Why isn't a gun considered an elegant weapon?

[BlackSaint09]

Its simply a too simple weapon to use. Swordsmanship requires an understanding of what you are doing however one can use a gun off the bat.
Thus making it a weapon that can be used by anybody. Also it really is a kind of "Instakill".
Pull the trigger and its over.

I suppose thats my opinion on the matter.
And i think those bases were covered already so feel free to ignore.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Hell you can even add decals or engravements to give them that last touch of finesse.

You can do that with every weapon. Ever.

Guns aren't considered elegant because they aren't. They're downright blue-collar. Anybody can pick up a gun and use it to varying effect. Though the same can be said of other weapons, when it comes to the 'varying effect' bit but when someone picks up a pistol, the chance of successfully using it is far greater than that same inexperienced person picking up a whip or a butterfly knife.

 

[mad825]

Basic melee and ranged weapons are simple and when used in a complex yet stylish way makes them elegant however when advanced melee and ranged weapons are used they become "common" (streamlined) and more easier to use thus it loses the awe when someone can perfect the skill.

Weapons are designed to kill and not to impress, treating a weapon other than a weapon shows that you are trying to earn dick points.

It's subjective from generation to generation however the further back in history it comes from the more elegant it seems to be.

 

[Spoon E11]

Guns are considered crude because they are a tool because it does too much for you. I will give you that they are complex. But they lack the finesse of a sword or a bow. IDK why they just seem to work that way.

 

[Catalyst6]

It's mostly because a sword is a romanticized weapon that is only used in situations where you can be "elegant" and dance around, while a gun is more of an everyday tool. Guns have been knocked down to the same level as beaning someone over the head with a wrench, they are the functional workhorses to the sword's preening but useless stallion.

That being said, there are some situations where a gun can be "elegant". Take sniper rifles, for example. It takes a lot of skill and training to use them, and much more to use them *well*. The same could be said for military pilots and the planes that they use (Okay, a jet isn't a "gun" per se but it's still a weapon of the same sort).

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Because mastery of the use of a firearm is a comparatively simple task where mastery of the use of a sword takes many lifetimes to achieve.

 

[mike1921]

Because guns work at a range and can't be blocked (at least not by any living thing. Who knows what kind of crazy robot will be made efficient to create). If I want to kill you with a sword without them knowing you have to sneak up within 3 feet of them. With a gun you can kill someone sneakily while far enough to be invisible to the naked eye. Really I wish guns weren't invented the same reason I wish nukes weren't invented. One fired nuke could cause untold destruction even if it's from an otherwise weak country. I highly doubt anyone would be afraid of north korea if fights with swords would be the only way for them to attack. I feel guns are the same way in a smaller scale.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Bought time someone brings this up! ShotgunZombie.....you have brought to light what I've been thinking since my first day on the escapist, bravo!

People don't see it as elegant because they are afraid of its raw power. Ignorant morons will continue to say "hurr guns require no skill hurr durr" because the only thing they know about guns is what they learned in videogames, when in truth, learning to fire it takes no skill, anyone can spray and pray.....but, it takes true elegance to use a gun properly and make full use of its potential.

Lets all be honest, if two guys were in a fight, one had a gun, one had a sword...no matter what range it was, I'd rather be the guy with the gun because the bullet moves faster than the hand...and dont give me that "cut the bullet in half" bullshit, you and I both know that your not quick enough or strong enough for that

 

[crystalsnow]

Honestly, I don't know what you're talking about dude.

 

[Eggsnham]

You can pimp out your gun, but that doesn't change the fact that any idiot can pick it up and blast a master swordsman, who had trained to perfect his art for decades, to death in seconds.

In other words, you can pull an Indiana Jones on them.

Elegance isn't how cool it looks while it's in the case, but rather how cool it looks in the hands of a trained professional.

At least that's how I see it.

would it still be elegant if a Master Swordman threw the sword into Dr Jones' chest on sight?

I say yes, because throwing a sword takes a bit of practice and even then, there's no guarantee that the thing would still meet it's target with the pointy side of things. It's likely not weighted and designed to be thrown anyways.

So again, idiot picks up gun, shoots man in the face in seconds.

Idiot picks up sword, tries to throw it, and looks stupid as it goes ten feet in another direction and hits something with the hilt.

 

[Chills41]

The main reasons as to why I don't generally think of guns as elegant is because:

1) There is normally a bigger and better gun to use and so the destructive power is associated with the weapon itself rather than the person firing it and so it appears to be more of a tool than an extension of the self (a good example of this is Bleach where the weapon is an another aspect of the user).

2) Guns generally seem very impersonal because they are generally swapped or replaced (this is in media, i have no idea about actual military protocol on gun use.) and the idea that you can be killed from miles away and never know who it was who pulled the trigger just doesn't seem honorable and to be honest pretty cowardly. (Whereas swordsman have Bushido as a code of conduct and would be expected to keep the same sword for their entire lifetime, creating a sort of respect for the object, which over time, it begins to personify those traits).

