I've seen this approach before (i.e. in my defensive pistol class, we don't use the word "weapon") and I don't buy it. A gun is a weapon. Sure, you can call it a tool, but when used for the purpose of defending one's life or Liberty, it's a very specific kind of tool, and that kind of tool is a weapon.
Just because Homo Sapiens evolved into a being sophisticated enough to learn to use tools (some of which are weapons) doesn't mean that a gun isn't a weapon.
Here's the definition of weapon according to Merriam-Webster
1 : something (as a club, knife, or gun) used to injure, defeat, or destroy
weapon, n.
1 any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon.
2 anything used against an opponent, adversary, or victim:
the deadly weapon of satire. …
firearm, n. a small arms weapon, as a rifle or pistol, from which a projectile is fired by gunpowder.
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, 1998
I can look up words too. Maybe it's time to look beyond your “defensive pistol class” and see that there is a world beyond what teachers can and will show you. This is an irony that you won’t get, I doubt you know how I live.
Are you a shaman? Have you named your guns? How about your car?
Anthropomorphize much?
A firearm is nothing but a tool built to do one thing; discharge a piece of lead when a trigger is pulled. I know a woman that can outshoot most people I have met. What does she use her Aushutz rifle for? What else can she use it for?
What is a hammer? A formed piece of steel with a steel handle, most people use it to push nails in to wood to build shelter. What else can they use it for?
In my vehicle I have a small hatchet. What do I use it for? Cutting wood, if I flip it over I can use it as a hammer. What else can I use it for?
Do you own a car? No; a bicycle? Feet; ever worn boots? You say you are an Army Veteran, so you must have at one time. What can you use your feet for? What else can you use a shod foot for?
How do I use this? What else can I use this for? That is what makes us all sapient. You may look as a firearm as a means to “injure, defeat, or destroy”, I look at it as a tool. Nothing more than what it is told to do. We as sentient beings tell it what to do. Sit here and do nothing, come apart and be cleaned, stay in this holster and pull my belt down and make me walk different. Stay in this holster, wait for this buzzer to sound and help me beat my last score. Stay here and wait patiently until my elderly mother needs you to protect her when someone breaks into her house at night.
Are these not what we ask of inanimate objects?
Or do you give them a life, a mind, a means of self awareness to their own?
No matter what they are. They will always be tools, not because we made them, but because they have no means to declare itself as more than just a tool.
Do you?