Sportgun…aren’t they all for sporting? I use battle guns in competition…haaha
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It’s a gray scale all the way down. 
Edit: Let’s talk about it. What makes a gun for sport and what makes it a weapon?
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The intentions of the user are what determines what the weapon is for. Some are just more suited to one task or another, and highly modifiable things are very enjoyable for some.
Mine is a beautiful WW2 relic and in its battlefield attire with only the trigger having been modded, it shoots so very straight and it shoots almost every ammo in very tight groups. It has been my favorite to shoot for many years.
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Agree. Good point. Intent also mostly describes my position.
Is there a point, when the choice of a gun disproofes the claimed intent? Like a guy showing up at a pistol match with a snubnose revolver or subcompact mousegun? Is he just playing the underdog and the bad odds? Or is it fair to say, that such an uncompetitive choice of equiptment shows, he is not honest in his intent?
Ooooo such a simple question that every government in this entire world can not answer.
I’m gonna make some popcorn.
CZ best guns, best ergonomics out of all the handguns. I have that same exact shadow 2 without the CGW internals. If u have the income the TSO is amazing too
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TSO is a pretty awesome pistol. My favorite pistol is a 2011. Funny coincidence that my first match 2011 I purchased in 2011. Prior to that I just ran a G34 in outlaw 3G matches.
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What determines whether a Screw Driver is a Tool or a Weapon?
It comes down to what you “Do” with it. The “Intent” as described earlier in the post.
I am going to put on my mud boots as Shtuff might get deep here. But lets keep the dialog clean and proffessional.
If we look at the history of the firearm, most if not all were built/designed initially for Governments/Armies. With this said; If the Firearm was taken on the Battlefield, it was a weapon (Intent). This same Firearm after a battle may be used to harvest game to eat (Sporting also Intent).
I think the error of most perspectives around firearms is always looking at the Firearm as the Bad/Evil thing. It is a tool used by a Person, depending on its use… Bad/Evil.
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I am a firearms owner and competitvie sportshooter for the last 15years and was interested in firearms years before that. I now that firearms are tools. I know that intent matters. I know that any object, with which someone was harmed is in legal terms a weapon.
These are the same, lame talking points, that always get brought forward in the gun comunity, especially in the USA, but also here in european countries, when someone asks for justification. A right obviously has to be backed up with a clear and good reason, to why it exists.
In a society, in which one is allowed to own and use an object, that maybe or is, as you stated, ment to harm people or can harm people, if not used correctly (not only firearms), it is warranted that the public askes for a demonstration of the qualities of a person, who wants to own and use such things. That’s logical and just.
My freedom ends, where the freedom of others start.
And of course the legislatures, will always have the same points of contact to manage public safty. If it comes to firearm owners and the use of guns, it will always be: What guns and parts can be leagl, for whom is it leagl to own them and where and when they can be used.
It should be the firearms federations, firearms owners, who should be on the forefront to inact controls and demands for a beter and safer culture around firerams, including laws to control the situation.
Just waiting untill some horrible crap happens and then cry, when a uninforemd legislature, bans some technical stuff, under the pressure to fix, that whole in public safty, will not help anybody.
And that does not only apply to US-firearm owners. Also here in europe, people wait and wait and hold still, so nobody notices, that they own guns.
But then it happens.
Then a Nazi takes some bodged, relic gun and murders people in a Senagoge. Then other Nazis shoot people, because they looked arab. Then someone takes a rifle to fire randomly at police in an urban complex. Take an army issued service rifle to shoot up a regional parliament. Or shooting a woman on a busstop, from the kitchen window. Taking a pistol to murder the whole family.
Then we are back at the same point as the last time something happend and we, the firearm owners, look ashamed to the ground and say AR15s are sportguns. Who do you want to fool?
We should be first. We should already have demonstrated to everyone, that we don’t stand for that crap, that missuse of guns. Demonstrate, that we are very diligant, on who we accept on our ranges and clubs or to whom we sell our guns to. Demonstrate, that we are not only allowed to own guns, because some antique, missunderstood law says so, but becuase we are actually competent.
If we would do our job, we would never have to fear a politician to ban magazines, because they don’t know what to do.
If you are the guy, that wants to whittle on the steps of your community hall, then you should also be the one who takes a broom to clean up the chips. In my eyes, thats just human decency.
