Furniture from weapons is a project started after more than 30 years of civil war, ending in 1998, the Cambodian gouvernment destroyed 125,000 weapons across the country. In this time a small arms specialist with the European Union, and British artist Sasha Constable, saw an opportunity, and decided to create The Peace Art Project Cambodia (PAPC) in November 2003. The Peace Art Project Cambodia was a sculpture project turning weapons into art as expressions of peace. In Cambodia this is the most beautiful way to get rid of weapons – transform them in furniture. From these pictures this furniture doesn’t look to comfortable, but for a good cause they are excelent.
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Wow, that is amazing. Simply no other way to put it, it really is thought provoking to boot.
nice
awesome
Cool, I really like the elephant.
thats a statement.
Amazing but come on get it right. Art yes… Furniture… no. How are the above tables or chairs ?
That’s very interesting. Some of the Kalashnikov receivers appearing there look like they are mostly intact. It may actually be illegal to import these chairs into the US, and probably elsewhere. A least in the US, I’m pretty sure the ATF requires that machine gun receivers be cut into several pieces before they can be considered “demiled”, and no longer considered to legally be machine guns.
amazing
These are a discrace, plain and simple
What a waste!
Why would you waste perfectly good guns for furniture when there are so many trees available? Unless of course you could still use these to protect yourself…
A shotgun chair would be quite nice!
What, no plowshares pr pruning hooks?
You wasted how many good guns to build these pieces of crap?
Where’s the plowshares? I want to see the plowshares!
now the question is are these items available to order, i want the sofa!!!!
more sofas means less guns about!
this is complete liberal bullshit
Where can I buy one of these?
wow, what a wonderful solution to a very ugly problem. i wonder if gun furniture would appeal to non-gun people? somehow i just can’t imagine Sarah Brady serving tea & crumpets on her AK47 cocktail table? i wonder if gun people would be offended over having such beautiful art in their bunkers?
Why is any post that does not think building furniture out of guns is a good idea deleted?
This makes me sick!
Complete waste!
A wretched waste of weaponry!
I like the art, mind you, but hey, they sell pieces of blank metal, you know. Never waste a gun you could use to defend your life or liberty with-ever.
Yea thats some interesting art – good find!
I’m not sure which weapon was used to make the frog though (drum sound)
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http://www.WindowsVistaUserGuide.com
beautiful pictures, glad they didn’t color over the steel and guns as it would deminish the power and intensity of the message.
That is so cool! You should post this on arizonashooting.com They love this kind of stuff!
that is great! If only we could get the rest of the world in to art and not war…
When can we see guns made from furniture? I’d plop down money for that.
Fubutz der varsse les mutuy a te kokke des leckerz. Yaya!
You know, if a few of the people who ended up in the killing fields had had the opportunity to resist… Which is more ethical?
This is the sadest use of fine weaponry I have ever seen. I value freedom too much to ever disrespect the vehicle that keeps us free. I wisk I had never seen this site.
Nice. Turning beautiful pieces of artwork into furniture. I guess its anti-art.
You should be ashamed and hit over the head, what are you thinking? America is here because of the real use of these tools, next you will make them out of the USA Flag and put your fanny on them?
Look like crap to me, Guns or not!
When does the butt wipe selection colored as the American flag come out I wonder, get a real business and support the USA .
Mont.
Randal… how many guns does one person NEED to defend their life and liberty? If you jury-rigged a setup so that each foot could fire a gun, you could fire a gun with your teeth, and had a gun in each hand, you’d still only have 5 guns there… and not much mobility to defend yourself from oncoming fire.
Who’s to say these guys didn’t just have a hell of a lot more guns than they had hands to use them with? It looks like functional furniture to me, and furniture’s been made of stranger things before. I really don’t see the problem here.
“I value freedom too much to ever disrespect the vehicle that keeps us free. ”
What? Give me a break, that’s rediculous. Guns are tools, nothing more. Guns are just as equally used by those wishing to REMOVE a person’s freedom as they are for those DEFENDING it. It’s a tool, just like swords were before it, and bludgeoning devices before that. It’s not some rediculous sacred thing. For instance, terrorists use guns. Is that blasphemy? No, they’re people using a tool (albeit for a harmful purpose). But would you be willing to disrespect the vehicle that lets terrorists kill innocent people?
Fascinating that they’re one in the same, eh?
Weapons should be completely melted and not remind us of any weapons at all.
I could fix most of those.
let me say that you are certainly a creative soul. your work allows your passion to shine thru.
i want to say that inanimate objects are not responsible for war or death. people alone are responsible for war and death. the tools they choose to use are not responsible for said war or death.
chairs have also been used to killed people, but no one blames the chair. insinuating that guns are instruments of war death or destruction is like blaming a cow for someone eating too many hamburgers and getting fat.
again let me say i like when someone expresses them selves in a way that screams their innermost feelings.
chris allen
this is what i thought about when i was a child!!great!
