Quote:
Originally Posted by ideliver
chlorine...phosgene and sarin....it's so easy...mix in some fertilizer for shits and giggles...every contractor on the planet has sticks of TNT...just in case you want a really big boom to go along with certain death with ingestion of sarin gas
any schmuck can weaponize almost anything...all it takes is a little motivation
just add some biologicals to the mix...forget it
Or...take a differerent route....cyberwarfare...take out the local power grid and sit back watch the humans kill each other
Remember...we are only a natural/manmade disaster away from anarchy...remember Katrina??? the police went home to protect their own...
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I think TNT and chemical attacks full under a different category. Sure, it would of arguably been equally effective at killing and maiming in a movie theater [provided no one pulled the fuse, or the device malfunctions, or the user got some part of the mixture wrong considering it's probably difficult as well as dangerous to test an explosive with toxic chemicals]. Besides the fact that something like that is dangerous to the user, it's hardly seems practical in most situations.
I'd be willing to bet that a considerable amount of violent crime happens on impulse. It's difficult to get mad and impulsively learn how to make a bomb, find ingredients, and then plan how your going to coordinate the attack. It's also harder [I'd imagine] on the mind to physically kill someone ie. knife, axe, etc. Sure someone who is contemplating murder, might carry it out at whatever means necessary, but getting 'dirty' in the process must be a deterrent. I saw a reference to chainsaws earlier, a bit extreme, but it would be difficult to conceal or get very far without people wondering wtf you're doing and immediately avoid you.
With a gun it only takes the squeeze of a trigger to end someones life, close up or at range. You could conceal it and get places you couldn't with most any other weapon. It's more complicated to make a bomb than to turn a gun to fully automatic, making it obviously more destructive.
You can argue all day, what the intent was behind the invention of the gun. It comes down to one thing, killing. As someone who's lived their entire life in Texas, and really, really likes guns, I think the availability to civilians is pretty absurd. I don't think guns should be completely outlawed, but something should change.