Then let people own grenades, RPGs, flamethrowers, tanks...

Owning any of these are harmless after all... just like guns. It's not like their purpose or effect changes how we should regard them.

Someone get me a machinegun or better yet -- a flamethrower!

Like a pack of wild animals. I would love to greet them with a flamethrower.

" But I'd have a real problem killing an AI that could think and feel." That's when you'd use a suitcase nuke as opposed to a flamethrower.

I love the 2004 Punisher game. I love it.
You can "interrogate" people in it, meaning you outright torture them for information or gratuitous, explicit death scenes. You can shove people into woodchippers, drill holes in their skull with a powerdrill, chromeplating heads or smash their pelvis with a prison cell door to pieces. Additionally there are four basic "interrogations" that you can do anywhere from banging peoples head open on the floor to threatening them with a gun (that goes off a lot). And that goes on top off the usuall ultraviolence you find in such first and third person shooters.
However, the game mechanics reward you for not killing people during interrogations and using them as well as the human shields tactically. I started playing for points, not mayhem. Which is really hard to do if you hide in a coffin with an M60 during a mob burial. It's nice to see the Punisher impaling people on actual Rhinos or crushing them in giant gears in Tony Starks living room but I'm playing to get the gold medal on that level, I wanna take the flamethrower to the zoo.
The game mechanics were really great and rewarded strategy and restraint with unlockable stuff. You actually became less violent in exchange for concept art and additional gear. That game is awesome.
The only thing that ever made me want to be violent was the way certain people behaved towards me or others. Games just feed my morbid sense of entertainment.

........When you think about it, it would be the first time the fire brigade would actually need a flamethrower instead of a water hose

after living on this planet for almost 50 years, i still see no benefit in possessing one or many. i want a flamethrower though.

That's the last time I try re-fueling a car with a flamethrower.

thanks for the tip!
In reply to this comment by Fletch:
>> ^lurgee:

where can i get one of these flamethrowers? i see many uses, other then insect toasting.


Churches.

>> ^lurgee:

where can i get one of these flamethrowers? i see many uses, other then insect toasting.


Churches.

I wouldn't want to be the guy at the front holding the flamethrower. A bit too close for my comfort

where can i get one of these flamethrowers? i see many uses, other then insect toasting.

2 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Needs more flamethrower.

If and when someone designs a flamethrowing tank in the 21 century, somehow I can see something like this being used...