Would the reintroduction of dueling help reduce the amount of gun violence?

No. I say forget dueling and get a rope. Just hang the bastards from the nearest big tree. Big tree, tall horse, short rope. Yhaaaaw, slapping horse on rump

My joke, I’ve got all 3 over here, hangin’ trees, 17 hand, 2,200 lb. draft horse that can bolt like a freight train and enough property and wildlife that no remains shall ever be found. lol ;-)

I like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s answer. Of course, life isn’t a sci-fi novel, but I still like the theory.

Ban all distance weapons. Period. No bombs, no guns, no arrows. You want something dead, then be honourable enough to put yourself at risk of dying as well.

Not that I think it’s going to happen, but it’s a cool philosophy.

@Seek_Kolinahr I Iike that philosophy, but freaks of nature should just be put out of their misery before they spread it around. lol

Lemme see. I challenge 20 first graders to a duel. Yeah. They can have assault weapons, too.

Great idea, @rojo. That’ll really solve the problem.

@burntbonez Please note that in the question I specifically left out occurences such as that in Newtown or Aurora.
Although, it is possible that in both cases mentioned the persons responsible could have had a personal grievance that, if addressed toward the individual they felt responsible, could have averted the slaughters of others who offered a convenient, albeit innocent, target for their frustration.
Then again, if we assume mental instability, maybe nothing would have made a difference as you note.

Though this may sound cool to some, there are some serious flaws that I find with this idea. Many altercations/fight consist of an aggressor and a victim rather than two willing participants. I’m not claiming that you’re saying the following, but wouldn’t your idea consist of literally forcing two people to fight. What if the victim didn’t want to fight, but with this idea the pressure for them to do so would still be there.

I think that as a society we need to move away from promoting violence, not publicly endorsing it. It is this type of mentality that fuels all of the violence we’ve been exposed to. Violence perpetuates more violence, and as long as there is pressure on males to be a man and fight we will continue to see more violence. I’ve always said that conservative masculism has been the human male’s worst enemy throughout history, including today.

You are working under the assumption that you can reason with unreasonable people. You are also assuming that it is possible to eliminate guns. Neither is possible. You can’t legislate brains, honor, reasonability, weapons, booze or drugs. We have tried to no avail.

Violence is never a preferred solution to a problem. You can’t be serious about this. It is totally unjust. It is mostly like saying you two have a dispute. We’ll draw a lottery to see who wins and the other person is executed. Tell me you’re just joking.

I agree with @wundayatta but just had to toss out my sardonic humor. Get a rope!

There are no ‘men’ of honor today.

Not a bad idea. What about putting puffy gloves on two antagonists, putting them into a square raised platform and permitting them to pummel the bejeezus out of each other? Oh, wait…

Or taking eleven members of each gang, puttiing them in helmets and uniforms of the right color, giving them an oblate spheroid pigskin object, hiring a large field, charging thousands of people for admissions, hiring a few umps and referees to keep things marginally civilized and then turning them loose? Oh, wait…

I would take a different approach.

The ammunition makers should be required to ‘spike’ some percentage of the ammunition they sell – maybe five bullets in each box of 25. They would be randomly mixed, weigh the same, and appear in every way to be the same as the good stuff. But instead of actually doing anything that a real bullet would do, it would either (a) explode in the hand of person pulling the trigger, or (b) be a dud.

That puts some skin in the game for the gun user – it makes him have something to lose if he pulls the trigger. By random mixing, the user would be taking a chance – a 20% chance, that he’s either going to hurt himself, or have a dud and give the other guys a chance to escape.

Why should the gun users have no risk?

@elbanditoroso They did that accidentally in the past. The liability issues from the first case and lack of consumer faith in the second led to them either improving or going out of business. It also leads to hand-loading instead of buying ammo.
Besides, there is usually a risk of being shot by someone else anyways…

Guns would not have to be used. The choice of weapons is made by the one challenged.

Yes, but only if the winner of the duel is also killed.

It’s also the best way to resolve American “elections.”

I agree with @wundayatta. Violence in any form sucks, and the method doesn’t change the intent. As much as I’d love to go one on one with an axe after I ate my shield…I think honor in such a context is something very close to the fairytale knight, and I don’t think a knight back then was much more than your average form of enforcement today.

Now then, I challenge everyone in here to a duel! ’‘slaps this thread in the face with a glove’’

Dueling was a proper way for gentlemen to settle shit back in the day. There were rules.

Not much proper anymore because rules don’t mean shit

gentlemen are running the banks and congress proper and don’t believe in rules and the whole lot are full of shit.

Proper gentlemen shit rules. lol