls, and pretty much every weapon of war was the exact same way. A key difference between them and the firearm, though, is that the firearm takes little to no training in comparison to the others, which take considerable amounts more.

Everything else, we're in agreement about. I think you hold a hate for violence as well, based on your stance. That is also healthy, but I hope you also see violence for the liberating force that it is, able to protect those that are targeted.

We are on the brink of having the US become a full-blown fascist state - as opposed to the fascistic nation it's always been. Should that happen, I fear the only way back is through violence, and I'd much prefer having a rifle in hand to the alternative of charging down gunfire armed with a lesser weapon, as the Egyptians had to during their revolution in 2011.

Love it. You can never post anything bad about guns on Reddit's unpopular opinion section. And I agree, it's to murder other humans. The 2nd amendment's present interpretation is an amazing example why I have such low respect for constitutional lawyers: The well-regulated militia part is in the same sentence to specifically set the context in which the right to bear arms is protected and people getting away without taking the militia part into consideration is total bullshit.

Also, the 2nd amendment does not absolve irresponsible gun owners for the consequences of their gun ownership. Since Americans lose 350K guns annually (!!!!!!!) and provide most of the Mexican cartels' firearms, there's a lot of bad gun ownership that people should be punished for. Generally speaking, you'll be the last to know about the gun ownership of people who actually store them responsibly.

There are too many responses here to reply to all of them individually so I'm just going to post some quotes here, more in response to other comments than the OP, but perhaps also a perspective to consider for OP as well.

"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

• George Orwell

And the shockingly only increasingly relevant full quote from one of the founders of the Black Panthers party:

"Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves."

• Huey Newton

I'd really ask more people to consider their position of privilege, to be less afraid of state sanctioned or enabled violence of all forms than some crazy neighbor with guns who was likely failed many times by that very state to have come to this point. Please just consider the counterpoint, that armed minorities are harder to oppress, and that far, far more people have been killed by state sanctioned and enabled violence, than by access to firearms by "the common people".

I'm not telling anyone that they're wrong, I'm just asking that you really internalize and consider this perspective. Thank you for reading and thinking.

They're also used to kill animals, look up some nature docs where they snipe animals

I agree with op. Guns are used to intimidate, and for entertainment. Men and their fascination with power by holding a gun is toxic and a failure of society.

Gotta resist fascism somehow

This seems like a very urban viewpoint. There are still places in the world and in the US in particular where a firearm is tool for safety that has nothing to do with other humans.

I'm about as left as they come but weirdly enough I'm also a hunter, and I have to disagree, the guns I own are tools designed for specific purposes that aren't killing humans. Hunting turkey, hunting deer, hunting duck, I even have a muzzleloader for that season, and a gun for back packing and hunting out of a saddle in a tree.

Hunting IMO is way more sustainable and ethical than buying store bought meat and it connects me with nature and let's me first hand observe, appreciate, value, and want to protect ecology of my area.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you live in the US - well, I sure hope you do.

In the US I believe that guns are like pick-up trucks: far more people own them to plug gaps in their personality than the number of people who own them because they need their utility.

My personal view - and a generally held one - is that guns are a tool and to fetishise a tool is… weird; and suggests to me a troubled mind.

Guns are made to make a tiny piece of metal go very fast. You don't have to use them to kill or think about using them to kill. You can, for example, use them as a remote light switch or their most popular use: remote hole punch. Healthy society shouldn't have to ban guns since they would be used for completrly non violent things, same a swords and bows.

I mean you could shoot at the sun to combat global warming even.

It was interesting reading your thoughts and all the different opinions in the comments. I enjoy firearms, and regularly go target shooting. I forget sometimes people don’t spend their time understanding firearms.

Yes, you are correct, the purpose of a firearm is to kill. That’s why they’re referred to as lethal weapons, where the word lethal can be defined as deadly.

It’s great you came to this conclusion on your own and it’s a great opportunity to explain some other aspects of firearms being lethal that folks often miss.

