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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nice internet page!!

Just now examined the topic. Awesome job.