So if you calim “intent” as the decisive factor, then you (We) should have at least an idea or a concept to control for that.
I really appreciate this comment. On every level this applies. One of the things that is super frustrating about the current mindset of so many in my country is, they act as if they have the freedom to treat anyone and everyone in any way they please… yet at the same time, no one has the right to do or say anything back to the offender. Not even the police. The level of entitlement that the youth of today display is just infuriating.
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Thank you for a detailed and thoughtful post. I appreciate your experience and views.
In my mind, there is multiple failure points.
Control- Government? Good Ole Boys? Or the Individuals of a Community?
I believe a Armed Society would be a Polite society. Imagine if we Policed ourselves? Verse relying on a Government agency to do so. Interesting concept.
I also think Ignorance plays a huge factor in our situation. The Power Players tell the ignorant what they want them to hear. Using the evil from society to motivate and back their “Truths”.
I also believe Firearm Education should be Public Service. Have our professionals (Police/Military) start educating Firearm Safety in schools (Middle School).
Use these opportunities to defunk Media Biased, Movie inaccuracies. Remove the curiosity and intrigue from the next generation. Give people knowledge to make educated decisions. (Note: I am not talking live fire.)
If we had a way to present truth, in a safe environment, where honest questions could be answered; I think we would see a different outcome.
This is on a separate note. Just want to discuss this quote. I am a gun guy through and out. I’m American, 2A, and work in the firearms industry. I hear that ideology get thrown around a lot. It may sound good but as a quote from a science fiction book it wears thin.
In some parts of the country such as small towns this may work. But when it comes to large metropolitan areas, the lines of self policing, vigilantism, militia, le, all get blurred. Where I am at, LE does not have enough people to bring control to a street take over. There are hundreds of people with cars, fireworks, guns, lasers, cameras, drugs/alcohol in complete chaos. There is a plethora of crimes occurring simultaneously with hundreds of people.
Take a serious thought to what these self policing people would do? A city department of LEO can’t stop this. Helicopters, armored vehicles, mobile command post, all resources are available yet the idea of a bunch of random gun owners that don’t know one another, haven’t trained with one another, don’t know the limitations of everyone’s gear or skills, is going to somehow band together and bring order and justice?
I can imagine what that’d be like. It’d be a complete nightmare. Just in one of these street take overs, and there are multiple occuring simultaneously, there are hundreds of people illegally armed with “switches”. Altered full auto firearms. Cars are on fire, cars doing donuts, drugs, lasers so helicopters can’t fly in, fireworks shooting in the sky and on the ground level and these hundreds of people don’t give AF about what happens to them. Who can stop that? A city department of people that care can’t do it. But somehow the armed neighborhood watch will?
This is a huge issue at hand. People think that the solution is so simple. Ideally yes it can be simple. Logistically it is not possible. That’s why that science fiction quote remains and ideology and hasn’t become reality.
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I 100% agree.
I think we are past the point of my statement. It is a challenge of thought and concept that is interesting to think about.
I would argue though, that if it were a thing in the past, we wouldnt be where we are today.
On the same Hypocritical Note; Not everyone “Should” own guns…
Just because we can, doesnt always mean we should. Which gets us back to the argument of “Gun Control” and who posesses the power to decide…
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100% that just because you could doesn’t mean you should.
I can’t go down that rabbit hole with this one. I’m goning to step aside and observe.
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Thanks @Pun1sh3R and @dooder for engaging and being sencere.
I have some objections to some of your points.
If I did not understand your point correctly, please tell me as much, bellow.
First to clarify my last statement:
The control could be inacted by a “private entity”, like a federation or/and by law (The government). And if your opposition to that is the “powers at play” or some sort of an “elite”, then it is also our job to create that system in a way, that these powers are not at play. And let’s be clear here too: This may not be perfect from the get-go, but anything is an improvement to nothing and it can always be improved later, if a failure point is detected.
We already know what this looks like: The USA.
Children being shot at school. People being shot for ringing a doorbell. People being shot in roadrage. People shooting themselfes in an ND. People shooting others in celebratory “firing in the air”. Armed paramilitarys standing in front of homes of their “enemies”, to intimidate them. Or walking armed in rallies or protests (Shooting people in protests). Police shooting people in traffic stops, when someone reaches down, etc.
We have the experiment and the result is clear: It is not a good solution.
