INTRODUCTION
We often hear that something is a ‘dangerous weapon’ but in truth that phrase is meaningless. A weapon is a weapon and nothing more. It can be used for good or ill, or not at all, but it needs a guiding intellect. In the hands of a pacifist, the most lethal implement is harmless. In the hands of a psychopath, a fairly innocuous object can kill. In the hands of a friend, a weapon is a source of reassurance. Similarly, anyone can kill with their bare hands or an improvised weapon if they try hard enough. It is us that make weapons dangerous, not the other way around.
Armed and Dangerous
This soldier is armed with a fully automatic carbine. As a backup he has a handgun and a knife, and probably a grenade or two as well. These are simply tools; what makes him dangerous – or not – is his willingness to use them and the choices he makes about when and how.
Humans today occupy a position right at the top of the food chain, but it was not always so. The natural weapons available to humans are fairly puny, and we are neither spectacularly fast nor powerful. True, human beings are agile, but this is more useful as a defensive trait, allowing us to escape predators by climbing into places that they cannot go. As a species we are best suited to hunting small game and gathering fruit and vegetables. As such, we rightfully occupy a place in the middle of the food chain, prey for some creatures and preying on others.
What changed that status was tool use. As well as being agile, humans are clever, and our species learned to improvise and later craft tools to assist in survival. Of those tools, arguably the most important were those falling into the subset we call weapons – tools intended to cause harm to other living things.
Armed with spear, club and crude hatchet, a lone primitive human was a match for creatures that otherwise would kill and eat him. With a bow, and as part of a similarly armed party, our primitive ancestor elevated himself to the status of apex predator, capable of bringing down the largest of land creatures. Firearms simply tipped the odds further in our favour.
Improvised Weapons
Almost any object can be pressed into service as a weapon, but stabbing and puncturing implements are perhaps the easiest to use of all.
Thus it is today that armed humans are the most dangerous creatures inhabiting planet Earth, and this creates a situation where the most serious threat is not a sabre-tooth tiger or wolf pack, but another human.
The weapons that made us masters of our world also make us a threat to one another. Fortunately, the same tools can be used to defend and protect as to attack and destroy. Weapons are tools, and, like all tools, how they are used very much depends on the user.
Types of Weapon
There are e