I like elephant.
Functional art.
These sculptures and furniture are poignant poetry.
Very beautiful, cultural antiquities. So much history behind it.
I can imagine a grandfather telling stories to his grandchildren in those chairs.
I like them, very nice idea.
However, its a waste of perfectly good firearms, that would be of more use in the hands of the people.
Nice Kwanzaa candle holder.
I love the “S” chair and the rocking chair the best.
To the “keep the guns” guys… WTF are you talking about? These guns come from Cambodia. I don’t care if an American or other 1st world citizen wants to own an AK, but the less assault rifles there are in 3rd world countries the better off we all are.
I heard that someone once strangled another person to death. Maybe we should start making chairs out of human hands?
how sad….and to think, what will you defend yourself with…a couch ?
I think these pieces of art are Beautiful and prove a little known Fact. Firearms and in theory Peaceful items. They will stay exactly where they are stored and not hurt anyone until a Human with Harmful intent pick them up and use them. It is a shame that these items are used by ill willed people to cause harm. I would also like to see someone make Furniture out of the original Weapons of mankind. Sticks and stones.
Cool! Where can I get this stuff? I’ve seen MN M91/30 floor and table lamps but this is really cool! I gotta’ have this stuff for the gun room.
amazing, the amount of pure Ignorance and Lunacy in some of these responses. have *any* of you naysayers even set foot on Khmer soil? witnessed a third world country affected by years of civil conflict AND the indiscriminate, illegal bombing by america?
wait, who am i kidding? ever been outside your good-ole-flag-draped-american door?
i especially liked the following post “You should be ashamed and hit over the head, what are you thinking? America is here because of the real use of these tools, next you will make them out of the USA Flag and put your fanny on them?”
read a history book. come to think of it, read a book. try ‘sideshow’ from william shawcross, for starters. america dropped over 3 million tons of bombs on a neutral country that was *not* involved in the vietnam war. and now, 30 years later, cambodian farmers and children are still dying and becoming amputees, at a rate of 2 per day, due to the legacy of said bombing. yes, that sounds like an Outstanding use of “real tools”, for sure.
next time you pass this type of thing off as “liberal crap,” make sure to spend some time in someone else’s shoes instead of surfing, safe conservative, Fat internet blogs. make an Educated opinion. this has absolutely *nothing* to do with Liberalism. it has *everything* to do with Humanity.
sweet jesus, please wake up…
So opposed to guns, but I bet you don’t stand up against criminals, murderers, rapists, or worse… tyrants, etc.
No it’s far too hard to stand up against those people…. it’s easier to just blame the guns.
Looks like a waste of money, to me.
I like a good gun as much as the next guy, but come on, guys. These things are made out of pieces of AKs. Those things are as common as rain.
Isaiah II (King James Version):
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
I’d so buy it.
Waste of guns. But hey, not my gun.
Regarding John, who commented “but the less assault rifles there are in 3rd world countries the better off we all are.”
In many cases, especially RIGHT NOW in some portions of Africa, a population is disarmed, with all the blessings of the UN and the rest, and then killed off. As of late, while the army watches with its machineguns ready for the resistance, a favored weapon has been the machete, since it’s cheap and doesn’t require reloading.
If the populations were armed, they’d at least have a chance.
In many areas, rather than air-dropping food for the bad guys to take at gunpoint, why not drop AK-47s? Give the people a chance to defend themselves. Then drop the food.
NEVER condone racism or genocide because you think you are being “nice.”
If the victims of the Khmer Rouge had been adequately armed, they would not have been victims. Now, what’s more noble, in your frame of reference? A living family, or dead victims bulldozed under?
Oh, and by the way… I’m a “working artist.” Actually make a living at it. Of course, those who are subsisting on trust funds or borrowing money from their friends until they get their next “grant” will deride that…
I suppose we should go back to the days of hacking eachother to pieces with swords and battle axes. At least with guns you have the chance of a quick, painless death. Fewer guns does not equal fewer killings, anyone who thinks it does is just plain ignorant. By the way, this message is for the anti-gun nuts that have posted here, not for the artists. I’m not a gun-nut or an anti-gun nut, just a neutral realist. I like the art though and would love to own one of those couches.
Oh my god, they are taking away OUR guns and turning them into furniture?!? AUGH, I’ll be ready to gun you down with my GS-355 when you kick in my door, you durned furniture-making commu, err, terorists!
Seriously, kids, you talk like these were weapons stolen from freedumb loving, God-fearing, UnitedStatesians (what DO they call you guys?), and you talk like they were in good shape. They’re probably 40 years old and were resident in every tunnel in North Vietnam. Mind you, a Kalashnikov could hold up to that, unlike any Norteamericano M-16… but still.
