Guns are designed specifically to kill.

[gunsmoker]

47. Homicide or Combat Games

There *are* certain fire arms that are truly sporting and are ill-suited for use as offensive or defensive weapons against people --whether that be self-defense or murder.

But these truly sporting weapons make up a small and ever-shrinking percentage of all firearms that are sold today.

I think if you look in any gun store, or the local gun show, or if you peruse the gun magazines (periodicals) that you see on the bookshelves of stores today, you will see that nearly all of the guns being advertised or written about are weapons intended to shoot people ---or intended to be used in combat-simulating games where you shoot targets under the same conditions as you might shoot people on the battlefield or in urban gunfights on our streets.

I do not think it is intellectually honest to say that your AR-15 is simply a piece of sports equipment when the "sport" itself is intended to replicate mass homicide (perhaps justified per the laws of war or citizens' use of deadly force, but "homicide" just the same.)

Artillery cannon can be used in sporting games too. There ARE such sports as shooting competitions where canon users will fire non-bursting artillery shells at targets thousands of meters away and attempt to score hits closer to the bullseye than the other competitors can .

If hand grenades were legal and sold cheaply to any civilian who wanted some, I imagine that there would even be hand-grenade throwing competitions at local gun ranges. That does not mean hand grenades are sports equipment or would become such just because you buy them with that purpose in mind.