Blog-o-Sph33r

Say we get rid of guns completely

Let’s imagine a world somewhere in the future where the anti gun folks get their way. The world is void of guns and all is well. Obviously getting the entire world to give up their guns would be impossible, so for this scenario, let’s say they found every firearm in America (legal and not) and while they were at it, somehow stopped the importation of firearms on the black market. There are no firearms in America and no way to get one. I’m sure they don’t want to disarm the military or police, but in this fantasy, no one has weapons.

So here we are, in a country without firearms. 300 million people without access to any rifle, handgun or shotgun. No one has to worry about being robbed or killed with a gun in this dreamland, because there are no guns anywhere. Unfortunately, one truth remains, you cannot un-invent something. Once an object is invented and made it’s way into public knowledge, it’s an item that is capable of being reproduced by pretty much anyone with the means. Guns have been around for hundreds of years in some shape or form and I’d venture a guess that there are thousands of people who could make one. Go ask any avid gun enthusiast that you know this question: “If the world had all of the guns removed , could you make a gun?” I’d expect a large number of them to say yes.

A modern firearm is fairly simple. You have a projectile placed into a casing which contains gunpowder and a primer to light the gun powder. Combine those 4 items and then place them into a cylinder of metal designed to accept the cartridge and devise a way to ignite the primer, and you will have a firearm on your hands. Barring the items to create a smokeless powder cartridge, you always have the black powder way of doing things. I plugged in “homemade gun” into Google and the #1 site is by a British fellow sharing how to create home made firearms. England has disarmed their citizens and yet here’s an English fellow who is sharing how to make guns at home. I dare say this drives my point home without any room for argument.

But let us go further in this hypothetical situation and venture the possibility that the Brady bunch have a mega genius on their hands who somehow manages to invent a method of time travel. With careful consideration of whom to target, they effectively go back in time and remove the people responsible for bringing us to today’s modern gun. I would guess that they would kill them, probably with guns. That would be rather ironic eh? But of course, they’d claim that the loss of a few lives would save the lives of many. On their return from their epic journey through time and space, I’d guess that they might return to 2007 and find that guns existed despite their efforts. Why? Because the gun is man evolving his tools to suit his needs.

I’ve heard it said that if you brought John Browning and Henry Ford back from the dead, only Mr. Ford would be amazed at the progress that has been made to his life’s work. Mr Browning may be intrigued by some aspects of the gun industry, but his 1911 design is still in major production today, and there have not been huge advancements in the world of firearms. Why? I believe it’s because man has honed it into the most efficient item it can be at this point. Sure, we can fiddle with the powder mixture and change bullet weights, but the basic principle of the firearm remains the same. Mr. Ford on the other hand, would most likely be shocked at our progress. Man is still in the process of finding the most efficient mass produced automobile and probably will be for many generations to come.

Since the dawn of time, man has needed to eat and defend himself. It started out with stones and sticks and progressed from there. When man figured out that he needed something that would allow him to kill his prey or enemy at distances farther than arms length, he began to improve on his tools. The stick became a spear, the spear became an arrow. Over time, gathering food and fighting your enemy became a game of distance. He who could kill from the farthest distance was most likely to win. Imagine an army of men armed with spears facing today’s military armed with M16’s and sniper rifles, it would most likely be a slaughter. The evolution of the firearm as we know it today was simply man attempting to adapt his weaponry and tools to what stood before him.

I think that even if you were to go back in time and remove key elements of the firearm as we know it today, you would probably never stop the evolution. I’d guess the worst you could do is delay its growth. Or the opposite might occur, imagine the Brady Bunch returning from their time travel to find that they had removed the single roadblock to man creating ray guns?

Removing the gun, no matter how insanely hard it would be, would simply force mankind to be more creative and most likely spawn the creation of something much more devilishly clever. I can only imagine what the Brady’s would do in that scenario.