"Handguns are made for killing,
They ain't good for nothing else..."
- Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Saturday Night Special"

That's probably the most popular argument for gun control. And it's wrong.

In England, they're currently talking about outlawing gun lookalikes -- fake guns. Let's think about that. Why would they want to outlaw a fake gun? Why would people want to carry a fake gun?

Remember: We're claiming handguns only have ONE use: killing. Yet a fake gun is of no use at all for killing. So a fake gun must then have ZERO uses.

So why are people carrying them around or pointing them at people, if they have ZERO uses?

The answer, of course, is that fake guns still have a use. Fake guns can be used to intimidate people. Fake guns can make people think they're in danger of being hurt or killed, even when the one using it has no intention of doing so.

So a fake gun, unable to kill, can still have at least ONE use, then.

A real, operational gun looks just like a fake gun, right? So it must also be able to intimidate, just like the fake gun -- yes? Yes. So it also has at least one use. But also notice that the real gun can also actually fire a round, and thus hurt or kill someone. So that's a second use, then, isn't it?

So guns have more than one use. It's as simple as adding one and one to make two.

Liberals just like to pretend this isn't so.

And, in fact, guns aren't primarily used for killing. They're primarily used for intimidation. Ask a cop how many times he's drawn his weapon while on duty. Now ask how many people he's killed. Yet the gun was doing it's job in the first scenario too, wasn't it?

You see my point.

But isn't intimidation a bad thing? Depends. If you're intimidating a person as part of an attempt to blackmail or rob them, that's not good. But if a person is trying to hurt, kill, rob, kipnap, or do something else illegal and harmful to you, you'd probably think a bit of intimidation on your behalf would be rather a good thing.

There are lots of ways of intimidating someone. You can be a big, scary, muscular dude. You can explain that you have cousins or friends in the mafia who would would not appreciate the way you're being treated. You could call in your hired team of ninjas. You can explain you have connections, and you'll use them to ensure this person never works again. You could tell your assailant you have a rare, deadly, and highly contagious disease and threaten to spit on him.

But these options won't work for most people, under most circumstances. If we assume anyone could ever be in danger from a bad person, something like a gun or knife, accompanied by a threat to use it, is much more practical.

Guns have more than one use. Even the most casual study of how people use them shows this to be true. The only way I can see to believe otherwise is persistent, willful denial of obvious contrary evidence.