And yes, I would get one of these for my brother next X-mas… he’ll love it, but he probably won’t get the point.
These guns could have been put to better use.
Interesting idea.
It’s sad to see beautiful AKs go to waste to make a single chair. I can only hope they were already cut apart.
I think there’s only one ‘guns are awesome’ guy out there and he just keeps posting under different names.
They were put to good use at one time … all part of natural selection
now old pieces of junk they should have been melted and sold as plain steel, most likely never shot and only dropped once 
IMHO, they don’t look too comfy… Plus, the thoughts of the innocent blood shed… However, being a modest afficianado of “trench art” (the genre to which this sort of thing actually belongs), I do own a rather cool floor lamp which I put togther using a pre-1898 Mauser wallhanger that I picked up on a whim at the Creek… Given the vintage, it _might_ have been used against my grandfather in the war to end all wars, but hey… it was the weapons of mass destruction that finally killed him 15 years after he came home…
I equate this furniture with umbrella holders made from elephant feet – regretable curiousities and artifacts of history…
As far as an Art statement, they are great. As for furniture, they would be horrendous. For anyone whose ever carried a weapon for a long period of time you begin to hate all the little sharp pieces jutting out of it. This furniture is like a horror show poking design!
I like firearms. I own, carry & shoot firearms responsibly. They are simply a tool not something to be worshipped or reviled.
RE: We proudly call ourselves Americans.
the only thing wrong with these chairs is that there isn’t a dead a-rab in the picture
you son of a bitch, tony. i will slit the throats of your family with the will of allah- allallalallalallalalalal chim chim chariy
i got a gun the size of an infants arm. any ladies in here want to have cyber sex? 18 and older, please= oh, and no blacks.
The thing that most of the posters here don’t appear to comprehend is that these are from CAMBODIA. Thats right, Cambodia, where Pol Pot’s forces needed enough guns to create “killing fields” in which millions of people were executed by barrages of fire from AKs. In the United States where (aparrently) many of the posters live I would agree that such weapons could have been legally sold to dealers or put to some other use, but in that part of the world these weapons are so plentiful that they sell for somewhere between $20 and $30. In such a case, I think its simple economics; it is far cheaper to obtain decent quality metal by buying AKs than it is by buying from a commercial producer. Get your heads out of the U.S. for a second and realize that the way it is here isn’t the way it is all over the world. Think about how many AKs are left over from the Vietnam War alone, much less all of the internal conflicts in that area since the 60′s-70′s. Our standards don’t apply.
You realize the british re-invasion plan is cancelled right?
That’s right. The redcoats are NOT COMING.
Besides, there’s a nearly neverending supply of AKs out there anyway.
Amazing how many people feel so passionate one way or another about these items – that reflects well on the artist.
These are really interesting pieces – old guns make for good building material – strong and straight.
as far as wasting guns, I don’t think there is any shortage of mass producted, stamped steel AK 47′s. I’m a big fan of guns too but these are no Walthers or SiG works of art.
As far as feeling guilty looking at them…get a life.
You’re all missing the point. The GOVERNMENT seized these guns after 30 years of civil war. That means the revolutionaries lost, right? The rebellion failed, and the bad guys won and “peace” was achieved…at what price?
I can’t believe my own eyes. AK-47s are “the vehicle that keeps us free”, “a gun you could use to defend your life or liberty with” – are you Americans so narrow-minded?
Don’t get me wrong, I love guns like any other guy, but coming as I do from the other side of (former) Iron Curtain, I have slightly less romantic view on these weapons. AK-47s are not guns that you keep at home, clean and oil, show off to friends and once in a month take out to shooting range. You give an AK-47 to some poor, uneducated, 17-year old conscript and order him to go somewhere and kill some other poor, uneducated, 17-yer old conscrip (in best scenario – more probably, to kill some farmer, his wife and kids). AK-47s are simple, brutal tools used to kill people like you. Get a life and notice there is a whole different world out there.
People are so stupid. Now a great deal of people are going to be killed with rusty knives and spears. I agree, war and killing is bad, but taking people’s ability to defend themselves away is not the answer.
I also agree that this is the largest waste of firearms I’ve ever seen. And no serious gun owner would ever own one of those because it would break his heart to see guns destroyed.
