[footfootfoot]

Why do discussions of firearms quickly devolve into fantasies about weapons and protecting my turf?

What about competitive and recreational target shooting? What about hunting?

When I took the hunter's safety course, the instructor was very clear that we were not talking about "weapons" but about "firearms."

There is a huge difference between the two, it's a matter of intent and of how you think of them.

A Japanese friend told me that in Japan, if someone had been drinking the thought of getting behind the wheel of a car wouldn't even cross their mind. I suppose the same could be true for firearms, if you considered them for hunting or target shooting only.

A heavy brass table lamp could be used as a weapon, so can a sock full of pennies.

I think a big part of the bad PR that firearms get is due to verbalized fantasies about people protecting their turf from imaginary intruders. I've never met a combat vet who liked to blab about the action they saw. I've met a lot of vets who never saw action who love to talk about blowing up the enemy.

I'm too sleep deprived and distracted now to pull all this together into a coherent argument, but I guess I'm saying some of us like firearms for wholesome enjoyment and resent being marginalized and made to sit on the Group W bench with all the mother rapers and father stabbers and father rapers.