Of course this would get upvoted on HN. A blog post by an impractical contrarian outsider who's seriously suggesting that the entire world replace advanced weaponry with stuff that got phased out hundreds of years ago, because it would be "low-tech and sustainable". He even suggests that it's unrealistic not because it's the opposite of the entire point of weapons (to kill more things faster and easier), but because it would require "global cooperation" and "uninventing things".
The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed.
> The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed.
Personally, I find discussion about hypothetical, albeit completely impractical, ways we could avoid killing each other a much better use of time than a lot of other topics, like discussing ways we could kill each other more efficiently.
I agree for less pessimistic reasons. The Hacker News crowd prefers intellectually stimulating conversation. Playing around with new ideas. Considering unexplored alternatives.
A huge pillar of this community is exploring ideas. Engaging in that doesn't mean that any of us think this could happen in the real world.
I've revised my own opinion of this. Its premise may be as absurd as you suggest, but I think that's just a framing device to compare the two weapons. Normally, they're incomparable in the same way that comparing a packmule to a container ship is. Both of those might be used to transport goods, but writing up a comparison to the two is difficult to do without some way to frame it in a way that could engage the reader.
And whatever other effect he might have on you, he engaged you enough to leave this comment. I think it worked.
A much simpler solution is to just ensure that politicians' children (and politicians themselves on rotation, perhaps) are the very first to the front lines in any given war they choose to conduct.
Impractical ideas can be entertaining, even useful, thought exercises. Valid ideas and discussions can occur, even if the starting point is out of reach.
Entire article begins with "What If" and then explores it seriously. What if questions are important even if the subsequent topic isn't fundamentally serious.
Um...have you ever noticed just how many interesting-but-of-no-practical-use-whatever things are popular on HN? We are for-sure not setting public policy priorities here.
I mean, the universe will eventually die in heat death - and long before that Earth will become inhospitable - and even before that - we'll probably get smashed by some giant meteor or something.
Smart people wasting braincells on pointless thought experiments does not make us doomed.
On the contrary, the extremely-rare crazy idea that turns out to be genius is probably worth all the pointless debate.
I think the point of the article was to show how much more lethal the average human has become over the years. The initial question, was clickbait.
>> Rather than being technically superior weapons, firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance. The main reason most European armies switched from bows to crossbows and then firearms was the short learning curves of these weapons. Crossbowmen and musketeers required little or no training, while it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare. The crossbow and the firearm thus expanded the number of people in a given population that could become soldiers. That was great news for those in power because they could now build large armies quickly.
I guess you didn't read much of lowtechmag, which is definitely just about the opposite of "impractical", being much centered on actual experimentation, detailed technical analysis etc. But then again "of course people on HN" would get offended by such slightly technocritical pov.
> suggesting that the entire world replace advanced weaponry with stuff that got phased out hundreds of years ago
Exactly what part of the title starting with "What if" did you not understand? This article -- like several other on the website, but for this one it's particularly obvious -- are thought experiment, designed very much to confront people with unusual ideas and hence make the current norm more obvious.
I read it as a stimulating thought experiment. It's supposed to get you thinking outside of those well worn ruts. Of course, those ruts are often well worn because they are tried and true, but it's nice to go off road once in a while.
The point of weapons is a bit complicated. One interpretation is that they create fear of engaging in violence in the first place. In that respect the killing ability may be secondary.
Not to dismiss the entire HN community (theres some good discussion on here and it probably swings a bit older than most places) but the majority of people who even have the time to vote and comment on the internet tend to be younger and pretty naive. This is especially true on places like Reddit.
I'm trying not to be mean, but this article is so naive and insular that it's almost like it was published on a solar powered website or something. Like bikes and cars, we have both bows and arrows and guns already. We use them according to our requirements and their performance characteristics. That pretty much means bows get used for fun and to get a few extra weeks of hunting season, and guns are used for everything else. We use bikes more because there are more cases when they are useful. It's not a philosophical question for anyone trying to choose the right tool for actual, real world job.
I appreciate the research and comparisons, but framing it like "what if we replaced..." is childish. I hunt with a traditional bow for my own reasons, and also hunt with rifles. It's interesting on its own to compare them and talk about their history, and the transitionary period where they were both used in combat. But it kind of ruins the story to trot out a silly argument like it's worth serious consideration.