3) Also watching someone use a gun is very boring compared to watching someone with a sword. I mean pulling a trigger isn't particularly the coolest thing to watch is it?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's mostly because a sword is a romanticized weapon that is only used in situations where you can be "elegant" and dance around, while a gun is more of an everyday tool. Guns have been knocked down to the same level as beaning someone over the head with a wrench, they are the functional workhorses to the sword's preening but useless stallion.

That being said, there are some situations where a gun can be "elegant". Take sniper rifles, for example. It takes a lot of skill and training to use them, and much more to use them *well*. The same could be said for military pilots and the planes that they use (Okay, a jet isn't a "gun" per se but it's still a weapon of the same sort).

I don't entirely agree with this sentiment. The gun certainly superseded the sword for good reason but that does not, by any stretch, imply that the sword was a useless weapon. Modern infantry is known as the queen of the battlefield (while artillery is called the king), a title once held by the sword. Yes, there was often a better weapon in any situation than a sword, but the sheer versatility of the weapon is what made it a feature on battlefields for millenia.

The thing is, unlike even other contemporary weapons (with respect to the sword), the sword was difficult to master. It is a weapon that can be used both offensively and defensively (though, depending upon the era and make of the weapon a transition between the two states was often difficult) and is based on the notion of individual combat. The true workhorses of ancient battles, the spear, was a terrible weapon in its own right that was easy enough to master. But the spear has a series of incredible weaknesses that are easily exploited that can only be countered by sufficient weight in manpower. Numbers and discipline were the key to effective use of the spear. The sword on the other hand could be used in a wide variety of circumstances. It offered tremendous advantage in truly close combat (i.e. inside of the attack distance of a pike) and thus swordsmen were often used to break such formations. The weapon's versatility meant that it was effective enough in a wide variety of situations to make it the backup weapon of choice for ages.

There is a reason why some weapons are considered crude and it largely lies in the fact that such weapons are both easy to master and incredibly effective. The easy to fire crossbow is seen as the crude cousin of the bow. The firearm is much the same. These are weapons that provided enough of an edge and were easy enough to use to turn a sunshine soldier into a professional's equal or better.

This trend did not stop with the firearm because even within the catalogs of gunpowder weapons one finds similar sentiments. The precision rifle is more elegant than the machine gun for example.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

People don't see it as elegant because they are afraid of its raw power. Ignorant morons will continue to say "hurr guns require no skill hurr durr" because the only thing they know about guns is what they learned in videogames, when in truth, learning to fire it takes no skill, anyone can spray and pray.....but, it takes true elegance to use a gun properly and make full use of its potential.

A firearm is incredibly easy to use. So easy that one receives less than a month of dedicated training during their initial entry in any US military branch. Yes, it is a learned skill, but one that is incredibly easy to master when compared to something more complex like the use of a sword. In a few weeks, most people would easily be taught to use a rifle to hit a man sized target reliably at 150+ meters. In the same span of time, someone might just begin to grasp the most basic technical skills required to use a sword with any degree of effectiveness.

 

[Dominic Burchnall]

I would contest, have you seen what a sword can do to the human body? As much as anything, a bullet can only be aimed at a target, a sword, once inserted, can be twisted, wrenched, and cause far more spectacular wounds than a gun can. There was even a case of a master swordsman spearing his opponent through the eye, and then stirring the tip of the rapier so that the brain was cut to shreds inside the skull.

By the way, I apologise for this post appearing twice, I'm still not fully comp in regards to how to work the post functions on Escapist.

 

[Dominic Burchnall]

It's quite likely to do with the more recent devlopement of the gun as an effective weapon. When they were first introduced, guns were cumbersome, noisy, smoky and the kill range was frankly shocking. The only way to reliably kill a target was to have a platoon fire en masse. Swords have had centuries more time to develop. Firearms as a whole are only just beginnning to enter into elegance which incorporates functionality, which was the base practise of firearm manufacture. Handguns in particular, such as the Browning, Baretta and Sig Sauer models, are a lot more elegant than their earlier counterparts, possibly because they're designed to sit more comfortably with the users' grip.

Swords can be employed to lethal effect by any amateur, simply operating under the action of using a large metal club. You are much less likely to survive a sword wound than you are a gunshot, as the heat of the passing projectile can cauterize the wound. Quite apart from that, a sword wound will invariably be larger, and can then be twisted or wrenched inside the body, causing further damage. True, guns are designed from the standpoint that they should be easy to use for the inexperienced, but to be used properly and consistently, they require as much training as a competent swordsman.

 

[Dominic Burchnall]

Have you seen what a gun can do to a human body? There's your answer.

I would contest, have you seen what a sword can do to the human body? As much as anything, a bullet can only be aimed at a target, a sword, once inserted, can be twisted, wrenched, and cause far more spectacular wounds than a gun can. There was even a case of a master swordsman spearing his opponent through the eye, and then stirring the tip of the rapier so that the brain was cut to shreds inside the skull.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

People don't see it as elegant because they are afraid of its raw power. Ignorant morons will continue to say "hurr guns require no skill hurr durr" because the only thing they know about guns is what they learned in videogames, when in truth, learning to fire it takes no skill, anyone can spray and pray.....but, it takes true elegance to use a gun properly and make full use of its potential.