Where I live, it is borderline impossible to carry a firearm in public. And that’s a huge benefit. If a random guy walks down the street with an AK or some other random gun, the police is called immediately and the situation gets resolved. Simply because there is no question about, if he is allowed to do so. And because there is a limit to the self-defense weapons you can carry, altercations have way less severe outcomes.
To the point of military or police as trainers or teachers: I am a veteran of my countries military, I interacted with police around guns. They are incompetent most of the time, when it comes to handling and using firearms. They follow the fairy-tales some uninformed superior once told them and never question that training ever.
And to the proposition:
That sounds horrible to me. It should never be necessary for an uninvolved citizen to learn about firearms in any way. The only thing I need the public to know, is that, if they find a firearm, that they call the police. That’s it. What a sad sign would it be, when you have to teach children about firearms in a school setting, as standard curriculum.
I was a marksmanship trainer for youths in my club for 5 years. So I am not opposed to children being trained in shooting or sportshooting. The difference is, that these kids come voluntarily into the club to learn that stuff and they can also leave, if they are not okay with it. Again, there is a time and a place for that and I would never expect any random person, if child or adult, to know anything about guns.
It is our job as gun owners and enthusiasts to keep control of the situation.
The answer to this is an open and regulated shooting club, where interested individuals can come and ask, try and learn, if they want to.
I come back to: Time and place. If you make an expedition to the Svalbard island, then you are expected to carry a rifle for SD and are expected to operate that gun. Which would bring us back to @Pun1sh3R point of “intent”. On the given example of Svalbard, the intent is clear (Defense against big predatory animals) and is also regulated by an official force: the rangers.
Yes. Just think about the current idea of CCW in a mass-shooting event. You, walking in a crowd of people. All of the sudden shots ring out. People running. Screaming. And in this situation you expect a random person to identify and shoot a perpetrator, in movement, with a pistol at an unknown range?
If I look around in the pistol clubs I visit a few times a year to keep a baseline in my pistol-skills, then I see barely anybody, who can repeatedly hit a still, human sized target, with a consistent group, at 25m. I only train a handful of times with the ordnance pistol per year (!) and am still better than a lot of pistol-shooters, who exclusively train with pistols. And this is in a relaxed, controlled environment.
Probably even most professionals, who carry guns to defend the public, would not be able to hit a moving target reliably.
The easiest way to create a safe society, is to make it a fair society, a society in which nobody is ever truly lost. Nobody wants to be a criminal, a thief, a burglar. People are forced into such a lifes, through happenstance. Humans will do the right thing, if they have the option to do so. This is prooven around the world, in dozens of examples.
Yes. That’s a great question. As I stated in the beginning of this godforsaken long a$$ post, it would be viable to enact some rules inside the community in clubs/federations through licenses (Which would imply, that firearms owner need to be in a club). And that could be backed up by law and official regulation. But simply the fact, that some person, who is about to loose their connection to reality or their mental health, would have to be inside a community would work as a great social warning system, to prevent such a person from acting out a violent crime.
Yes. Which brings us back to the top of this topic. What are the factors, that decide, who should not own a gun or is there even an argument, that there are guns no private person should own?
And I think it is important to talk about regulations, because even in the context of sportshooting, there is always an ambivalence to owning weapons and it would be ignorant as gunowners to not be aware of this or to not be able to articulate that aspect of our life.
Also: Even tho, this discussion is very much important, this was not my intention, when I started this topic. So, I look forward to some more light hearted talk about fun training or competition.
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Thank you for your post. I am going to simmer and think on it for a little bit.
I think this conversation is a great example of people with different experiences and opinions being able to discuss them without it blowing up.
Thank you!
One of the things that I am enjoying is your opinion based on “Your” experience and environement. My opinion is based on my experiences and environment.
As I put my thoughts together I will return to this.
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Thank you for taking the time to think about it. I appreciate it.
@sven do you participate in IPSC or you primarily shooting rifles?
Anyone here shooting USPSA?
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I compete in 300m CISM (national matches with ordonance rifles). That’s my main thing. Besides that I train 10m Airrifle and 25/50m ordonance Pistol. So all precise Targetshooting.
But I was very much intersted in IPSC Open Div. once. But that did not pan out. Loved to watch Jerry Miculek. 
I had my chance running and shooting targets in my military training.
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