A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used in order to inflict damage or harm to enemies or other living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, and warfare. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary.
While ordinary objects such as sticks, stones or cars can be used as weapons, many are expressly designed for the purpose - ranging from simple implements such as clubs to swords and guns and on to complicated modern intercontinental ballistic missiles, biological and cyberweapons.
Read more about Weapon: Legislation
Famous quotes containing the word weapon:
“It is my duty to prevent, through the independence of Cuba, the U.S.A. from spreading over the West Indies and falling with added weight upon other lands of Our America. All I have done up to now and shall do hereafter is to that end.... I know the Monster, because I have lived in its lair—and my weapon is only the slingshot of David.”
—José Martí (1853–1895)
“What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The weapon of the Republic is terror, and virtue is its strength.”
—Georg Büchner (1813–1837)