(b) a bellowing, rageful cow is nobody's friend.

I dunno. Sometimes they run and crash into things in amusing ways.

In both cases, I would call them herding tools, until they were being used on me.

Do guns firing rubber bullets fall under this exception?

Mostly when I think of whips outside the bedroom I think of recalcitrant slaves strapped up and beaten, so I don't need (or want) one to be used on me to appreciate their potential for death and damage.

It's kinda how you're supposed to do it. Not startling. Appropriate.

I tend to think whips have more of a nudge, nudge, wink, wink place in the public consciousness rather than a "you could put an eye out with that thing" kind of place. What was the last mainstream movie where a whip was used primarily as a weapon, rather than a threat? Even the Indiana Jones movies generally used the whip as a batbelt.

Also, I'd be pretty startled if I sprouted a bullet hole too, so I'd argue that they're both pretty startling, properly used.

Startlingly lethal, though? You'd really think "Wow. A gun killed a person. Didn't see that coming!"

not even a Christina Aguilera corset dress joke?

Well, I know what my nightmares tonight will be about.

Startlingly lethal, though? You'd really think "Wow. A gun killed a person. Didn't see that coming!"

Actually, if I thought anything, it would probably be "FUCK! I've been SHOT!"

if I thought anything, it would probably be "FUCK! I've been SHOT!"

So most lethal weapons are startlingly so, then? As long as you are the one in jeopardy?

Your initial post wasn't from the victim's POV, so I didn't realise that's what you meant.

Your initial post wasn't from the victim's POV, so I didn't realise that's what you meant.

*sigh*

I startle easy, okay?

Do guns firing rubber bullets fall under this exception?

No, because cowpokes in the wild old west did not use rubber bullets. Moreover, I can't see as how rubber bullets would work very well on cattle, since I believe the shooter is meant to be some distance away from his targets, thus reducing the classical conditioning usefulness of the pain the rubber bullets cause.

Semantics is funny. I can see a bullwhip as a weapon only if there's also a human victim in the picture, but the cat-o-nine-tails? A weapon and nothing else. (It has no use that I know of, except as a weapon.) A scythe is a tool, unless juxtaposed with a human victim (or a wielder with a maniacal grin staring out of the picture at me). A rake is a tool, and you could probably club someone to death with it, but that's not the first thing that leaps to my mind. (Not the plastic kind of rake, but the old wooden kind.)

or a wielder with a maniacal grin staring out of the picture at me

I first read this was "welder." It was a strange image.