weapons

[ronboy]

Many times I have read of our guns being called or classed, weapons. My guns are definately not weapons, I shoot bits of paper. It's my understanding that a weapon is any item that is used to inflict injury or death, to another. I have knives, screwdrivers, chisels saws and drills. In my kitchen there are three draws with knives and utensils. They are all capable of being a weapon but are not classed as such. I therefor find it objectionable when my guns are called weapons. I have also read and heard of airguns being refered to as, firearms. This is also incorrect, where is the fire.? Is a peashooter or a blow pipe a firearm, no. Someone will call a crossbow or a bow and arrows a firearm soon.


Nobody wants to die but everybody wants to go to heaven

[Steve]

As what my dad used to say-a weapon is something you intend to use on another man.

Even when im RCO'ing at the range i refer to them as firearms.

[targetman]

I once had a visit from a very snotty copper (one of the then new Home Beat officers) who told me he had come to inspect my "weapons".....I told him that I had no "weapons"...he said "yes you have, you have a Firearms Certificate".....I pointed out that if firearms were weapons it would be called a Weapons Certificate....he was not amused...he said "I hate guns and I hate the people who own them"....so I refused him entry to my home.

About 6 weeks later I met the same snotty copper in a rather different context, I was walking past his house (I was an Insurance Agent then) and two of his Alsatian dogs came bounding out of the front door, one charged through the hedge and jumped up and bit my wrist. I am not afraid of dogs and never have been, I shouted at the dog to "back off and sit", which it did. The snotty copper then appeared, somewhat red faced and full of apologies, I then said "I hate people like you who can't keep their dogs under control, it is just like keeping a weapon, perhaps you ought to have a Dog Certificate and have to prove that you can keep them safely and not be a danger to the public".......he was about to go off on one when he recognised me......he became very sheepish then and asked that I did not report this incident as he had already got into trouble for not controlling his dogs.
I did not report him but found out some time later that one of his dogs savaged a local child and the dog had to be put down and he was banned from keeping dogs.

[lapua338]

It annoys me when non-shooters refer to them as "weapons"!

I always correct them and reply "you must mean firearms don't you?"

My firearms are not instruments or devices for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war!

It annoys me even more when certificate owners refer to their own firearms as "weapons"! What kind of impression are they making upon those that are not involved in shooting sports?

Have they been to war lately or what? It's not a weapon until I've actually attacked someone with it. Are my kitchen knives weapons too? Or a golf club? I don't think so!

[John25]

They are guns - or firearms; be they rifle, pistol, carbine, revolver, arquebus, handgun, shooter etc., etc. They are guns, not weapons.

Any shooter who refers to his sporting tool as a weapon has no sense of responsibility and provides ammunition for those who would see our sporting tools taken away.

I had a similar firearms visit years ago and likewise sent him packing.

It may just be semantics to some, to me it is a state of mind.

I have only two weapons, otherwise know as fists, and my vocabulary of course.

I have found the latter to be the most effective.




My wife made me remove the poster I had put in the back of the car after my pistols were confiscated. Under a 'photo of my model 14, ' Pisol, used by experts, banned by perverts'

(This being the era of toe sucking, adulterous MP's)

Off the soapbox now, back to topic -

Guns

I'm off to the Army Clubhouse to get



:cheers:

[Porcupine]

Legally speaking, firearms are weapons by definition ("a lethal barrelled weapon from which any bullet, missile or shot can be discharged," is the definition in law, and in law a weapon is defined as an article "designed or adapted for causing injury,").

Linguistically speaking, whether a gun is a weapon or not depends on two things: Whether you consider what it was designed for or what it is used for, and what in fact it is designed/used for. For example, you may use a Lee-Enfield, or a Remignton 700, or an AI AW, or a Marlin 1894, or a Benelli M2 for target shooting - but they were all designed to be weapons; either for killing people or animals or both.

On the other hand you might take a skeet or trap gun designed only to shoot clays and use it to shoot pheasant or duck or intend to defend yourself with it - a weapon not by design but by use.

The only guns that cannot accurately be described as weapons are those neither designed nor used (or intended) for causing injury e.g. a Hammerli used only for shooting targets. But even then it seems overly sensitive to repudiate the term. I doubt any medieval or ancient re-enactor or fencer would chastize you for describing their blunted instruments intended and designed only for sport and amusement as 'swords' and 'weapons'. After all, target shooting developed as practice for combat and hunting - the same as fencing. Target guns and fencing swords may not be weapons in the strictest sense, but they are representations of weapons.

Certainly if you were caught with a target pistol without the proper paperwork and claimed that it's not a firearm because it's not a weapon since it is neither designed nor intended to harm anyone you'd not find any sympathy from a judge...

I have happily referred to all my guns as weapons - some have been intended for defence, others not intended as such but could and would certainly be used as such if needed, and they were all designed for combat or hunting anyway.

[Steve]

The only guns that cannot accurately be described as weapons are those neither designed nor used (or intended) for causing injury

Or me with a pistol...im hopeless. :lol:

(im honest though!)

[Rearlugs]

Another use of "weapon" originates in the background of the shooter: most serving or ex- servicemen will habitually call a firearm a "weapon". I certainly do, and I only make a concious effort to call it a "firearm" when dealing with those of a sensitive PC nature - such as the police!

Part of the "problem", if there is one, is a result of the split between civilian shooting and military shooting. Probably up until the 1970s/80s, I'm sure most NRA range orders would have referred to "weapon", as there was still a large overlap between civilian and military shooting. In a club like LERA, where most of the "management" is serving/ex- military and the rifles themselves are predominantly ex-military, the range orders usually refer to "weapon".

Personally, I think its appropriate to call any firearm a "weapon" as thats what they were developed for, irrespective of modern usage.

[Robin128]

Personally, I think its appropriate to call any firearm a "weapon" as thats what they were developed for, irrespective of modern usage.

It's interesting to note that The Police and Home Office refer to our guns as weapons also...


http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publicatio ... iew=Binary

http://www.basc.org.uk/en/utilities/doc ... 523083F073

and in all of the Firearms Acts since 1968.

[Dougan]

I don't even like the term 'firearms' - arms are weapons... and firearms are weapons that operate though ignition.

To me they're guns, but I accept that a few of them were made to be weapons.