IF this is ART, then I hate art.
as far as i know guns were invented for wartime use. not for hunting or target practice or friendly debates. while they may have all these uses now, how can it be said that guns are not ¨weapons of death and destruction¨? i like firing guns, its a skill to learn, but not when it involves someone else does anyone truely want to be involved in such a situation? Then why do we have guns, massive stockpiles of them, new ones every year?
side note …on a scale of 1 (not interested) till 5 (all outa bubblegum), how many of u would be interested in ¨war tourism¨? full package deal including lodging, ¨taste the gunpowder¨…skittles not included, no guarentees
what does this say about us? thousands of years of ¨civilization¨ and i would like to think we´ve learnt something along the way, are not our god’given hands (natural selection, whatever) enough? where does the evolution of the killing machine end? it wont will it? does anyone know if it would actualy be proffitable to smelt AKs down en-mass and resell the metal at a lower tha average price?
I don’t think I’d want the furniture, but the art pieces are neat.
With that said, my guns will not be becoming artwork anytime soon. For one they cost too much, and second I like them too much.
Oh yeah, also, the table is cool, but the only thing that would have been nicer is if the table-top had been made of shell casings glued together and turned primer side up (for a flat surface).
I like the art. Why do you gun freaks care that the artist used guns? Your guns were not used so chill out!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOW! You need a real job. My god…. I have lost all hope in humanity. An UZI jew candle stick. Thats bad.
Sheeple. Those who choose to bury their heads in the sand, put their faith in their government and sing “peace in our times” are bound to reap the servitude they deserve and should pray/hope their govt doesn’t find them desirably expendable. That said my guess is that many of those pieces won’t be importable into the US because of improperly demilled AK receivers. Technically they need to be submitted to the ATF for review before they can come in.
Making these innocent tools into vicious chairs that could be used to sit someone to death.
Let’s just ban bullets.
Guns dont kill people.
Gun owners do.
I’d rather just sit on a snazzy gun chair.
All those of you who think this is a waste are missing the point.
Besides, how bad-ass would you look holding your guns, while sitting on a gun chair?!
I like to sit.
I like guns.
It would only make sense to combine these two.
Cant sit on my revolver though cause the hammer pinches.
For what it’s worth, don’t try to hunt deer with a coffee table – I did, and the deer are way too fast.
Absolutely brilliant!!
Make furnishings out of bones the deceased… that would be tasteful while simultaneously thought provoking and artistic. Think about it. Muhahaha…
Somehow, I don’t think 100,000+ aging, poorly maintained AKs stockpiled in southeast asia were going to help preserve anyone’s liberty.
I like weapons as much as the next guy, but seriously, they’re just tools; theres no need to sanctify them. If you had a stack of a couple hundred thousand hammers lying about, you might start to look for new things to do with hammers… and lets face it, a hammer is a whole lot more versatile than an assault rifle.
Disgusting, gun owners don’t kill people. Criminals kill people. And then the police show up to attempt to figure out who the murderer is, arrest them, and hopefully put them away for more than 8 years. Because alot of murderers serve 8 to 10 with good behavior. I wish you a good and lucky life.
>Weapons should be completely melted and not remind us of any weapons at all.
Well, I suppose it is more artistic than the crap that gets passed off as “modern art” such as splashes and splotches of paint on a wall-sized canvas. At least with this “art” you can actually tell what it is supposed to be.
I do think these would make for cool conversation pieces, however my La-Z-Boy is definitely more comfortable.
Wow, low art. Not even very well done and certainly not original.
Absolutely Brilliant! I want to buy up every piece and send them as gifts to Diane Fienstein, Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Carolyn McCarthy, Sarah Brady, John Kerry and everyone who works down at the Brady Campain.
Absolutely Brilliant!!!
I only want one if it can still fire.
Crunch all you want. We’ll make more!
muah hah hah hah hah!!!
Free men, need arms to protect themselves against this Utopian hippie bullshit government that some of you think has all the answers.
After the first one, they’re all free.
D.
AZEX
cool. I like guns and I like furniture so these are neat. Why all of the political comments? These are/were owned by Cambodia and they can do whatever they like with them. I guess southeast asia has more weapons than places to sit. I can’t imagine how unbelievably heavy those things must be though…
I can’t wait to place my first order. I’m going to put a bench on my front porch to deter seedy elements like guys named Trey.
This makes me sick. All those perfectly good rifles and pistols that could have been put to such good use, right here in the USA.
I like the gunorah
It’s not about hunting or target shooting.
It’s about history. And history yet to be written.
In countries like Somalia, Zimbabwe, Darfur and others.
When the people can defend themselves from tyrants, and don’t have to worry about tribal regimes starving them to death, they will have time for art.
How much of the artistic cultures are currently being lost in countries where “peacekeepers” are making things safe for the despots?
yes,awaste of weapons, they are needed to keep our freedom secure. I was in during viet nam and wish I was youger so I could and would gladly kill as many terrorists as I could.
Kinda cool, kinda like that guy’s wheelchair from Alien Resurrection. He makes a shotgun outta it to kill the Xenomorphs.
