The Assertion that Firearms are designed to kill

A common "talking point" circulating in the "gun control" debate is: "Firearms are designed to kill."

I have shot tens of thousands of rounds from .22 (tiny) shotguns, handguns, semi-and fully automatic rifles through M1 Abrams tank (105mm at the time, now 120mm). Through providential timing, I never had to fire a round at a person intending to kill them.

So was all that time wasted?

No -- shooting is a discipline and inculcates care, precision, attention to detail, habits of safety, and commitment to improvement. It forces the shooter to think, concentrate, adapt, and control the body despite outside stimuli.

There's a quote attributed to Thoreau: ""Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

This describes most hobbies: fishermen and hunters spend far more time walking, studying, observing, preparing, and learning than they do reeling in fish or dragging a trophy.

So it is with firearms -- I've spent 40-50x more time cleaning, dry firing, reading, listening, watching, and learning than on the range. On the range I have to control my breathing, focus on the task at hand, objectively criticize my last shot, and analyze why this shot landed here while that one landed there. When done I pick up spent brass, recover targets, write in a notebook, and make sure the range is ready for the next user.

Few things force humility as quickly as a session on a range. Every shooter -- no matter how accomplished -- leaves thinking "I should have done that thing better. I need to work on that."

This striving to do better is a hallmark of any useful sport or hobby.

Most firearms have as much to do with "killing" as riding a motorcycle has with racing, flying an airplane has to do with strafing and bombing, and operating a lighter has to do with arson.

Advertising and Firearms

Americans are bombarded by advertisements. I can't pump fuel without hearing some chirpy presenter tell me about the tasty vittles mere steps away.
I ignore 98% of them (it's a thing in our house to mute any commercials during the few ad-riddled programs we watch), but some still seep through.

I've written extensively on the use of deadly force. I served in uniform for 21 years (in specialties that trained direct action, not support). Yet I still had to work through whether or not I could use deadly force in a clear defensive situation (my blog is here: http://www.defendersmindset.com/ ).

Bottom line? It's not easy.

Too many firearms ads are glib about self-defense: "Bad guy stalking female model opening car door in the dark"). 

There's more to self-defense than a purchase.

But what other area in American advertising lays out the complex path from "buy" to "master and use"?

None.

Instead, we're lied to, constantly: Diet pills and the right hairdo will transform you into a 20-year-old Olympian. An app will make you a native French speaker. A book will make you an ideal parent. A car will provide status and prestige. A "supplement" will restore your fading cognition. A seminar will teach you "Five ways to Make Awesome [insert thing here]."

That said, it's easy to point to a thing and say, "Aha! Person A used thing x to do bad. Remove thing x!" The tragedy in this is we focus on the thing because we have bought into the ad concept: "Buy thing y, be fit / beautiful / strong / smart / etc."

We've been programmed: "Good thing? Right purchase. Bad thing? Poor purchase."

Meanwhile, these cases are evidence of deeper problems wrought by pharmacopeia, dysfunctional families, easy divorce, serial polygamy, drug and death culture in movies, music, and games, youthful angst, lack of role models, and the cult of celebrity. For every mass killer adolescent boy, there are 100,000 other adolescent boys with equal access to firearms who never commit mass murder.

These problems require objective assessment and careful thought leading to the often uncomfortable shattering of illusions crafted by slick marketing of all types.

Few people will admit that. Fewer will do anything about it.

Sad and Predictable

 "Progressives" and their mouthpieces in education, universities, government, and media have been actively pressing to create a generation of self-loathing, unskilled, poorly nourished, addicted, young men.

They blame them for all society's ills (e.g. "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchy").

They condemn their sexuality ("Men can get pregnant").

They loudly praise deviants, gangsters, criminals, killers, and thugs (See nearly all recent music, movies, and video games).

They imply only celebrities (e.g. "people famous for being well known") are worth noticing.

They depict firearms as all-powerful death machines (see any movie).

They pump them full of a toxic stew of chemicals to make them more like girls in elementary school and less raucous in middle and high school (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007725/).

Confused, pressured, beat-down, and/or uncaring parents adopt the corporate ethic of dropping children off for others to tend to them. These same parents have been conditioned to abandon them. Parents are told restrictions and guidelines and limits are "repressive." So these boys grow up untethered to any purpose, meaning, or good.

The same people demand we "celebrate" alphabet rainbows and provide special opportunities for girls while they ignore, marginalize, loathe, and reject boys and men. 

Then everyone acts shocked when these warped, marginalized, disconnected, drugged creatures act irrationally.

And when they do, the very enablers and cheerleaders for the destruction of boys and men immediately blame the implements, not the ennui machine they created.