I really want a phaser – I don’t need the ‘kill’ setting – ‘stun’ will do nicely, but I fear I would be tempted to use it way too much to be considered a reasonable member of society. But the Best Weapon Ever would be a sonic bowel disruptor – one zap and the unfortunate target would need a change of underwear at the very least. It would also be a great spell to throw in magical combat – Expelliarmus indeed.
I grew up with blasters and phasers and all sort of flashy sci-fi weapons and I knew damn well very young the difference between pretend and reality. The reality of weapons is injury, destruction and death. That is what they exist for.
So why make weapons, even fake ones? Should there even be toy guns? I had them as a kid but although I knew the real things were dangerous, I played with my fake plastic replicas of portable death. I was born only a decade downstream from WWII, so the culture was that skill with a gun was the signature of being a “good guy” – soldier, policeman – you know The Men Who Won The War. The bad guys always were crappy shooters while the hero would nail them with one round.
But are there really “good guys” with guns any more? It’s obvious there are a lot of bad guys with lots of guns and seem to be awfully unhappy and scared. Does fetishizing hand-held weapons do anything worthwhile for society at large? OK, I’ve wandered away from art into culture and starting to creep over into politics.
I started making techno-steampunk type weaponry years before the explosion of mass shootings in the U.S. In the midst of this storm of domestic atrocities, I have wondered if I have any business making pretend weapons. But sometimes I hold something in my hand and it just seems to go “ZAP” and leave an imaginary hole in the nearest wall.
Besides, they look pretty cool.
Shouter to Dead Parrots 