Just this, you could be sittin’ there, some home-invaders/bears/libtards/Persians/outlaws/zombies come bustin’ in the front door, all hell-bent on your destruction, you just grab parts off your chair, snap ‘em together, throw a magazine in, and let that bolt fly home.
*blam-blam-blam-blam-blam*
Guns are great.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares…”
And plow for those that did not. I think I will keep my gun and forget the chair.
Most Americans do not feel the way the so-called “Americans” who post on message boards say we do.
America is disliked around the world for many reasons – and many of them are legitimate reasons – but most Americans are not the inbred, bible-thumping, beer-swilling, gun-o-philes who make idiotic and inflamatory remarks on these message boards. (The inbred, bible-thumping, beer-swilling gun-o-philes are just our politicians.)
In fact, if I wanted to really smear the reputation of a particular country, one of the best ways would be to impersonate a citizen of that country and act like a total asshat.
Just something to think about.
I laugh so hard at the American posts, trying in vain to display their misplaced pride, and complete ignorance.
Yes, my little stupid one, here’s a gun. Go ‘create some freedom’.
I lol’d.
I work for Cambodian government so I really get a big laugh from some of your statement I read on this web.
Many American do not realize much killing in Cambodia was happen years ago and want to keep gun to protect their own house and self. This is strange idea to much Cambodian people since we had much bad memory of killing families and friends. Much Cambodian people do not want to see guns AT ALL. We keep a government army for protect our country and house and it work very well to have this for us.
I think that instead of send Cambodian guns to USA the American gun people should join USA Army if they want to keep guns so hardly. Cambodia is hard working country which try to bring up people to honorable status and prosper much. You American sit on comfortable chairs with plump buttocks and make joke about guns, but you do not know about guns. I think maybe you need a gun chair on your buttocks to understand the feeling of not have freedom.
You think you know about freedom and guns, but you do not know about freedom and guns. Some day I hope you visit Cambodia and sit in this chair because to you it is a gun chair. To us it is a FREEDOM CHAIR. We are free with no guns and many chairs!
My roommate Mr. Bonaparte notes that there are no chairs made from bayonets. (Mr. Ulyanov down the hall reminds us that the bayonet is a tool of state with a worker on each end.)
– Ed
Obviously the wrong side won that civil war!
ATF agent: “Is that an illegal machine gun you have there?”
Me:: “Uh, no, officer, that’s my, um, easy chair.”
ATF agent: “Oh, OK. Carry on.”
This makes me sad. Theres nothing wrong with a gun, a gun is a tool. You could take every gun ever created and destroy it to no avail. People will find a way to harm other people. Taking the guns from law abiding citzens just ensures that the criminals always have the upper hand. How has this happened to our country in so short a time?
When I read the first few comments from Charles the blowhard Bogardus I thought you were a dick. But when you said you made a lamp out of a pre-1898 Mauser, I realized that would just be insulting all the other dicks! Maybe next time you take a dump, you’d like to wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa!
I realize as much as the next person how a gun can be beautiful. If the entire world had only, oh say 100 guns total, then I would be outrages at the use of firearms to create chairs and tables.
AK-47′s were created for one thing. Killing people. These guns were created, yes to defend people, but when defending one set of people, innocents on both sides die. A Farmer and his family who were neutral in a war, or didn’t even know about it could be casuilties of the “wonderful” AK-47.
Most of the victims of guns such as these are not military personel.
All of you saying that it is a waste of a good gun, how? Yes I see your reasoning that it “defends America.” For you I have a question, when was the last time America has been invaded? I mean invaded, where some one comes and occupies your country and tries to take over or marched down the streets killing innocents and raping women.
Functionally these chairs are most likely not very good, or comfortable. The theory I like these items. They are beautiful, they combine the beauty of a gun with grace of a designer chair (or table or elephant).
This is NOT wasting a gun, it is transforming it into an object which can not hurt some one. Any one of you can go down and buy a gun (providing your not a criminal). Who ever said that Criminals are the only ones who kill people was wrong. Our own military kills civilians every day just for being a suspect member of a terrorist group.
What is beautiful about that?
the fact that these pieces have brought such a ,shall we say, passionate, response from so many “americans” “gun lovers” and um “freedom fighter advocates(?)” is quite a nod to the success fo the project over all. in a world where the most dangerous thing you do is smoke a cig with your morning coffee, you say its bad to make this “art”. a blow against someones ability to stay “”free”"? a-rabs could have been killed with these? are you people serious? are you not serious? you dont sound serious. you sound like your bored. bored and able to surf google for “guns” and stumble here. i doubt many cambodians have that same “freedom” maybe they should have used these guns to shot up everything and everyone till they by some strange miracle had tvs and radios and golden fields of food just magically appear. then they too could randomly surf the net and make inane posts on tpics they know nothing about.
