this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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I desperately wanted to get a degree in mechanical engineering so I could go to work for an arms company (like Heckler & Kock, FN Herstal, etc.). Never happened, got an art degree instead. Then I met a guy that owns a very small firearms company, and, well, yeesh. It's a brutally hard business. He makes a good product, he has good morals and ethics, but the market is so saturated that anyone smaller than the largest arms companies are hemorrhaging money. Glad I didn't try to live my dream now.
I may not like what governments do with arms, but good goddamn, the arms themselves are neat.
“He has good morals and ethics”
How could he possibly if he has devoted his life to creating weapons? What’s his response if and when his guns are used for violence, be it murder, suicide, armed robbery, etc? Even if he is “small time” for “enthusiasts” of the “sport” it is only a matter of time until this occurs. How does he reconcile this? That it’s not the guns fault? Just the glamorization of them, the obscene amount of them, the fact that they are readily available, pushing it onto “mental health”, or some other scapegoat that allows him to escape accountability for facilitating mortal violence.
I hope your friend goes out business and his entire industry collapses.
His response, as is mine, is that what people use his guns for simply isn't his business. If people used Stanley hammers to beat people to death, would it mean that Stanley was an immoral company? Or would it mean that people used the product in an unlawful and immoral way?
I happen to very, very strongly believe in 2A, and I think that the US is in the shitstorm it is currently in in no small part because liberals--but not leftists--have been working their asses off to disarm themselves. And I will note that the person in question has consistently employed furries--he loves their work ethic--and strongly supports the rights of LGBTQ+ people to arm themselves.
Hammers are tools used to build things that someone can decide to use as a weapon. Firearms, specifically handguns and semi automatic AR-style long guns, are literally designed for the sole purpose of ending a human life. Not at all a valid comparison.
What it was designed for, and what it's used for, are two different things, as you already agreed. Even if you truly, absolutely believe that the only purpose of a handgun or removable-magazine-fed semi-automatic rifle is to kill other people, then you would also have to admit that the overwhelming majority of them never are used to fulfill their purpose; the number that do are, compared to the number that exist, practically a rounding error. There are literally more guns in non-police/non-military hands in the US than there are people. There are far, far more defensive gun uses annually--regardless of who measures it and how--than there are gun homicides.
And bluntly, I absolutely DO NOT trust the gov't to be the only ones with access to firearms. If you can look at Trump, ICE, Hegseth's DoD, cops in general, and say, oh, yeah, I shouldn't be armed, but those guys are cool, well, I don't know what to tell you. And I don't trust ANY gov't to not harm the people, because there's no way to prevent fascists from taking control without also becoming authoritarian.
For civilians I would assume guns are used more for hunting and target practice. But then again America could be different you guys are crazy with your guns.
I’m torn on the idea of arming leftists in the current climate. I don’t disagree with you there. I live in a somewhat rural area that is heavy Trump and the right wingers are heavily armed. I don’t blame a trans person for arming themselves to defend themselves in an area like this, and my post history reflects as much.
That said there is a difference between arming yourself and actively contributing to increasing the amount of arms in the world. And what made it interesting is you claimed this is an ethical and moral issue. If your friend worked to only arm leftists that would be an interesting take. I doubt this is the case though. I am assuming they are like any capitalist based on your first line - anyone’s money is good enough.
To answer your question as others have said the hammer has a utilitarian purpose, as do knives, as does dynamite. With the exception of something like skeet shooting guns sole purpose is to rob the consciousness of a living being. I do not believe that the sport outweighs the risk. There are far less dangerous ways to hunt, we’ve banned things like lawn darts for less when the danger outweighs the utility. America just has a raging hard on for guns because of military fetishism
TBH, many of the people that buy his products at this time are leftists. Or at least anti-authoritarian, and deeply suspicious of gov't control over individual liberties. His position that civil rights are for EVERYONE has meant that many people on the political right have no interest in doing business with him. And he's absolutely right; if rights aren't for everyone, then they aren't rights.
It shouldn't be a radical position to say that all people in the US should have the rights that they are promised by the US Constitution, and yet we currently have a gov't that is doing their best to wipe their ass with the constitution and flush it down the toilet.
Are you thinking mental health is just a scapegoat and the mental state of shooters has nothing to do with the reason they commited the crime?
No, I think systemic issues need to be addressed of course. But I think in America, as someone who has worked in mental health for decades, the use of “mental health” in the wake of large scale violence is exclusively a scapegoat because there has almost never been meaningful action behind it. Overwhelmingly in almost (if not) all states since 2008 mental health programs have seen massive budgetary cuts year after year after year.
And this begets the point that “mental health” is a weasel word for treating systemic issues. Frankly even if you increased the budgets of Medicaid and community mental health programs 10 fold I don’t believe mass shootings would be impacted much in terms of rate. The systemic issues that create these conditions - wealth inequality, racism, quality education access, quality healthcare access, etc would essentially all remain and take generations to resolve even if you forced fixes tonight. The rot goes deep. Almost any therapist who works in community mental health programs will tell you that most of their clientele suffer more from lack of resources than mental health disorders
You didn't adress my question/statement at all.
I think whether mass shooters are mentally ill is debatable on a case by case basis, some obviously yes, some less obviously.
But what I’m saying is this point is moot because even if 100% of mass shooters are “mentally ill” and that is the driving force behind their culpability the individuals saying “we need better mental health care in this country” in the wake of gun violence are so full of shit and obviously using the topic for misdirection with no intention for meaningful change. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that mental health services have been systematically defunded year after year for decades, very often by the same individuals who clamor the same.
Mental health facilities and systems losing funding is an absolute travesty. I still don't believe the mental health side of these horrific crimes is a moot point though. With more dedication to early intervention and treatment a decline would have to happen. Its not the tools fault its the individual using it. Remember that guy who drove through a crowd a few Christmas back? He had a slew of mental health issues that were never addressed properly. He perpetrated a mass casualty event without issue. Almost half of mass shooters tell SOMEONE some part of their plan before carrying it out. If we did as many "warning signs" trainings as we do "active shooter" trainings I'd be willing to bet we'd prevent many of these incidents. I say this because even though I work in an isolated power plant, we have an annual online training and in person drill for active shooter situations (run,hide,fight). At the same time, I've never seen an early warning sign type training.
So then we get ride of knives and bows and pointy sticks and then rocks. People are going to kill we have been doing it forever. Getting rid of guns does not solve the problem.
what a stupid mindset. Show me a time someone managed to kill 20-50 people in a span of 15-30 minutes with a bow, let alone a knife, let alone a laymen that didn’t have military training.
As an aside the goal does not have to be to solve the problem definitively. It can be to make the problem markedly better. If mass shootings with body counts in the above turned into mass stabbings, which are obviously traumatic and horrible but typically have fatalities in the single digits (often only 1-2), is that not a tremendous improvement? It is of course still very worthwhile to address systemic factors that lead to violence, but making violence less severe is worthwhile as well.
I find that there's a lot of overlap between people who like engines, clocks, and guns. They're all machines with a concrete goal, harnessing an incredible force in a very controlled way, through precise, complex mechanisms and allow near complete freedom on how exactly you achieve that goal. There's a beauty to it that's hard to find anywhere else.