> Why did firearms and bullets replace bows and arrows? To many, this sounds like a stupid question with an obvious answer: the firearm succeeded the bow because it’s a superior weapon.
This is objectively true now and has been for a while, though the article goes into detail about how it was far from being true in the early days of the firearm.
> firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance.
> Crossbowmen and musketeers required little or no training, while it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare.
As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies.
> It would decrease the number of people in a given population who could become effective soldiers
We're doing a fine enough job of that already, with sedentary lifestyles leading to fat and unhealthy people.
The author misses on a few points and the article comes across as nostalgic more than realistic.
First: violence was a lot worse before, so what makes the author think going back in time with weapons is actually good?
Second: that guns allow the weak to be as threatening as the strong is considered a feature by many people; an equalizing force. As the saying goes: "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal." The idea that you can find vulnerable people and exploit them without fear is a big driver of violence -- but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force.
Third, the author goes on about the sustainability of guns. But arrows are a lot bigger and more expensive, so I question the idea that they'd be made sustainably. "Artisanal" means wood, I suppose, and that could be much more problematic than a few factories cranking out bullets. People would reuse arrows more, but there are also a lot more people today so that would really involve some kind of industrial process and I doubt it comes out as a net advantage.
Even when it comes to public safety, I'm not quite sure it's a win. We are pretty safe most places, and in the US, violence is mostly local to known areas.
He says guns are no more/less dangerous than bow and arrow when comparing the best bowman to anyone with a gun.
Yeah, the best bowman can fire an arrow every 5-6 seconds. But that random person off the street that is having a mental breakdown and wants to kill a bunch of people as a type of suicide? Yeah, he's not going to be a world class bowman.
Seems like a good article about the long histories of two types of weapons, and the many deeper differences between them - accuracy, training, supply chains, etc.
Beyond the the obvious (both nasty nations and scared nations will keep their guns and bullets), the article seems blind to the fact that artillery, landmines, and other non-gun weapons cause ~90% of casualties on modern battlefields. Granted that those things fall under the same "it would be so much better if only..." idealism - but omitting them throws some credibility shadow on their historical account.
At the introduction I thought the article was trolling. In the middle I thought it was instead just an interesting way to present info about bows and arrows. By the end I realized the author is serious and the premise is silly.
If getting everyone to move to bows is feasible, why make that the goal? We should instead solve all conflicts with dance offs and rap battles. Ooh, or a walk off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU
>Medieval English longbow archers only used such high draw weights because their arrows had to penetrate thick steel plate armor
Experimental archeology shows that this was not the case. Arrows could not penetrate thick plate, and could only defeat plate armor by shooting a large number of arrows and hoping to hit a weak point. The Youtube channel "Tod's Workshop" has done many tests with reproduction bows/arrows/armor, designed to replicate typical equipment and technique (featuring archer Joe Gibbs shooting an impressive 160lb draw weight) from the Battle of Agincourt era. Medieval plate armor was highly effective.
Good introduction video is "MEDIEVAL ARMOUR TESTED! - Arrows vs Amour 2":
So, in the firearms community there's this old argument about bolt action rifles vs modern rifles in which some naive people believe that in combat bolt action rifles could compete with modern gear. Usually phrased as "one shot is all you need" so a bolt action is "just as good". This is that argument, taken to it's absolute most naive, braindead, delusional conclusion. If a force of the best archers went up against a disorderly militia of West Virginian hillbillies with their average armament, the result would be an utter massacre. The ability to penetrate cover, fire repeatedly, fire accurately, suppress the enemy, and do so while pressed against the ground or against cover would win the day every time.
> Hand-held firearms are usually assessed or compared in terms of performance characteristics such as lethality, range, and rate of fire.
Can someone link one of those assessments?
Most assessments I've seen usually focus on accuracy, penetration, and reliability.
Accuracy is usually measured in MoA in US.
Penetration is usually measured using ballistic gel. (12 to 16 inches against an unarmored human)
Reliability is measured with "Mean Rounds Between Failure".
Effective and Maximum Range, and fire rate of weapon is definitely measured, but it's not something that I would think is highlighted compared the other metrics above.