Talented, but retarded.
I can see the filthy masses who hate guns saluting something they cannot even afford.
A-hyuck, i could be out a-shootin’ me sum animuls or ee-rackies wi’ them guns! Hooo-wee! What do i wanna sofa made ov a gun fer?? So i can shoot mahself in the butt ever’time i sit down ta watch my tee-vee??
Yes. That’s what many of you commenters sound like.
Fantastic idea. If there were more like-minded people around, we’d never have to use something so ugly to defend something so beautiful as liberty. Words would be enough.
I think these are absolutely fantastic. Furniture to me is a symbol of that which is truly important, the home. The place where we can grow, and rest and create happiness.
I know that some people believe that to be liberal bullshit and some people believe it to be a waste of guns but I think that turning the guns into something passive is an act that is beautiful. Guns are not simply used to defend liberty and freedom…guns are used to kill the innocent.
Human beings haven’t evolved fast enough to deal with the technology they have developed. Guns are a relatively new invention on the scale of things, they allow killing that is far too easy and impersonal. Personally, I do not believe it should be that easy for humans to kill one another. Not when people are so prone to making mistakes, blind prejudice and outright stupidity.
Art like this makes me feel hopeful. I am glad to have seen it.
Mike, not to be paranoid or anything, but I think I agree with you…
Thing is, the way this country is set up, even the folks from the left side of the bell curve are allowed to own boomsticks. Personally, I wouldn’t mind an IQ test, but then one gets into all sorts of philosophical ramifications. Enough to make one’s head ‘splode like an overrrrrrripe zombie…
But I digress… Would this “furniture” (IMHO, real furniture is comfortable – I guess you only know it is “art” if it is a pain in the… well…) have gotten the same notice if it was carefully welded together from used machetes? From used hatchets?
Or used kitchen knives?
Personally, as overall functionality, and doubtless, comfort, are concerned, I suspect Ikea is far ahead (oooh… scathing criticism…). As a political statement, I think this is a weak gunophobic shot. Because the folks doing it have not thought of the ramifications of an unarmed, and helpless, society.
Do NOT condone genocide. Even if the nice people in the galleries never notice it.
Jesus instructed his disciples to buy a sword for personal self defense against wild animals and robbers during their travels. This was just before he was to die and he was preparing them for their ministry to the world after he was gone.
“He said to them, “But now one who has a money bag should take it, and likewise a sack, and one who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36 NAB
Shows imagination and creativity. Quite nice furniture, but as a firearm owner, I cannot support the cause.
It’s a shame, I’d like the bird or one of the benches.
Guns are tools- nothing more. I see no problem with making old tools into furniture. Especially cheap quickly made outdated tools.
It’s not like the person who made these chairs cut up anything that’s incredibly sophisticated or collectible. I would be inclined to complain if they were.
Sweet Jesus Lord in Heaven, why did you mangle those guns like so many dreams of poor children? They could have just sent them to the states. We can always use more parts.
I’m a sad gun panda.
Bob…
Bob, Bob, Bob…
I sense so much pent-up anger and hostility. Do you revere the pre-1898 Mauser? For what reason? It’s not like one could use them with smokeless powder (at least more than once…), and it’s not like they were constructed with a a great deal of care. In fact…
Do you know the meaning of the word “wallhanger?” That means that when the nice folks in the Century tent at Knob Creek (you may also want to look up some stuff around that…) sold me the thing, it didn’t have a bolt, was considered unsafe to fire, and I paid a whopping $20 for it, and about a kilo or so of cosmoline… For a shooter, pound for pound, and dollar for dollar, a Yugo or a Russian Moisin beats this hands down. I bought it to make a lamp. Period.
(now, before you get all peevaged, search for “knob creek” – let us know when you’re finished…)
It’s a nice lamp. It was a really, really crappy boomstick.
It’s also not the first boomstick to be made into a lamp – I regret that I’m not the first induhvidual to come up with that concept… FWIW, I’ve also got some nifty table lamps that are made from Russian -brass- artillery casings. They shined up quite nicely. They go quite well with the hand-grenade accent lamps with camo shades in my home theatre. Yes, I’m serious. Hey, it’s kinda fun sticking to a theme. Some people do westerns. Some people do bad 1960s sci-fi… Some people do porn. I have Bogie’s Bunker.
And if you want to know how I stand about boomsticks, do a search on my family. You may learn something. As it is, I’m irritated.
I’d buy a gun table and chairs if I knew I wouldn’t be putting money into the pockets of some whiny antigun liberal.
What better place to clean my AK than on a table made from old AKs. It would send a clear message to my guns: “Don’t let me down or this will be your fate, too”.
