Unpopular Opinion

Gotta resist fascism somehow

That's not an unpopular opinion IMO.

it is a tool made for specifically one thing. To pierce the skin and rip through the inner organs of a person.

This isn’t true. I live in a country with sensible gun control laws and live on a rural property with 10 acres of forest. We have a small rifle to protect the wildlife against rabies or to put down an injured animal.

The US conversation around guns is toxic.

If I can get excited for a cordless Bosch track saw, I can get excited for a nice gun. Guns have served two purposes in my life - target shooting with friends and the meat I get from hunting. I don't need to take on someone elses trauma and stop enjoying something to respect what they are.

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion, although I'd detach the violence from people.

Guns are weapons specifically designed as tools of violence. Some are for designed with animal hunting in mind, some for hurting people, and some for target sports, which are ultimately derived from the other two.

Like any tool, how people intend to use it matters, as well as how they expect to use it and how they prepare to use it.
I will easily judge people based on those factors.
Separating the tool from the use also lets us be a little more objective in our discussions about how we want to regulate the tool. "This type of weapon poses an undue risk to surrounding people in this context, so you can't have it in this context".

I think just about every gun owner I've met agrees with the sentiment if you get rid of the "against people" part.

They are engineered from the ground up to take lives ~~of other people~~.

I have no love for guns, but hunting for food is the reason humans created weapons in the first place. To your point, I’m pretty sure slaughterhouses aren’t using fully automatic rifles on the killing floor.

I’ve always looked at them from a utility/engineering/sport perspective. I have no intent of ever carrying a weapon, but the training it takes to learn how to target practice, and the engineering that goes into them are incredibly fascinating.

I don’t encourage people to own guns and I don’t have any myself, but I really wish target practice didn’t have to share a platform with a killing machine.

Counterpoint:

I hate people who treat them like some toys and fantasize about them.

Agreed.

I would still get one for safety ...

Firearms decrease your safety in any but the most dire situation. Unfortunately, those situations are nigh impossible to predict. This means that carrying a firearm incurs some additional risk right now as insurance against a future potential very large risk.

They can be used to preserve something precious but at a price to pay.

Also agreed.

You might be suffering under a variation on the toupee fallacy, and some confirmation bias. You're not going to hear a whole lot from responsible gun owners, because those people have an understanding of the risk and responsibility they are taking on, and part of taking that responsibility and mitigating that risk is not crowing like a knob about your guns.

I, on the other hand, am fascinated not just by guns but by weapons (and other military technology) from throughout history. Weapons, as products of human ingenuity, are unusual in the sense that they function in direct opposition to the ingenuity of other humans. It's a very high-stakes competition.

Pretty popular opion though, isn't it?

I've played shooter games since a kid and I've never wanted to own a gun. it's 100% a special kind of brainrot/power trip to want to hold and own deadly weapons and you won't convince me otherwise

yes hunting is a thing, I promise you the vast majority of American gun owners are not hunters.

i own a gun whose sole purpose of being manufactured was to kill himans - it is a war rifle.

i have killed as many things with it as i want to: zero.

i am not a gun nut, but i do enjoy the history of it. i learned a lot about yugoslavia just because i was curious about the time period it came from.

i agree that some guns are created with the sole purpose of killing people... i just dont feel like killing people with it. never have, never will (its not for protection, etc.. its for history)

I was with you up until the "I would still get one for safely" part. We must clearly live in different kinds of areas, I've never felt the need to own one for any reason.