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Due to a discussion that cropped up in PowWow the other day I felt I just had to say something about firearms. First of all I'd like to give some background so you won't think I'm basing things I say on just word-of-mouth information.

GUNS

In the early summer of 1996 I enlisted in the Army as a radiotelegrapher. Since the country I live in relies to a great extent on conscription for it's national defence, this was really not something that was voluntary, albeit illusioned as I was it was something I looked forward to. During the next ten months I was given basic training, advanced training and the whole deal was finished up during the winter of -96 and spring of -97 with maneuvers. During my time in the Army I was of course trained in the use of firearms. During my service I encountered several different weapons, most of them automatic carbines (e.g. M16, AK47, H&K G3).

Have you ever fired a fully automatic weapon? The first time I fired the standard carbine that was to be my personal weapon throughout my service, I experienced something unique. Never before, or since, have I ever understood as well as I did that day what a firearm really is. What it's intent is and the power that lies within it. Upon corroborating with the others in my platoon, besides an adrenaline kick, one of two reactions were experienced. Either it scared you like the bogey-man never could, or it gave a rush. One of my brothers in arms almost left the firing field then and there to become a pacifist. Others wanted to squeeze the trigger again and again. I know what I felt.

The sole purpose of any firearm, except a hunting rifle (or similar that has a specific use such as flare gun or tranquilizer gun), is to violate a physical body creating shock to the organic systems. A wound inflicted this way is fairly often lethal. An automatic carbine that spits out 10+ bullets a second (Say Mississippi slowly, for every letter in Mississippi imagine you're hit with a semi-lethal or lethal bullet. I think you'll get the picture.) is not made for shooting deer or hunting quail. With a muzzle velocity some where between 500m/s and 1000m/s (1m = 1.1 yards, roughly) it will outrun everything except Superman and similar high velocity individuals. The carbine I had during my service will make a 100 liter (1liter = 2 pounds, roughly) barrel of water fall over at 220 yards, whether the bullet exits or not I'm not sure of. A high velocity carbine (which has lower caliber but higher muzzle velocity) will make the barrel jump up to 3ft strait up in the air, the bullet will exit and continue a fair distance further. Imagine what it would do to the human body. It's not a pretty picture. To add to the bizarre, a round that has a uranium point (armor piercing) will pass through a half inch of solid steel, the uranium showing no visible signs of deformation.

That is the essence of a gun. An object with the sole purpose of creating massive injury to an organism. The reason the discussion in PowWow started is because of the recent killings in Arkansas, where an 11 year old boy killed two girls and a teacher with a firearm (a hunting rifle if I'm not mistaken). The immediate reactions were of course "how could this happen?". In a country where the gun laws are fairly liberal, in a state that has one of the most liberal gun laws in the country, I question whether one really can pose such a question.

In chemistry I was taught that a fire could not exist without three elements. Fuel, air and temperature. If you take away one of these, the fire will go out. Therefore fire-extinguishers and other assorted fire-fighting equipment are based on the bereavement on one or several of these. You can choke it to death, cool it to death, or take away whatever is burning. Simple. The classic murder case also requires three parts. Oppurtunity, motive and means. Oppurtunity you cannot do away with if it's a first-time killer. Motive may also be hard to do away with, it depends in part on uppbringing and psychology that can be hard to analyse. Means however are an entirely different matter. By taking means such as firearms away, a would be killer would have to resort to other methods that most probably will bring him/her closer to her victim and confronted with the victim, choking sounds, pleas for help etc. a killer may abort his earlier so magnificent plans due to tarnished conscience. If he however is sitting on a rooftop with a rifle, I doubt he'll hear or see much more than the cross-hairs of his rifle. In other words, it's not hard to pull a trigger.

I am against the use of firearms in any form save for special needs such as food on the table (hunting) or research (tranquilizers) etc. I think you should reconsider too.