Since firearms are lethal weapons they’re not appropriate to use when less than lethal force is desired. This is why for example police “don’t just shoot criminals in the leg.” Because if they’re successful the person can still bleed out and if they miss they could accidentally apply lethal force to a bystander or the person they’re not trying to kill.

Another thing to understand is police should only have their weapon drawn if they fear for their lives or others. If the officer is following protocol, you shouldn’t see a firearm until the officer thinks lethal force is merited. Which is to say, if a cop pulls a gun, take it seriously.

I have a permit to conceal carry where I live. The laws understand firearms are deadly, and legally I can’t use or even draw my firearm unless I think my life is threatened or that I might suffer great bodily harm, think knife attacks or broken bones.

To add to that, because firearms are lethal, if someone flashes a gun in a threatening manner such as lifting up their shift to show the firearm in a holster during a heated argument, I could reasonably assume my life was in danger and legally respond with lethal force.

These are just some examples, but yes, guns are 100% designed to take life. You should always think of a firearm as a lethal weapon especially in situations where they’re pointed towards you.

it is a tool made for specifically one thing. To pierce the skin and rip through the inner organs of a person.

This isn’t true. I live in a country with sensible gun control laws and live on a rural property with 10 acres of forest. We have a small rifle to protect the wildlife against rabies or to put down an injured animal.

The US conversation around guns is toxic.

I don't like guns my self, but I don't have a problem with people who own them responsibly in a locked safe unloaded. I understand for some people a gun is needed, Hunters for one, while bow hunting is a thing a gun is just easier to use.

I am very leftist and somewhat split.

Modern guns are an engineering marvel and I can understand if someone is fascinated in the precision and engineering knowledge needed to construct them - the same way some people are fascinated by mechanical watches, steam engines, etc.

They are also a necessary tool for some jobs - I can worked alongside these and in theory am trained to handle one(but haven't had a gun in my hand for 15 years if you don't count two instances I had to take it from a patient before law enforcement arrived). So I am very happy that the people who need to have it have modern,safe, versatile and easy to handle guns at their disposal. And I want these people to have the best training,the best equipment and the best recruitment and background check possible.

This brings me to another point: I am sternly against people using "shooting" (large calibers) as a hobby and the whole gun culture around it - we see in the US this can easily become a purpose on it's own and the detrimental effects it has on everything, from mental health care,policing, emergency medicine to the political culture, even influencing their neighbours negatively.

Go for small calibers all you want, no problems with that. But there is no reason an average private citizen needs a 9mm or a AR15 (even with manual fire)as a hobby or for self defence here. (There might be some very rare cases when people are under so much threat for their life that it is different - but these are really rare and tbh should require the same amount of training a professional carrier needs)

Hunting is a bit different, but even there I see problematic behaviour within recreational hunting. I am not at all against hunting per se, it's absolutely an requirement in most industrial nations to keep the ecological balance in the few remaining ecosystems and is the most ethical source of meat available.

But again in some nations a subculture around it has formed that is not healthy,not required to maintain biodiversity and ecological balance, etc. My shire owns large wooden areas and has decided to switch to (semi-) professional hunters quite a while ago, they are payed to hunt according to a ecological plan, do not get less or more money if they are successful, the shire sells the meat to the inhabitants for relatively cheap prices. This model has been proven (scientifically) to be successful as it allows very targeted hunting, e.g. to keep animal tracks away from certain roads, to intentionally allow the reintroduction of larger predators,etc.

If I can get excited for a cordless Bosch track saw, I can get excited for a nice gun. Guns have served two purposes in my life - target shooting with friends and the meat I get from hunting. I don't need to take on someone elses trauma and stop enjoying something to respect what they are.

I’ve held this position for a long time. Guns are designed to kill. They are they threat of death even if the trigger isn’t pulled. They are there to force compliance with the bearer, for good or for ill. Even as a “tool” to put food on the table, they kill the thing that is to be food.