I'm not sure how one would measure "lethality". Debate over "stopping power" goes back a long way, but it's not something that I've seen is easily measured or compared against.
It could be argued that things like lethality and range are measured when doing cartridge selection. For stuff like how lethality is measured I'd highly recommend Weapon of Choice by Dr. Matthew Ford. All that said, OP is obviously clueless and delusional
This is a pretty interesting article but the conclusion is literally insane:
> For all these reasons, rather than keeping weapons out of the sustainability discussion – they should be our focus. If we cannot imagine low-tech warfare, we cannot imagine a low-tech, sustainable, and fair society. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it would require global cooperation, but the same holds for lowering the emissions from fossil fuels. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it involves “uninventing” things, but this also applies to many other problematic everyday products.
> Indeed, military technology is one of the few domains in which we have collectively decided not to use certain technologies. Humanity has banned many types of weapons in warfare, such as chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, and poisoned bullets. Meanwhile, no country has succeeded in outlawing SUVs, although their danger to other road users and the environment is well-known. As weird as it sounds, military technology leads by example
While soldiers carry firearms, due to decades of tradition designed to reduce the possibility of an escalation, agreements disallowed usage of firearms, but the Chinese side was reported to possess iron rods, clubs and batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails.[191][192] Hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the Indian soldiers called for reinforcements from a post about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. Eventually, up to 600 men were engaged in combat using stones, batons, iron rods, and other makeshift weapons. The fighting, which took place in near-total darkness, lasted for up to six hours.
The fighting resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers ... While three Indian soldiers died on the spot, others died later due to injuries and hypothermia.[199] Most of the soldiers who were killed fell to their deaths after losing their footing or being pushed off a ridge.[193] The clash took place near the fast-flowing Galwan River, and some soldiers from both sides fell into a rivulet and were killed or injured. ... According to Indian media sources, the mêlée resulted in 43 Chinese casualties.
Replace? Currently there's a choice of either. If someone wishes to use bow and arrow, they can.
This is a thinly veiled 'lets ban guns' but this is naive at best and when you understand why the second amendment is literally 300 IQ. Banning guns is not even close to the realm of possible.
I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. Though I expect restrictions like the lack of fully automatics will be written more explicitly.
Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.
> I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment.
The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it.
> Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.
You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty.
It's a nice composite bow, I'll give you that. But the engraving gives you no tactical advantage whatsoever. Unless you were planning to auction it off as a collector's item. And you're forgetting one more basic thing… You don't have what it takes to kill a home invader.
Man, that's a softball question. "The world has a lot more pipe bombs and hand grenades".
More seriously, several of the assertions in this piece are seriously borked.
OK, a few paras in: "a bow with a draw weight of 45 lbs can kill almost any creature on this planet". Umm, no? Maybe a "HELL naw man". It doesn't even sound true if you think about it, say, medium-hard. He's also comparing bow maximum ranges with aimed rifle precision ranges, another "the hell is this guy thinking" sort of assertion. Historical stuff: "became the dominant hand-held missile weapons from the 1500s onwards" Nope, he is at least a century too early here, possible a century and a half - hell, the Spanish colunellas was only invented in 1510, to say nothing of it being successfully implemented.
I'm done. After all that we don't even touch on the actual reason for firearms in the early modern period, which is . . they're cheap as hell. It's an iron tube with special dirt. And it can be fired by a conscript peasant with a couple days' training. Every other missile weapon is orders of magnitude more costly, and only occasionally maybe marginally better in some edge cases.
I totally dig on the idea of sustainable ranged weapons, but dude . . you gotta get some better background if you want to get taken serious.
Sorry this sounds kinda hostile. I am sure the author is a great person and really smart. I'd probably really enjoy hanging out with him.
Tangentially related: in Joe Haldeman's SF novel "The Forever War", at some point "stasis field generators" are added to the arsenal. They limit the maximum speed (of matter and photons) inside a small volume of space to less than 20 m/s (not counting the insides of specially shielded space suits). If you want to root out enemy troops holed up inside the field, you need to get in with bows, arrows, javelins and swords.
When I was in middle school and daydreamed about sci fi futures and robot wars, I wondered about a giant steel bow as a robotic sniper's weapon.
