How flawed your thinking is!!!
MY rifles are designed for hunting animals for me to eat game meat or destruction of feral pests (animals) therefore for not for killing people, was not designed for that purpose....
I do not own weapons to defend or use against people....
Should I still be banned from ownership of guns....
Assault riffles are not for use on animals.
Hand guns are not for animal control.
The last I heard Pests don't wear bullet proof vests, yet armour piercing rounds are perfectly legal to buy.
A sniper riffle is not for hunting.
a fully automatic weapon has no place in hunting. (kinda takes the sport out of it)
A gun is a tool, as pointed out earlier in the thread, much like a hammer it can be used correctly, (for example shooting game bird with a shotgun, or hammering a nail with a hammer), it may also be used incorrectly, (for example shooting a person with a shot gun, or bludgeoning a skull with a hammer). likewise a kitchen knife is designed for slicing flesh, we just hope that the flesh being sliced is animal and not human. the fact that some people use a tool incorrectly does not mean that the given tool should be banned.
Whilst there are no actual controls on the sale of hammers, I think that the hardware store cashier would likely be found criminally negligent if they sold a hammer to a guy covered in blood telling them he lost his last hammer inside a man skull.
However,
The fact remains that there are a lot of guns whose entire point is human killing.
A handgun for example has no place in pest control, and very little place in hunting. it is designed for people killing.
If you feel that a gun is for protection. (i.e I can brandish a weapon and scare someone away) then you should consider buying a plastic toy that just looks like a gun.
If you draw a weapon for self defence, then you are drawing a weapon in a you or me situation, where you want to survive, and I may have to die because of that.
-i.e you're not pulling a weapon to "scare" someone, you're pulling a weapon with the intent to kill someone.
I don't think that anybody advocates the complete banning of all firearms and taking away those used for sport.
What is being advocated is the removal of tools specifically designed to end human life. and tight control of tools used to end animal life.
You can argue that a high power riffle is a hunting tool and I'll agree.
It's completely reasonable for a person living in "hunting country" to own one.
But I wonder a guy living in the centre of Manhattan actually ever goes hunting, does said person have a legitimate reason to own that gun? and should they be able to own that gun?
My opinion is:
I recognise that a high power riffle is a legitimate hunting tool.
should it be banned -No.
should legitimate ownership be tightly controlled - Yes.
by tightly controlled what I mean is with background checks for Crime Records, any relevant medical history checks etc.
controlling the environment that guns are stored in means that you should need to keep them locked away.
the age where kids are pulling guns from under mommys bed and killing other kids should be long gone by now.
Even without gun control it's pretty simple.
If you want to own a gun, educate your kids about guns, how to use them and when not to use them.
keep the guns locked away so that the kids can't get them.
and to be honest, those people that aren't responsible enough to teach their kids or lock their guns away, are exactly the kinds of people I'm saying should not be allowed to own a gun.