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"Evolution
of Weaponry"
A
Brief Survey of Weapons Evolution
Having
established an understanding of the physical factors required
for effective weapons (force, mobility, distance, and protection)
and the psychological enabling factors required to effectively
employ these weapons (posturing, mobility, distance, leaders,
groups, and conditioning), an overall survey of weapons
evolution becomes possible. Although parallel, evolutionary
weaponry processes have occurred around the world, the process
is most easily observed in the West, and it is in western
civilization that the evolutionary development of weaponry
achieved a degree of ascendancy that permitted western domination
of the globe starting as early as the 16th century and culminating
in total western domination in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Combat
throughout ancient history generally involved more and more
effective applications of force, moving from rock, to sharp
rock, to sharp rock on a stick, to swords and spears using
the latest metal technology. This aspect of close-range,
hand-to-hand combat remained the same until the late 19th
century when reliable, repeating gunpowder weapons replaced
swords and bayonets as the weapon of choice to kill repeatedly
at close range. Some aspects of distance weapons have been
present, in the form of archers and slingers, since ancient
Egypt, but until the introduction of the long bow the available
armor (generally just a shield) was sufficient to stop these
weapons from becoming decisive.
Enabling
the Mind to Kill
Thus the basic, close-range killing weapon has not changed
fundamentally in nearly a century, but there has been a
new, evolutionary leap in the conditioning of the mind that
has to use that weapon to kill at close range. The development
of a psychological conditioning process to enable an individual
to overcome the average, healthy, deep-rooted aversion to
close-range killing of one's own species is a true revolution.
By changing from bulls-eye targets to pop-up, human-shaped
targets that fall when hit, modern armies and police forces
have learned to operantly condition their combatants to
respond reflexively even when literally frightened out of
their wits. This process has repeatedly demonstrated an
ability to raise the firing rate among individual riflemen
from a baseline of around 20% in World War II to over 90%
today. This is a revolution on the battlefield, and it is
a revolution that has also had an absolutely unprecedented
influence on civilian violence and domestic violent crimes.
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