Modern firearms and the collapse of heroism

[The Grand Nudger]

We hadn't even begun to extinguish ourselves.

[Belacqua]

Heroism is dead.

I agree that heroism and weapons almost never go together. 

Although violence is portraying in the media as the answer to all problems, it is not.

There are heroic people though. People who risk their lives and their freedom to do what's right.

Julian Assange is an obvious example. Daniel Hale.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, weak. If you want to be a hero, go build a house. Hand out some soup. Volunteer to play catch with a kid. Instant hero status, you can see it right in their eyes.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Which ones have you fought in?

Are you arguing that wars are heroic? Not the people who fight in the wars they can be heroic I mean the act of making war itself what would make that heroic?

People can be heroic, not wars. But I was asking what you based your opinion on.

[brewer]

I live(d) in the US plains/sandhills. Guns were (and still are) a tool for food and protection, not a means of killing people. Most of mine now (in my old age) are used as big boy toys.

Could you face a mountain lion (cougar), bear, coyote, or rabid skunk/racoon with nothing more than you hands. My guess is that you'd pick up a gun in a heart beat if available.

And as some have indicated prevviously, I donate for care of the indigent to the only non-religious facility and don't consider myself a hero. No guns needed.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I used to kill people for the US government, $8.27/day after taxes. Guns were very useful for that.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Are you arguing that wars are heroic? Not the people who fight in the wars they can be heroic I mean the act of making war itself what would make that heroic?

People can be heroic, not wars. But I was asking what you based your opinion on.

Reading the accounts of veterans of various wars and the contrast between how war is portrayed when they were recruited to the actual reality of a battlefield and some Veterans who were at the prison I worked at who suffered from PTSD. Not sure where were going with this.

[The Architect Of Fate]

LOL, weak.  If you want to be a hero, go build a house.  Hand out some soup.  Volunteer to play catch with a kid.  Instant hero status, you can see it right in their eyes.

True

[Gawdzilla Sama]

People can be heroic, not wars. But I was asking what you based your opinion on.

Reading the accounts of veterans of various wars and the contrast between how war is portrayed when they were recruited to the actual reality of a battlefield and some Veterans who were at the prison I worked at who suffered from PTSD. Not sure where were going with this.

I'm sure you picked the accounts you agreed with.

[Loaded dice]

Not what I asked you. You were kvetching earlier that killing from a distance isn’t heroic. What I’m asking is if you think Islamist terror fantastic who stab people in crowds are acting heroically. It’s a ‘yes or no’ type question.

Boru

The answer is no, of course. There is nothing heroic about stabbing an innocent up close, even though it's much harder to do than firing at them with a gun.

There is a reason why the infamous Einsatsgruppen, the extermination units of Nazi Germany, went from a holocaust by shooting to a holocaust by gassing, it's less personal to gather crowds of people in a confined space and gas them to death, than to shoot at them at close range. Even less personal, of course, is to drop an atomic bomb from an airplane then fly away while thousands of people behind are enjoying the nuclear blast.

That's the modern world, a realm of anonymous, large-scale destruction. Keep it up, weapon manufacturers.

You're thinking of a duel again.  The only reason I can think of to go hand to hand with a guy is to hold him for my buddies to stab or shoot him.  The most likely outcome being that this is exactly what happens to me, doesn't matter if I'm the bigger or smaller guy.  That's not heroism, it's gambling.  The no 1 rule of hand to hand combat is to never -ever- get stuck in a hand to hand combat situation.  You'll laugh your ass off about this, but my hth training instructor sent himself to the hospital trying to demonstrate a bayonet against a tire.  Came back and went straight into his mouth.  Guy took it like he was made of stone.  Full on official handoff, nice and calm, then briskly walked off the range to his vehicle.

This is what going hand to hand actually looks like.  It's not an exhibition for the camera.

It's true that hand to hand combat is gambling, one sucker punch can lead to a knock out, possibly followed by permanent brain damage or death. It's never worth it. But weapons aren't better, one random bullet and that's it. All of it is random. 

If only there were some cheap, accessible, sure-fire way to stop any kind of bullet, explosive or projectile from hitting you, that would be worth ten Nobel Prizes at least. All wars would become impossible or meaningless.

There are heroic people though. People who risk their lives and their freedom to do what's right.

Julian Assange is an obvious example. Daniel Hale.

That's definitely true. I do think that, sometimes, there are smarter and more discrete ways to do what's right. If you're fighting for, say, freedom of the press, just use an ultra secure VPN and an anonymous pen name and criticize whatever you want, why join the list of thousands, perhaps millions, of dead journalists and activists who were killed because they thought it's courageous to openly fight very powerful governments?