arnisador said:
True. But the designer is typically an engineer or craftsman, who is directed or otherwise motivated to design a weapon. It is extraordinarily rare for a Smith and Wesson engineer to intentionally optimize a .45 Magnum for use as a flower pot. The design criterion is, Make it blow big holes in people (and related considerations).
The designer made it blow big holes in to people? Hardly. The only person who blows big holes in to people, is the user. The designer made it so that it could strike the primer on a projectile, which would then do whatever the user intends. It's a tool, pure and simple. 'Weapon' is a description of intent of the user.
arnisador said:
No car is designed to be used as a weapon. (A tank is not a car.) A police car may have a front mount for ramming, but it is principally intended as a vehicle.
Intended by 'whom'? The designer? Irrelavent. If the user uses a car as a weapon, it is a weapon. Laws all over the country recognize this. Using a car AS a weapon, MAKES a car a weapon.
arnisador said:
You write, "I get annoyed when people presume that a firearm is somehow different than any other tool." Yet, I doubt that as a LEO you carry a toaster in your gun holster, under the theory that tools are interchangeable. Perhaps it's useful to consider the definition of
tool:
However, if I use a toaster to bash someones skull in, is it unarmed assault? No, it's assault with a deadly 'weapon'. What made it a weapon? The designer? No, the user.
arnisador said:
Well, I read those and perceive that tools are intended to be used for certain purposes, and that different tools are intended to serve different purposes. A knife is a general-purpose tool. A gun is a
weapon:
What makes a 'knife' a weapon? When the user intends it's use as such. The designer, again, cannot instill intent in to an inanimate object. A 'gun' is a weapon when it's user intends it's use as such. If a 'gun' fires projectiles in to a target, is it then being used as a weapon? Only assuming you can kill a target. It is the intent of the user, not the intent of the tool, or the intent of the designer, that makes something a 'weapon'
arnisador said:
Is a weapon a tool? Yes, but a very specialized one, used to harm or kill members of the animal kingdom.
What decides if an object is to harm a member of the animal kingdom, is the user. An arrow is a pointy stick, until you intend it to fire in to something. It is when and ONLY when the user makes the intent to use an object as a weapon, does it become one. A baseball bat is a baseball bat. When it's used to play baseball, it's sporting equipment, when it's used to bash someone's head in, it's a weapon. What decides? The user.
arnisador said:
It's true that the decision to use a weapon is made by the user. But to deny that a gun is intended to kill animals rather than to hold cut flowers is to deny the existence of the profession of engineering, and to make the fact that most LEOs carry guns rather than flower pots a curious coincidence. In other words, it's nonsense.
What's nonsense is to instill motives in to inanimate objects. I've already pointed out that it's anthropomorphism. A firearm used to shoot targets is not being used as a weapon. A firearm used to shoot at a person is. A car being driven down the road is not being used as a weapon, a car being used to run down a pedestrian is.
The term 'weapon' again is a word built around intent. Moreover, it's all irrelavent to the assertion that one should inherently use more caution while using a 'weapon' than while using a 'tool', based SOLELY on the intent of the designer. It's absurd. "Because a car wasn't designed to be a weapon, I don't have to be as cautious with it as I would be if I were driving a 'shotgun' down the road" The very notion is absurd.