What would happen if the world never found out about Guns and Fire arms?

I don’t think much would change. I mean we’d still kill one another, only it would be slower, and probably more epic. Lol. The tools don’t really change much I think, because the intent that drives them is what is really important, when looking at war and conflict.

Don’t be thinking that modern warring requires no strategy though…it isn’t as simple as pointing and shooting…I mean is pointing and stabbing really any more complex? I believe I’ve made my point

@Symbeline yeah I know what you mean, but I mean just on a one on one battle it just seems..so pointless if you have a gun since it’s a point and shoot kind of thing I mean… In my own views and opinion, guns just seem so…I guess over rated is my term? None the less I didn’t mean to imply that modern day doesn’t need strategy!

Oh, well if you mean one on one battles…well more of the same from my answer, really. It would just take longer, Man’s savage nature doesn’t really change, no matter what is designed and used to accommodate it. :/

I guess that’s pretty easy for me to say, living in a country where duels are fought by slapping people in the face with gloves though. XD

Then it would be the past, when they used that stuff. This is like asking what society would be like without television. There was already a society without it, and we’re something different.

We’d still be fighting face to face in combat with spears and arrowheads.
Jesus, those old time battles were even MORE brutal…you actually looked your enemy in the eye as they fell from your sword. Firearms have depersonalized death, just one more cog in mans devolution. If you’re going to kill have the fucking BALLS ( or breasts) to look your consort in the eye.

Same goes for hunting, wanna kill the lion, have the freakin’ COURAGE to confront him with your bare paws.

@Coloma Dang mang…this calls for cheers yo! It was so much more awesome back when wounds were disinfected with liquor, and yet, we still had plenty to down, whether we lost, died or emerged victorious!!

Although I do hear that people still rip their rotten teeth out with pliers, then just up and call it a day.

@Symbeline Yeah, I’d like a little opium in my slurpee please. lol inside joke peeps :-D
At least if you had a pegleg you could also buy heroin in the general store. Well that’s Civil war times, before that I guess it had to be booze. lolol

I’m not actually a Viking, but it’s always booze slurpees for me. Drugs are bad, mmkay? Keep em out your pegleg! :D

Oh no, drugs are great! haha

I accept that. You an me need to come up with a brownie ’‘flavored’’ slurpee, ya heard? :D

Never bring a sharpened stone to a spear fight

I kind of think of guns as equalizers. Despite one’s physical strength or lack thereof, anyone can defend himself or herself.

Also, the advent of technological warfare gives the most intelligent party the upper hand, instead of the physically strongest or the one with the largest army. Rise of the geeks, army style.

We’d have really improved upon the killing people with pointy sticks thing.

@Symbeline Already been done ahem

@Lightlyseared: Pointed sticks are all fine and good, but it’s loganberries you really gotta look out for…

Modern weaponry has made killing increasingly more impersonal. We can now shoot and bomb from the air in comfort and relative safety, reducing real violence to the virtual experience of a video game. Perhaps the slaughter of hundreds of thousands during the crusades or the Greco-Persian Wars was better.

Anthrax and other biological agents
Chemical weapons
Fuel-air weapons
Firestorms
Poisoning water supplies
Siege weapons (and sieges themselves) to starve a population

We have invented plenty of ways to effect mass killings at a distance that don’t involve bombs and guns.

The Romans, Greek and Chinese were quite advanced in their military technology.
We are talking heavy bolt catapults on wheels, rapid fire arrow launchers, handheld repeating crossbows, flame throwers and rapid fire rocket launchers

It is tragic that the christian dark ages and middle ages not only forgot about these technological marvels, but also bred the arrogance and false belief that their comparatively primitive medieval tech was the most advanced tech ever made until the gun was invented (also in china, btw).

If you really want an interesting read, try Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Prepare for a fresh look at previously held assumptions. Fascinating.

There was also a multi-part documentary by PBS with the same title and obviously based upon the book that was broadcast some 10+ years ago.

Perhaps it’s available online somewhere also. Well worth your time to watch.

One interesting note, as weapons have gotten more lethal, the death rate in battle has gone down drastically. There may be a temporary bump such as the US Civil War when tactical changes have not yet caught up to technological advances.

But overall the death rate has gone down slightly.

“T.N. Dupuy has calculated the effects of weapons as their killing power is affected by changes in a number of objective factors such as rates of fire, number of potential targets per strike, relative incapacitating effect, effective range, muzzle velocity, reliability, battlefield mobility, radius of action, and vulnerability in order to calculate what he calls a Theoretical Lethality Index for each weapon that specifies its lethality power. But such objective factors, when calculated against the single variable of dispersion, change radically in their ability to produce casualties under actual battlefield conditions. The result is that, when measured over time, the measurable casualty effects of modern weapons paradoxically result in far less casualties when measured against the weapons of the past.

Dupuy notes that when measured against the nongunpowder weapons of antiquity and the Middle Ages, modern weapons, excluding nuclear weapons of course, have increased in lethality by a factor of 2,000. But while lethality has increased by a factor of 2,000, the dispersion of forces on the battlefield made possible by mechanization and the ability of fewer soldiers to deliver exponentially more firepower has increased by a factor of 4,000! The result, as Figure 1 demonstrates, has been that wars since 1865 have killed fewer soldiers as a percentage of the deployed combat force than was the case in previous wars. Except for the Napoleonic wars which utilized the tactical field formation of the packed marching column, every war since 1600 (Table 1) has resulted in fewer and fewer casualties as a percentage of the committed forces for both the victor and defeated.”

You can read the whole article here.

@bookish1 Lol I should have figured. XD

Charlton Heston would have been terribly depressed.
“White man, heap bigum spearchucker!”

Maybe we’d develop ‘wierding’ techniques like the Bene Gesserit.

Well.. a giant, aquazooka turbo squirt gun filled with goose poo is one weapon that is sorely under rated IMO. God help the poor fool that that comes after me over here, I’ll toss rattlesnakes at you, blow your face off with goose guano and stuff a few horse apples down your throat. THEN..I shall drag you out into the woods, strip you naked, tie you to a tree, slather you in the pheromones of a dying fawn and wait for cougars to show up!
Without a trace.lolol

Sticks and stones…...

People would still be killing each other with knives, swords and crossbows.

`A dying fawn?’ @Coloma. LOL Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The lesser, smaller in stature and numbers (weaker) would NEVER win and would suffer oppression for eternity.