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Having a purpose that in turn is mostly a means to an end that is killing is not the same as being directly, immediately, specifically only good for killing (and various activities wherein the fun is contingent on imagining them as practice for killing people under the right circumstances).
I don't think it ignores any "basic truths" that there are in what you wrote, and evidently this argument is not persuasive to those that subscribe to it. As it stands, there is a negligible amount of the older American ethos making inroads in the rest of the world, but the anti-gun value system is capturing large swathes of the US population - if you care for gun rights, it would be more reasonable to try and find new arguments rather than digging in your heels about the old apologetic tradition and dismiss competing views as "divorced from reality".
Disagree entirely. While i do not agree with them politically, many of my leftoid friends have suddenly discovered the purpose behind the second ammendment, and are wondering why our state has so many idiotic gun laws.
Guns may be fun, and they may provide a constructive outlet, but their purpose is potential violence. Thats the point. Pretending otherwise is dishonest and pointless.
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