[CLUE-Talk] Bowling for Columbine

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 12-02 20:02, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> * bof (bof at pcisys.net) wrote:
> > Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> > 
> > >What is it?  An armament serves no purpose other than inflicting
> > >damage/death on other living beings.  That puts guns into a different
> > >class than most other human tools, to my mind.  
> > >
> > 
> > Sorry, but guns are designed to fire bullets. What the bullet does is up 
>  
> This is total, utter nonsense.  If you can look me in the eye and
> say that guns serve no other purpose than to fire bullets, I would be
> saddened.  That is just such red-herring debate tactic.  A
> gun is designed to fire bullets.  Why?  To hit a target.  Why hit a
> target?  You are either practicing for the act of, or actually partaking in,
> causing a significant bit of physical violence on the target.
> 
> Guns were not developed, and are not used, as some academic exercise in
> moving matter at a high rate of speed.  They are designed to kill
> animals, or kill people.  Period.  Even target practice is a symbolic
> form of this.  If you take the position that guns are just built to
> 'fire bullets', then I disagree with you fundamentally, and I think the
> position seems dishonest.

Hmmm. You are right, they were not, but I would think that the original
intent of an invention doesn't *necessarily* have to determine its destiny. 

Let's take gunpowder itself: originally used for military purposes, it's
also used in fireworks, and many celebrations wouldn't be the same without
fireworks.

Okay, that's not necessarily moving humanity forward. Let's look at rocket 
technology.

It was developed for the express purpose of delivering large payloads of
explosives to cities and other military targets. But, without rocket
technology, there would be no space program(s). There would be no artificial
satellites.

Computers. Splitting the atom. They all had military purposes at the outset,
and now they benefit humanity in some capacity.

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable.