Why are guns made to kill?

[E.J.Armstrong]

You keep saying that I am making claims about efficiency. I have not done this at all. You are making the claims and demanding that I prove or disprove them. Can you show me where I made a any claim about the efficiency of nukes vs guns? You say your claims of efficiency are self evident. You sound like a truther on the LC forum when you say this. No way I am going to do any calculations or research for you; do it yourself.

Ranb

I have already done some calculations for you and am happy to remind you of your claim.

"There is more than one way to calculate efficiency."

I simply asked you to provide three examples of those ways.

 

[Rolfe]

In the UK we have seen a number of so-called 'legitimate' gun owners going nuts and mass murdering children.

Point of information. Have we seen more than one? In my memory, there is only one, Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane. The only other similar case was Michael Ryan in Hungerford, but so far as I know he shot at random on the street and most if not all of his victims were adults.

Is there a case I've omitted?

What I found sickening after Dunblane was the glee shown by some US commentators. Clearly, since this had happened, nobody could continue to claim that strict gun controls prevent such incidents. Isn't that just great!

This is in fact a powerful argument in favour of gun control. Where access to guns is so much more restricted, the number of incidents is much fewer. We've had nothing since Dunblane in 1996. We have never, ever had an indicent of a disaffected youth taking a gun to an educational establishment and shooting up people.

Why not? Not because we lack disaffected youth, I'm sure. But disaffected youth lack access to guns.

There was a specious argument a few pages back that there was no point in restricting guns because the nutters would just use something else. Like knives. I pointed out that we don't have disaffected nutters massacreing at random with knives or bombs or anything else. These people must know it can be done (using bombs) because it has been done by terrorists and the methods have been quite well publicised. But it doesn't happen.

We've had two actual attempts at massacre by sword/machete. Total fatalities in both incidents was a big round zero. So much for these methods being as effective as guns.

Listening to the scary rhetoric around here, I can't help but agree the problem is not the guns it's the people. The very people who shouldn't have them (Americans with their primitive macho attitudes) are the ones clinging on to them. OK so far. But the presence of the guns reinforces the attitude. You'll never change the attitude while the guns are still available to be the objects of worship I'm afraid.

Rolfe.

 

[Ranb]

I have already done some calculations for you and am happy to remind you of your claim.

"There is more than one way to calculate efficiency."

I simply asked you to provide three examples of those ways.

I do not care to provide any information to you to support your claims. You think your claims are self evident, anything I say will be meaningless to you.

You really do not believe that there is more than one way to calculate efficiency? Given almost any two data points, efficiency can be calculated. The numbers game can be very big, isn't this self evident? Or are only your claims self evident? If you make a claim of efficiency, why do you care what I think about it?

Ranb

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Fallacy of the question




"What are guns made for?"

To kill.... and other stuff

"Why are guns made to kill?"

Guns are made to kill!

 

[Autolite]

The major problem with that view is how do you determine when to use deadly force? Is it when a youth spits at you or when she smashes your windows?

If it was evident that someone was in the process of stealing firearms, I feel that the employment of the threat of deadly force, or deadly force if necessary would be morally justifiable, albeit illegal in Canada...

 

[Autolite]

The following is a very serious question. How can anyone guarantee that you or people like won't ever do the same?

Of course there are no, nor have there even been, any "guarantee". People have murdered with guns, knives, cars, golf clubs, baseball bats or even bare hands. The type of "guarantee" that you are looking for would require laws making it illegal for anyone to get out bed in the morning...

 

[Autolite]

Sorry but I am not whining about anything. If you wish to characterise my refusal to allow people from being indiscriminately executed on the whim of gun toters as whining so be it.

Where ever the law permits the use of deadly force, there are also laws that are designed to prevent "people from being indiscriminately executed on the whim of gun toters". I wasn't aware that you were unaware of this...

 

[Autolite]

What circumstances are those?

As an example, at least here in Canada and the States, the armed forces are authorised to employ the threat of deadly force, or deadly force if necessary, for the protection of military assets (property). Actually, I have seen warning signs posted on airfields advertising that "DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED" for the protection of aircraft. Do they not do this in the U.K. or is such policy considered "murderous"???

 

[Mobyseven]

I stated that as self evident. Among other things you stated that a gun is '... moderately more efficient...' If that was true then armies would tend to be use guns moderately more than knives.

Non sequiter.

If a gun is moderately more efficient than a knife, it is still more efficient than a knife. Therefore, it would make sense for armies to use guns considerably more often than knives.

Because, you know - they're more efficient.

 

[gumboot]

I stated that as self evident. Among other things you stated that a gun is '... moderately more efficient...' If that was true then armies would tend to be use guns moderately more than knives.

Efficiency can only ever be measured in relation to a specific aim. In the model I gave the aim was to walk into a room and kill a whole bunch of unarmed civilians. This is typically not an aim for the military.

Are you now trying to claim that all knife victims remain close to their attacker so he/she can get a good stab or that an automatic weapon cannot spray an area densely packed with students?

I am claiming neither.

You have also failed to establish the relative kill rate per blow or bullet.

I think you'd be surprised at how few gunshots or stabbings are actually fatal. I had a book on the Vietnam War that had total percentages of wounded versus killed for various parts of the human body. Even regarding head wounds it was only about 60% fatal vs 40% wounded, and this was the second highest percentage (the highest was upper leg which was around the 70% mark).

And as I have pointed out that assumption renders it unusable in any serious dicussion about the efficiency of guns versus knives for the reasons I have already tabulated.

In case you failed to follow the discussion, it was about the relative efficiency of a gun versus a nuclear weapon.

If that was true then the USA would not have used them repeatedly in Japan if they could have done the job more efficiently with guns? Perhaps the USA acting irrationally? I believe that one of the major justifications for their use was that huge additional numbers would be killed if the US used guns instead.

Your argument is a strawman because the objective of the US in Japan was not to kill a bunch of Japanese but to force the Japanese to surrender. If you want to argue that a nuclear weapon is a more efficient way of forcing a nation to surrender than a gun, you will get absolutely no argument from me.

 

[gumboot]

It may be the worst one you have heard but only you can vouch for the analogies you have heard and you may never have heard of any other good ones.

It also happens to be one to which I have yet to get an answer.

It doesn't deserve an answer. We were discussing comparative efficiency in killing human beings, not in defeating a nation in a war and forcing their surrender.

If you cannot see how these vastly different aims might result in different techniques being more efficient, I cannot help you.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

Why are knives made to kill?

 

[Mobyseven]

Why are knives made to kill?

Because they (mostly) have sharp edges and are therefore more effective than a banana?

 

[Drudgewire]

Why are knives made to kill?

Because some places are wimpy and don't allow guns so you gotta kill with something. vv

 

[uruk]

Still not provide any evidence to support your claims about efficency yet I note.

If you are unable to accept that a nuclear weapon will kill more people in a shorter time than a gun when both are used in any group of people at the same time then I am sorry but there is absolutely nothing on this earth or fuller's that can help you.

Let me see, the Hiroshima bomb is claimed to have killed 135,000 people from http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml assuming a period of some ten seconds for the heat and air blasts to damage the area involved (estimate from www.wtj.com/archives/hiroshima.htm) that represents approximately 13,500 people per second.

Which gun meets that rate of murder?

I've asked you before and ask you again. If the gun was more efficient than an atomic weapon why did the USA use multiple atomic weapons on the Japanese civilian population rather than invade Japan armed with guns?

I don't think the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a question of efficiency but rather a question of effectiveness in both numbers killed and fear instilled.

 

[uruk]

Why are knives made to kill?

You know It doesn't really matter what the object is, anything can be used to kill if applied properly. I could kill you with a hamster if I managed to cram it down your throat.

Guns were designed to kill because we needed something slightly more effective than hamsters to kill the other guy in a war.

Stones and swords were great in thier time but you gotta get with the times. Sending a lead projectile at sufficient velocities is far more effective than a sword. If you don't believe me watch the sword fight in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Technology gives you all sorts of neat and clean and not so neat and clean methods to dispatch your undesirables.

Rule of thumb is "the farther away from you that can kill a guy, the safer it is for you". That's why intercontinental ballistic missles are all the rage for all fashionable nation these days.

Why is question even being asked?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Why are knives made to kill?

Because butchering the goat while it is alive is inhumane.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't think the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a question of efficiency but rather a question of effectiveness in both numbers killed and fear instilled.

Yes in numbers killed is seems unlikely, as the vast ammount of resources required, vs similar death totals(well larger) in the firebombing of Tokyo.

 

[uruk]

Yes in numbers killed is seems unlikely, as the vast ammount of resources required, vs similar death totals(well larger) in the firebombing of Tokyo.

Well it all depends on how you look at it. How many planes and bombs did it take to do the fire bombing? It just took one plane (three if you count the observation planes) and acouple of pounds of fissionable material to destroy Hrioshima.
It took tens if not hundreds of planes and tons of bombs droped over a period of several minutes, not to mention that the energy was spread out over a larger area.
The atomic bomb's energy was released in a very short amount of time and in a much smaller area. You also had hills amd mountains which shielded certain areas from the inital radiation and resulting shockwave.

In terms of the research, labor and money to produce the bomb within the three years it took to develop the bomb; may be not so much.

But realise the the costs and labor of developing and building the bombers and the bombs was spread out over several decades. So you might have to take that into consideration.

Efficiencey depends on what all you are looking at.

I thought the atomic bomb was very effective as far as instilling fear. Just ask all the people who were around during the 50's and 60's

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well it all depends on how you look at it. How many planes and bombs did it take to do the fire bombing? It just took one plane (three if you count the observation planes) and acouple of pounds of fissionable material to destroy Hrioshima.

BUt look at the massive ammounts of electrical power, and massive infarstructure it took to make that couple of pounds of fissionable material.

That equals many planes in terms of resources.

It took tens if not hundreds of planes and tons of bombs droped over a period of several minutes, not to mention that the energy was spread out over a larger area.

Oh it took far longer than that, the goal was to turn the city into a firestorm after all and so many people where killed not by energy from the bombs but their own homes burning, or in other cases their clothes spontaniously combusting from the hot air of the fire storm.

The atomic bomb's energy was released in a very short amount of time and in a much smaller area. You also had hills amd mountains which shielded certain areas from the inital radiation and resulting shockwave.

In terms of the research, labor and money to produce the bomb within the three years it took to develop the bomb; may be not so much.

But realise the the costs and labor of developing and building the bombers and the bombs was spread out over several decades. So you might have to take that into consideration.

I don't see that this is relevent as one the atomic bomb required those bombers so for the R&D of the bombers it is a total wash between them.

Efficiencey depends on what all you are looking at.

I thought the atomic bomb was very effective as far as instilling fear. Just ask all the people who were around during the 50's and 60's

Oh they where, but the destruction was not really unprecidented especialy in terms of lives lost.