Letters to the Editor
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as always
there are all these really smart and eloquent posts that are saying just what I wanted to say, only earlier and more articulately.
But I did want to add my $0.02, a couple of random thoughts for the LW, should he read these posts:
1) If you can't be honest about your own motivations, then those motivations are suspect on that basis alone. If it were really the mechanical elegance -- the machining, the simplicities and intricacies of design, the precision construction, all that -- that you were really concerned with, you'd be buying collector watches, or model steam engines, or some such. All of those venues are machines in which the elements you claim to find appealing are in much greater evidence. So: why do you REALLY want the guns? If you were to void your body of testosterone for a week, would you still want them? If so, what does that mean about the validity of satisfying this craving (since your tone makes it clear that this is just that)?
2) As a couple of posters upthread have noted, guns are, in and of themselves, value-free devices, just tools. The value of any gun is only conferred by its use in given contexts -- who is wielding it, why, how, and to what ends. Nonetheless, it's also clear that guns are tools for one purpose only -- though that one purpose does have many ramifications. That purpose is to be able to kill something -- or someone. That is not to say they are only for killing -- that is incompete and inaccurate. But because they confer the ability to kill, they also confer power -- both the feeling of power, and its actuality.
Most normal humans (by which I mean "middle-class Americans") living normal lives will never be in any situation (other than hunting or target shooting, of course) in which a gun is a necessity (even most cops never have to pull their guns, let alone to discharge them). Given that you're smart enough to know this, you need to be especially careful in assessing your motivations; you have to ensure that you're not BSing yourself, or rationalizing.
But the conclusion of all this is close to inescapable: if you do want these toys for reasons that are not entirely rational and legitimate -- and it sure seems as if that might be the case -- then that alone is a reason not to give in to this craving, at least until you get deeper insights into those motivations.
In the 12-step or recovery world, it's usually frowned upon to judge other people's situations. One isn't supposed to be running around telling others that you think they might have a problem. You're usually expected to support people in thinking through for themselves whether they have a problem -- but not doing that thinking for them. That said, though, most people who don't have a problem rarely, if ever, have to ask themselves, "Do I have a problem here?" The very fact that you're asking the question makes a "gee, maybe yes" answer a lot more likely. So: the very fact that you want these guns so much, and that you're having to ask strangers for their input, suggests that you already know what the healthier answer might be, at least for now...
btw, in case this matters: me = middle-class white male who leans far left on most political, economic, and "cultural" (read: contra busybody sexual "morality" fascists) issues -- and who enjoys target shooting, has been safety trained, and would definitely own a weapon or two if I didn't live in a city that makes gun ownership an impossibility for anyone neither rich nor criminal