A 4' tungsten needle at high subsonic speed would be a scary thing. Maximum range of 5+ km, almost silent, and able to punch through meters of concrete. It's not quite an anti-tank weapon, but if it hit a car or a person it would just leave a hole and a thump. It'd go right through an engine block and bury itself into the ground so deeply that the hole would fill itself back.
I've also seen what a modern broadhead can do to a moose. Warning: this video is horrible.
That arrow goes right through the ribcage and shreds a lung. The animal coughs up a pint of blood immediately. In less than a minute it passes out from blood loss.
All to say... maybe we wouldn't kill people on the scale of a nuclear bomb. But if humans really tried to go to war with arrows, it would be awful. Guns are better at killing than they ever have been, but bows have also gotten better.
Sounds like a slippery slope. First we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows, then somebody will want to replace bows and arrows with slings and rocks.
> In the hands of skillful and strong archers, bows can thus produce a similar rate of fire as semi-automatic weapons, and they can outperform guns and pistols.
This is ridiculously false on its face. Pick a novice and give them 1 hour of training and they'll be able to shoot faster and sustain that rate of fire with a modern semi-automatic pistol than any expert archer in the world.
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|2 years ago|reply
The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed.
[+] [-] drtz|2 years ago|reply
Personally, I find discussion about hypothetical, albeit completely impractical, ways we could avoid killing each other a much better use of time than a lot of other topics, like discussing ways we could kill each other more efficiently.
[+] [-] PaulStatezny|2 years ago|reply
I agree for less pessimistic reasons. The Hacker News crowd prefers intellectually stimulating conversation. Playing around with new ideas. Considering unexplored alternatives.
A huge pillar of this community is exploring ideas. Engaging in that doesn't mean that any of us think this could happen in the real world.
[+] [-] NoMoreNicksLeft|2 years ago|reply
And whatever other effect he might have on you, he engaged you enough to leave this comment. I think it worked.
[+] [-] cplusplusfellow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bioneuralnet|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_dev|2 years ago|reply
Entire article begins with "What If" and then explores it seriously. What if questions are important even if the subsequent topic isn't fundamentally serious.
[+] [-] tacitusarc|2 years ago|reply
This, after detailed explanations that amount to why firearms are technically superior.
It is very silly.
[+] [-] bell-cot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|2 years ago|reply
I agree with you, except no.
I mean, the universe will eventually die in heat death - and long before that Earth will become inhospitable - and even before that - we'll probably get smashed by some giant meteor or something.
Smart people wasting braincells on pointless thought experiments does not make us doomed.
On the contrary, the extremely-rare crazy idea that turns out to be genius is probably worth all the pointless debate.
[+] [-] PaulStatezny|2 years ago|reply
I agree for less pessimistic reasons. The Hacker News crowd prefers intellectually stimulating conversation. Considering unexplored alternatives.
Exploring ideas is a huge pillar of this community. Engaging in that process doesn't mean that any of us think this could happen in the real world.
[+] [-] adamredwoods|2 years ago|reply
>> Rather than being technically superior weapons, firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance. The main reason most European armies switched from bows to crossbows and then firearms was the short learning curves of these weapons. Crossbowmen and musketeers required little or no training, while it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare. The crossbow and the firearm thus expanded the number of people in a given population that could become soldiers. That was great news for those in power because they could now build large armies quickly.
[+] [-] lapinot|2 years ago|reply
I guess you didn't read much of lowtechmag, which is definitely just about the opposite of "impractical", being much centered on actual experimentation, detailed technical analysis etc. But then again "of course people on HN" would get offended by such slightly technocritical pov.
> suggesting that the entire world replace advanced weaponry with stuff that got phased out hundreds of years ago
Exactly what part of the title starting with "What if" did you not understand? This article -- like several other on the website, but for this one it's particularly obvious -- are thought experiment, designed very much to confront people with unusual ideas and hence make the current norm more obvious.
[+] [-] metabagel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod600|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jareklupinski|2 years ago|reply
Veteran's Day is being observed today in the US
not all of us but some are a bit bored today :)
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] trident5000|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdbert|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalbasal|2 years ago|reply
It's something else. Mental habits that are entirely rhetorically based. Basically, George Orwell's nightmare
[+] [-] rhyme-boss|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gottorf|2 years ago|reply
This is objectively true now and has been for a while, though the article goes into detail about how it was far from being true in the early days of the firearm.
> firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance.
> Crossbowmen and musketeers required little or no training, while it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare.
As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies.
> It would decrease the number of people in a given population who could become effective soldiers
We're doing a fine enough job of that already, with sedentary lifestyles leading to fat and unhealthy people.
[+] [-] chmod600|2 years ago|reply
First: violence was a lot worse before, so what makes the author think going back in time with weapons is actually good?
Second: that guns allow the weak to be as threatening as the strong is considered a feature by many people; an equalizing force. As the saying goes: "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal." The idea that you can find vulnerable people and exploit them without fear is a big driver of violence -- but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force.
Third, the author goes on about the sustainability of guns. But arrows are a lot bigger and more expensive, so I question the idea that they'd be made sustainably. "Artisanal" means wood, I suppose, and that could be much more problematic than a few factories cranking out bullets. People would reuse arrows more, but there are also a lot more people today so that would really involve some kind of industrial process and I doubt it comes out as a net advantage.
Even when it comes to public safety, I'm not quite sure it's a win. We are pretty safe most places, and in the US, violence is mostly local to known areas.
[+] [-] malfist|2 years ago|reply
He says guns are no more/less dangerous than bow and arrow when comparing the best bowman to anyone with a gun.
Yeah, the best bowman can fire an arrow every 5-6 seconds. But that random person off the street that is having a mental breakdown and wants to kill a bunch of people as a type of suicide? Yeah, he's not going to be a world class bowman.
[+] [-] metabagel|2 years ago|reply
This isn’t self-evident. In fact, evidence suggests that more guns leads to more violence. But, we continue the experiment in the U.S.
[+] [-] bell-cot|2 years ago|reply
Beyond the the obvious (both nasty nations and scared nations will keep their guns and bullets), the article seems blind to the fact that artillery, landmines, and other non-gun weapons cause ~90% of casualties on modern battlefields. Granted that those things fall under the same "it would be so much better if only..." idealism - but omitting them throws some credibility shadow on their historical account.
[+] [-] dbrueck|2 years ago|reply
If getting everyone to move to bows is feasible, why make that the goal? We should instead solve all conflicts with dance offs and rap battles. Ooh, or a walk off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU
[+] [-] martythemaniak|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrob|2 years ago|reply
Experimental archeology shows that this was not the case. Arrows could not penetrate thick plate, and could only defeat plate armor by shooting a large number of arrows and hoping to hit a weak point. The Youtube channel "Tod's Workshop" has done many tests with reproduction bows/arrows/armor, designed to replicate typical equipment and technique (featuring archer Joe Gibbs shooting an impressive 160lb draw weight) from the Battle of Agincourt era. Medieval plate armor was highly effective.
Good introduction video is "MEDIEVAL ARMOUR TESTED! - Arrows vs Amour 2":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo
[+] [-] some_random|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeonik|2 years ago|reply
Can someone link one of those assessments?
Most assessments I've seen usually focus on accuracy, penetration, and reliability.
Accuracy is usually measured in MoA in US.
Penetration is usually measured using ballistic gel. (12 to 16 inches against an unarmored human)
Reliability is measured with "Mean Rounds Between Failure".
Effective and Maximum Range, and fire rate of weapon is definitely measured, but it's not something that I would think is highlighted compared the other metrics above.
I'm not sure how one would measure "lethality". Debate over "stopping power" goes back a long way, but it's not something that I've seen is easily measured or compared against.
[+] [-] some_random|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tticvs|2 years ago|reply
> For all these reasons, rather than keeping weapons out of the sustainability discussion – they should be our focus. If we cannot imagine low-tech warfare, we cannot imagine a low-tech, sustainable, and fair society. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it would require global cooperation, but the same holds for lowering the emissions from fossil fuels. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it involves “uninventing” things, but this also applies to many other problematic everyday products.