Will you please email me if I can buy any of this art! kupek@cox.net
I’ll concede 10 points for the idea, and some of the sculptures aren’t too bad, but the furniture is unimaginative in execution, dysfunctional, and generally ugly.
Liberal/conservative gun lover/hater political blahblahblah aside, it’s so interesting to me that angular straight-line raw materials like these trash guns have been so beautifully bent into flowing graceful lines! The dragon, elephant, table, bird, and chairs are all amazing works of the metal sculptors’ talent. Gun steel is really hard to work. I give great respect to these Cambodian artists who took these guns – which represent only pain and horror to the people of this war-ravaged country – and transformed them into art. I don’t know if they’re comfortable as furniture, but who cares?!
As far as calling these artworks “a waste of guns”, well, every city melts down thousands of illegal confiscated trash guns every year, because every gun ever made is not a sacred thing. Guns become garbage, like everything else beyond use. Making art out of trash guns is a good reuse of them that, in this case, gives comfort and pride to the survivors (and their children) of a terrible time in their collective history.
Weeeeelllll . . . it isn’t Biedermire, Frank Lloyd Wright or Stickley, but I think they’d all approve of the thought!
Quite creative, though one wonders if the arms couldn’t be melted down to form other more useful tools/infrastructures-say,’rebar’for rebuilding . . . ?
You know all ya’ll with the what a waste attitude-missed one vital fact-the Cambodian gov has already destroyed 125 thou guns and all that was done was to make art from something that WAS going to be wasted anyway-what a bunch of dingbats,,,,
As a form of art-to be appreciated for WHAT it is-not some forum for attitudes—these are sooo nice—I don’t believe in throwing away a perfectly good gun either—but these were being destroyed anyway-so why not art-I repeat-dingbats…learn to read more careful if ya want to argue so ya don’t sound so stupid…
To Dr. Kao Kim Hourn,
You seem to have a real problem with American gunowners, and you complain that guns were the problem in Cambodia. That’s interesting. Tell us; WHO was pulling all those triggers in the killing fields where millions of your friends and families died? Did those guns just shoot themselves?
By your logic, if you blame guns for genocide, then all guns should be exterminated. But by that same line of reasoning, if it were the Cambodian PEOPLE who commited that slaughter, should they then be in any moral position to preach to anyone else? You say you have a government army to protect you. So did the Jewish citizens of Nazi Germany, the dissidents of the Soviet Union, and even today the peasants in rural China. And what do all of them have in common with the bones in your fields? They too believed the biggest lie in the world- “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.” And then they paid for their trust with their lives.
We understand what NOT having freedom looks like. It looks like Cambodia, to anyone who dares to disagree with you and your government. Just like in North Korea, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and Vietnam, where guns don’t kill people- governments do, and usually in proportion to the degree that their citizens allow themselves to be disarmed first, like cattle to the slaughter.
They’re your guns; do with them as you please. I DO agree that we have no right to tell you what to do with them. Just as you have NO right to tell us in the US that since you believe in the “freedom” of governmental tyranny and that guns are “bad” for anyone (who might dare disagree with the government’s policies) else, that we need to come to Cambodia to understand the meaning of freedom. No thanks. I’d just as soon we stay here and you stay there, and stay out of each others’ lives. Besides, I’m sure your people will find new guns to use to slaughter each other the next time, just like you did before. You may have got rid of these guns, but you still have the same human nature. If THAT had truly changed, you wouldn’t feel the need to worry about disarming your people. The fact that your government supports this very thing should serve as a warning to your own people about your true intentions. If your people were TRUELY free, why make such an issue of disarming them? Or does your government consider its subjects to be such savages that they are incapable of having weapons without resorting to first attacking each other like before, and then- heaven forbid- turning on their government “masters” such as yourself in the next purges? Yes, your version of ‘freedom” is crystal clear; the “freedom” to accept subservience to the State, without the means to resist whatever whims your government chooses to pursue.
But on a side note; would this make them now “weapons of ass destruction”?
During the 1980s, researchers Jay Simkin and Aaron Zelman became interested in the Nazi laws that set the stage for the Holocaust in Europe during WWII. They discovered that not some but all the major genocides committed worldwide over the 20th Century involved disarming the public shortly before the purges began (oddly, the gun control laws were generally instituted by governments that lost power before a genocidal regime took over).
Among the worst of these crimes to take place in the 20th Century were: ·
Ottoman Empire, Turkey, 1915-1917, 1.5 Million Armenians.
Soviet Union, 1929-1953, 20 Million Anti-Stalinists/Anti-Communists.
Nazi Germany and Occupied Europe, 1933-1945, 13 Million Jews, Gypsies, Christians, Gays, and Anti-Nazis.
China, 1949-1976, Anti-Communists, 20 Million Rural Populations, Pro- Reform Groups, 20 million, 1935.
