What is the function of a gun?

[branford]

134. Assailants need not always possess a firearm to be extremely dangerous.

Centuries of self-defense jurisprudence, even in very liberal jurisdictions, makes this abundantly clear.

Moreover, a firearm is indeed one of the best tools for equalizing a lawful self-defense scenario, particularly when facing multiple assailants or if the victim is small, weak, elderly, frail, etc. When used by a potential victim, the fact that a firearm is a "killing implement" is a feature, not a bug, no matter how distasteful you might find it.

All the bluster about the purported purpose of firearms is totally irrelevant. Guns exist, cannot be un-inevented, over 300 million are in circulation in this country, they can and are used by tens of millions of Americans for legitimate and lawful activities such as hunting, sport and self-defense, and criminal and other violent miscreants do indeed use them illegally to threaten the innocent and law-abiding, to say nothing of the fact that they are a constitutionally protected item.