> Indeed, military technology is one of the few domains in which we have collectively decided not to use certain technologies. Humanity has banned many types of weapons in warfare, such as chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, and poisoned bullets. Meanwhile, no country has succeeded in outlawing SUVs, although their danger to other road users and the environment is well-known. As weird as it sounds, military technology leads by example
[+] [-] ortusdux|2 years ago|reply
While soldiers carry firearms, due to decades of tradition designed to reduce the possibility of an escalation, agreements disallowed usage of firearms, but the Chinese side was reported to possess iron rods, clubs and batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails.[191][192] Hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the Indian soldiers called for reinforcements from a post about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. Eventually, up to 600 men were engaged in combat using stones, batons, iron rods, and other makeshift weapons. The fighting, which took place in near-total darkness, lasted for up to six hours.
The fighting resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers ... While three Indian soldiers died on the spot, others died later due to injuries and hypothermia.[199] Most of the soldiers who were killed fell to their deaths after losing their footing or being pushed off a ridge.[193] The clash took place near the fast-flowing Galwan River, and some soldiers from both sides fell into a rivulet and were killed or injured. ... According to Indian media sources, the mêlée resulted in 43 Chinese casualties.
[+] [-] incomingpain|2 years ago|reply
This is a thinly veiled 'lets ban guns' but this is naive at best and when you understand why the second amendment is literally 300 IQ. Banning guns is not even close to the realm of possible.
I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. Though I expect restrictions like the lack of fully automatics will be written more explicitly.
Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.
[+] [-] metabagel|2 years ago|reply
The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it.
> Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.
You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty.
[+] [-] pawelmurias|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nonethewiser|2 years ago|reply
Clearing a room with a bow and arrow? This is some really ignorant, ivory tower drivel.
[+] [-] denton-scratch|2 years ago|reply
I always assumed the name came from the weapon invariably having the shape of an arc.
[+] [-] adrian_b|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hef19898|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avgcorrection|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MilStdJunkie|2 years ago|reply
More seriously, several of the assertions in this piece are seriously borked.
OK, a few paras in: "a bow with a draw weight of 45 lbs can kill almost any creature on this planet". Umm, no? Maybe a "HELL naw man". It doesn't even sound true if you think about it, say, medium-hard. He's also comparing bow maximum ranges with aimed rifle precision ranges, another "the hell is this guy thinking" sort of assertion. Historical stuff: "became the dominant hand-held missile weapons from the 1500s onwards" Nope, he is at least a century too early here, possible a century and a half - hell, the Spanish colunellas was only invented in 1510, to say nothing of it being successfully implemented.
I'm done. After all that we don't even touch on the actual reason for firearms in the early modern period, which is . . they're cheap as hell. It's an iron tube with special dirt. And it can be fired by a conscript peasant with a couple days' training. Every other missile weapon is orders of magnitude more costly, and only occasionally maybe marginally better in some edge cases.
I totally dig on the idea of sustainable ranged weapons, but dude . . you gotta get some better background if you want to get taken serious.
Sorry this sounds kinda hostile. I am sure the author is a great person and really smart. I'd probably really enjoy hanging out with him.
[+] [-] gattr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finnh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] porkbeer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hwillis|2 years ago|reply
A 4' tungsten needle at high subsonic speed would be a scary thing. Maximum range of 5+ km, almost silent, and able to punch through meters of concrete. It's not quite an anti-tank weapon, but if it hit a car or a person it would just leave a hole and a thump. It'd go right through an engine block and bury itself into the ground so deeply that the hole would fill itself back.
I've also seen what a modern broadhead can do to a moose. Warning: this video is horrible.
https://youtu.be/3VhEYvHdVa0?si=vsK_aWdSxJ3ylYpU&t=70
That arrow goes right through the ribcage and shreds a lung. The animal coughs up a pint of blood immediately. In less than a minute it passes out from blood loss.
All to say... maybe we wouldn't kill people on the scale of a nuclear bomb. But if humans really tried to go to war with arrows, it would be awful. Guns are better at killing than they ever have been, but bows have also gotten better.
[+] [-] ksherlock|2 years ago|reply
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/72713/why-were-s...
[+] [-] sparrish|2 years ago|reply
This is ridiculously false on its face. Pick a novice and give them 1 hour of training and they'll be able to shoot faster and sustain that rate of fire with a modern semi-automatic pistol than any expert archer in the world.