LAST EDITED ON Mar-28-14 AT 11:13 PM (EDT)
 
>As for Ellis' book...well, perhaps I'm paranoid, but any time someone
>presents a gun as -inherently- evil rather than simply a tool whose
>user is what's good or evil, I immediately think of the gun control
>lobby.

Machine guns are an awkward case, even for firearms hobbyists like me. They're technically interesting artifacts (the inner workings of a Gatling gun, for instance, are quite fascinating) and, well, fully automatic fire is fun... but any realistic assessment has to concede that they have no practical use apart from killing a lot of people really quickly. Which is... er... a hard sell on the basis of non-inherently-evilness.

(Mind you, Richard Gatling specifically thought his invention would save lives, because he had the charmingly naïve idea that a weapon as terrifyingly effective as an automated gun would prompt the nations of the world to avoid warfare altogether - or at least that their vastly increased effectiveness would reduce the size of armies. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that a general, handed a weapon that would make one man as effective in combat as 100 previously had been, would never think, "Hey, that means I can let the other 99 guys go home!")

Anyway, at that point you run up against a lot of really thorny ethical questions, such as whether it's OK to enjoy/admire/collect them when you're not OK with what they're actually for.

That's not a debate I want to have here? I'm just pointing out that it is a meaningful factor to consider.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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