A firearm is incredibly easy to use. So easy that one receives less than a month of dedicated training during their initial entry in any US military branch. Yes, it is a learned skill, but one that is incredibly easy to master when compared to something more complex like the use of a sword. In a few weeks, most people would easily be taught to use a rifle to hit a man sized target reliably at 150+ meters. In the same span of time, someone might just begin to grasp the most basic technical skills required to use a sword with any degree of effectiveness.

I have no idea where you get your "facts", as for me, my position comes from being friends with 1 retired Marine, 2 active-duty Marines, 1 active-duty Navy SEAL, and being in a family full of people who lead a military career, most involved them being in the line of fire. I was also in a JROTC program run by active duty Marines and if my Staff Sergeant heard you say this, boy oh boy, he'd make you go through PT so hard, you'd be shittin in your pants.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Have you seen what a gun can do to a human body? There's your answer.

I would contest, have you seen what a sword can do to the human body? As much as anything, a bullet can only be aimed at a target, a sword, once inserted, can be twisted, wrenched, and cause far more spectacular wounds than a gun can. There was even a case of a master swordsman spearing his opponent through the eye, and then stirring the tip of the rapier so that the brain was cut to shreds inside the skull.

Honestly, all of that (including the almost certainly apocryphal story about the rapier - bear in bind that a thrust from such a weapon has no problem penetrating bone as such an attack delivers nearly 2000 pounds of impulse force to a needle point), pales in comparison to the common wounds caused by all types of firearms. An M2HB does not put holes in people; it turns them to hamburger. A rifle round leaves exit wounds large enough to stick a fist in. The wound channels produced by even relatively weak firearms is enormous, easily the equal of anything a sword could manage all while offering the relative safety of accomplishing all of this at a range of greater than a few paces.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I have no idea where you get your "facts", as for me, my position comes from being friends with 1 retired Marine, 2 active-duty Marines, 1 active-duty Navy SEAL, and being in a family full of people who lead a military career, most involved them being in the line of fire.

I got them by being in the US Army where I personally was given 3 weeks (which is less than one month) of training with the M16A2. There was additional training later, which is after my initial entry training (which I noted). Navy Seals represent training received long after initial entry and even in the Marines (or Army Infantry) you are only given 3 - 4 weeks of Basic Rifle Marksmanship training during which you only fire a few hundred live rounds. Yes, you continue using your rifle longer than that in training, but the aim of such things is not teaching you how to shoot and is instead largely relegated to maneuver training.

I was also in a JROTC program run by active duty Marines and if my Staff Sergeant heard you say this, boy oh boy, he'd make you go through PT so hard, you'd be shittin in your pants.

He can bluster all he wants as it does not detract from what I am saying. More to the point, thanks to a long series of rules and regulations, even if he wanted to try to do such a thing as work me to the point that I lose bowel control, he is forbidden by law from doing so. Part of the joy of working with minors and having the federal government acting as the parent organization.

The point is simply this: while it takes work to employ a firearm effectively, the amount of work is incredibly minor when compared to using a sword, a spear, or any of a dozen other weapons. The use of a firearm is not a lifelong mastery sort of skill but rather the sort of thing anyone can be taught inside of a few weeks of training.

And, for the record, the vast majority of one's initial entry training into the military has little to do with learning martial skills. One will spend more time doing various physical training, standing in formation, learning basic first aid and survival skills and learning proper drill and ceremony than they will mastering the use of any particular weapon. Even under the new program in the army (where basic training was extended beyond the original 9 weeks), the new "Warrior Task Training" that is included in basic training is largely relegated response to various combat situations rather than weapons mastery of any sort.

 

[Dominic Burchnall]

Have you seen what a gun can do to a human body? There's your answer.

I would contest, have you seen what a sword can do to the human body? As much as anything, a bullet can only be aimed at a target, a sword, once inserted, can be twisted, wrenched, and cause far more spectacular wounds than a gun can. There was even a case of a master swordsman spearing his opponent through the eye, and then stirring the tip of the rapier so that the brain was cut to shreds inside the skull.

Honestly, all of that (including the almost certainly apocryphal story about the rapier - bear in bind that a thrust from such a weapon has no problem penetrating bone as such an attack delivers nearly 2000 pounds of impulse force to a needle point), pales in comparison to the common wounds caused by all types of firearms. An M2HB does not put holes in people; it turns them to hamburger. A rifle round leaves exit wounds large enough to stick a fist in. The wound channels produced by even relatively weak firearms is enormous, easily the equal of anything a sword could manage all while offering the relative safety of accomplishing all of this at a range of greater than a few paces.

True a big enough bullet will put some fairly nasty holes in you, but sword wounds do not "pale in comparison" to firearm wounds. Swords such as greatswords and flambards, and the term IS flambard, not flamberge, can cleave through muscle and bone with appalling ease, and the Oriental two-handed weapons such as the dadao, could reach the solar plexus from the shoulder.While a heavy calibre bullet placed correctly could take a limb off, it takes much less skill to do so with a sword. For the record, could you tell me what you mean by a "weak" firearm, as weapons such as Walthers can have trouble penetrating thick clothing, even at short range.