Guatemala, 1960-1981, Maya Indians 100,000.
Uganda, 1971-1979, Christians and Political Rivals, 300,000.
Cambodia, 1975-1979, Educated Persons, 1 million.
Rwanda, 1994, Tutsi men, women, and children, nearly 1 million.
Surely 56 million bodies suggest a pattern of failure for gun control. When such laws are passed, they set the stage for a government that can operate without any checks from its citizenry.
America’s founding founders put the right to own arms into our Bill of Rights with good reason. Our statesmen knew about the French government’s mass persecutions of the disarmed Huguenots in the previous century (and a number of the survivors of this persecution had fled to the colonies to settle}; they also knew of the government excesses that occurred in Britain during its Civil War, of the horrors of .the “Glorious Revolution,” and the religious persecutions in 17th-century England. They had also seen first hand what professional troops can do to citizens who are unable to defend themselves. Little wonder they wanted a population that could defend itself from criminals, government scoundrels, or invading forces.
As the late Vice President Hubert Humphrey put it, “The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
Those who beat their swords into plows, will plow the fields of those still with swords.
An armed man is a citizen, and unarmed man is a subject.
A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” ~~ George Washington
The furniture is a waste. Those ak’s would have been better used if donated to people being slaughtered in Dar-fur or any other place around the world where innocent people are losing there lives due to the inability to defend themselves.
To Jay:
I appreciate your joking more than your thinking. I get a big laugh from your ass destruction joke. That was much funny like the way you spell “truly” in the wrong way. You are funny guy and you right about one thing: guns do not kill, but people do. PEOPLE WITH GUNS!!!
Before you talk about my country and Cambodian people (which you never visit I bet) I tell you that I go to high school in Ohio and college in Texas so I know your country and American people very well.
I tell you now, in Ohio and Texas I see many rednecks with guns. Do I care if fat redneck shoot each other? NO! If I want see redneck I go to tractor pull or Cracker Barrel restaurant. I stay away from redneck all the time. Is easy because I go to school every day and after that go to college and learn. And take bath.
Big problem is when stupid fat redneck like Mr. Jay get paranoid because he feel small inside (maybe small other place too, haha) so he buy big gun to feel like big man. Then Mr. Stupid Fat Redneck get scared by some person maybe stupid drunk teenager come on his lawn. Then Jay Redneck say “get off my lawn” and shoot teenager with gun. Teenager is dead now, but Jay is still stupid fat redneck, but in jail now. You call it protect your property, but why you not call police first, red Jay fatneck? You like shoot guns to make you feel big man but now you little redneck in big jail. YOU LEARN LESSON NOW!!!
anyone remember that episode when they turned all the guns into a playground or something lol… kids sliding down the slides and shots firing from it hahaha…. and then the zombies came and they couldn’t defend themselves.
therefor, this is not a very unique idea, just something stolen from a cartoon.
woops… forgot to post what cartoon it was SIMPSONS!!
interesting to read all those statements. interesting and shocking, too.
AmericanVet, you are forgetting the several million native americans killed….
but who cares now. it has been a while
the art is not quite my style. but i like many others, i like the elephant. and if i had a garden i would maybe take that bench. using that material is smart. if you can get steel for free, then why not use it wisely? why not use it for the things you need the most. if i look around me, i have plenty of stuff but still some things missing. i could use a sofa, some lamps would be nice, and i need something to stop my neighbor spying in. i do not even have a car. but i bet, i have more than the normal Cambodian can dream of right now. i hope it will give the people of Cambodia hope and strength to start a new community. freedom comes in many stages i think. to defend some property, you first need to own some. in a world without much, few is a lot. i saw documentaries about Cambodia. it is still a dangerous place in many areas. people there try to get along with mines in their fields and no one would need a gun, if he still needed a spade or shovel, or maybe a bike to go to work or to the market. give them guns? what would they use the for?
i know many free societies without guns. Germany is one, France surely is one…. i could easily go on and on. those countries have very low gun-shot-statistics compared to the US btw. and do not think every murder will instead be performed by men with knives and axes. they just do not happen, because it is much more work to cut someone in half, than to pull that tiny trigger once or twice.
well… i stop here, because i need to get things done. i hope some of you do not mean what they posted.
hennef
Very nice ! Great article !
nice internet page.
Sacrilege!!!
The furniture look beautiful but still displaying a lot of horror.
Good work
Great, love it.
And the fact that it annoys you gun nut, freak-bags makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.
What the bet all you people who think this is the ‘greatest art crime ever committed’ are yanks? hmm?
These AKs were not much use when you ‘brave’ americans were dropping bombs on innocent Cambodians from 30000 feet, so I guess that blows your warped theories out of the air.
Good art encourages debate. Well done.
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