That said, I don’t have too much problem with guns. I have major problems with those who own them, make them, or turn them into part of identity politics.

They are exploited for profit and control, and the mulish obstinacy of gun owners in general is in part their enslavement to identity politics and those that profit from it - the politicians looking for election and money in the pockets of the manufacturers and supporting lobbies. Guns have become fashion accessories for the owners, and are often treated with similar gravity. Gun owners feed guns to criminals because of lax storage security on the owner’s part - just leave them in the car or closet unsecured - and they get stolen, used in crimes, for which they gun nuts “need” to buy more guns to leave laying about for instant access and which can be stolen. Nearly 80% of guns used in crimes are taken without permission or stolen from owners.

And the worst part are the killing sprees, workplace or schools, where gun owners just distance themselves so that the rest of society can be the victims of their refusal to regulate their hobby.

Guns can be safely kept in a society. There are plenty of countries that manage it. In this context I’m going to use this line: “Guns don’t kill people, people do”….and the people doing the killing are the owners that refuse to deal with regulating and securing guns.

They are engineered from the ground up to take lives of other people.

I have no love for guns, but hunting for food is the reason humans created weapons in the first place. To your point, I’m pretty sure slaughterhouses aren’t using fully automatic rifles on the killing floor.

I’ve always looked at them from a utility/engineering/sport perspective. I have no intent of ever carrying a weapon, but the training it takes to learn how to target practice, and the engineering that goes into them are incredibly fascinating.

I don’t encourage people to own guns and I don’t have any myself, but I really wish target practice didn’t have to share a platform with a killing machine.

It's a very American viewpoint. Many countries in Europe have high gun ownership and manage to do so without murdering eachother.

It's fun to reach out and touch something from 50 yards.

No rule that says toys have to be safe.

I think there are a few toys with weapon origins. Like yoyos and slingshots. Guns don't have to be any different.

I would have considered this the popular opinion, but it seems I'm the odd one out. The comments here defending it are hard to read.

Like, Farmers and Hunters: You know you are like 8% of the population at most, right? Killing animals should have maybe been mentioned as an alternative use for guns, sure, but come on: most gun nuts, as most people in general, are city folk. They buy a gun to shoot or threaten to shoot people exclusively.

That's not an unpopular opinion IMO.

God made man. Samuel Colt made him equal.

Any tool used incorrectly is a significant danger.

I already found the ideas and the people who hold those ideas that you're referencing are a minority who are scared fanatic and unreasonable and those are the type of people that should not have guns or tools of any capacity.

However, someone like you who wants one for protection and the ability to protect those around you regardless of circumstance are why it's important to protect gun rights in my opinion.

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion, although I'd detach the violence from people.

Guns are weapons specifically designed as tools of violence. Some are for designed with animal hunting in mind, some for hurting people, and some for target sports, which are ultimately derived from the other two.

Like any tool, how people intend to use it matters, as well as how they expect to use it and how they prepare to use it.
I will easily judge people based on those factors.
Separating the tool from the use also lets us be a little more objective in our discussions about how we want to regulate the tool. "This type of weapon poses an undue risk to surrounding people in this context, so you can't have it in this context".

I think just about every gun owner I've met agrees with the sentiment if you get rid of the "against people" part.

I hate people who treat them like some toys and fantasize about them.

Agreed.

I would still get one for safety ...

Firearms decrease your safety in any but the most dire situation. Unfortunately, those situations are nigh impossible to predict. This means that carrying a firearm incurs some additional risk right now as insurance against a future potential very large risk.

They can be used to preserve something precious but at a price to pay.

Also agreed.

You might be suffering under a variation on the toupee fallacy, and some confirmation bias. You're not going to hear a whole lot from responsible gun owners, because those people have an understanding of the risk and responsibility they are taking on, and part of taking that responsibility and mitigating that risk is not crowing like a knob about your guns.