Why did people stop carrying swords? Was there a European equivalent to the Meiji ban?

>Weapons laws are a relatively recent thing in Western History
Yeah before now it was really only cities that outlawed weapons and even that was limited to the carrying of weapons within the city. Every freeman would still have a polearm and helmet for when he was called upon to serve.

In Europe sword duels were not uncommon until early XIXth century.

desu a madman with a sword could bum rush you if you dont shoot his head

...

Not either of those guys, but it's a common military thing that within ten feet a guy with a knife is more immediately dangerous than a man with a pistol.

That only applies if the pistol is holstered.

looks like there about 12 feet apart

the bullet isn't on the same plane as the gun... I think there is a third party in this engagement.

Recoil

>guy with a pistol can shoot a masterswordsman dead with one shot
we should call him trigun

Handguns (see Michael Hundt's hundredth plate), but most importantly, repeating handguns.
Guns were out there as soon as the 1550's and you can see a growing trend of civilian feud being fought with handguns and muskets, but people were largely carrying swords up until the second half of the 19th century, were guns really took over, repeating handguns starting being good in the 1840's or so.

>americans

can we fucking ban them already?

swords vanished because of the ban on duels not because of your retarded gun totins fat asses
fuck off

>ban on duels
which one exactly?
Kingdom of France banned duels in the 1620's, didn't really stopped people to carry sword up until the 1800's (and it didn't really stopped the duels too).

once they enforced it, somewhere between middle of 19th century and early 20th

They enforced it in the 1620's, they even killed some high status noblemen to get their point. Didn't stopped people carrying swords since it was the common weapon of the times.

There was many ways to duel by tricking the law as well... sure.

21 foot rule
youtube.com/watch?v=lk59imFr6yI

The 21 foot rule only applies to somebody who has their gun holstered because it takes a few moments to draw the gun, remove the safety, chamber a round, etc. If a person already has his gun drawn and ready, he can fire instantly with no delay. And a sword is a large, obvious weapon, whereas a pistol can be hidden until it is needed.

and now we cant have either, so when a chav chimps out and tries to stab you you just gonna hope he misses your jugulars.

Yeah but who walks around with their gun drawn at all times?
Anyway I just wanted to posted that video because it's hilarious.

>Yeah but who walks around with their gun drawn at all times?

You wouldn't need to. A sword is a large, obvious weapon. You'd see it from a long distance away and have plenty of time to get your gun ready. Also, I didn't actually watch the video, so I guess I'll go ahead and watch it now if it is indeed hilarious.

Yeah, but if everyone goes around with swords at their hips you wouldn't be alerted by the fact you saw a sword.
And I guess if swords aren't in any more, a short knife will do just as well

youtube.com/watch?v=j_6bmrqIsP8

>comparing front loaded mini muskets to modern firearms

/k is autistic, but this much? really?

Read british officers in india diaries and journals.
If a guy with a sword wants you dead, no matter his own life, he WILL at least injure you.
You can't, with your own sword or with a pistol, prevent him from doing it.
You can only prevent people who want to preserve their own life from hurting you.

kek

>If a guy with a sword wants you dead, no matter his own life, he WILL at least injure you.
That's ridiculous, sure it's very hard to protect yourself against someone who doesn't care if he gets it or die, but it's still doable. It was one of the test to become a master-at-arms in England at some point (being attacked by an overzealous untrained opponent).

If a guy charges at you with a sword and you have a pistol, a bullet in the upper spinal cord WILL stop it so that he WON'T be able to at least injure you. Same thing with a sword, you can still protect yourself and kill him before he can injure you, by grappling him or grabbing his blade for instance.

this

the world wars ended the old europe, swords just aren't a thing in nu-"europe"

is this ironic?

Let me shoot you with a front loaded mini-musket.

>Just hangin' out
I still don't know to what extent that guy was joking. Even in his less wacky videos he was still a bit odd.

Can we ban fags like you who feel the need to bitch about Americans every chance they get instead?

It was part of an officers dress through ww1.

At one time the sword was part of a gentleman's dress, but as sword fighting became increasingly anachronistic men started to wear a less cumbersome knife, but of course that eventually fell away too

>amerishits

cnn.com/2017/07/13/us/texas-sword-knives-law-trnd/index.html

They were too expensive for the average peasant to buy one.

Not him, but if I charge you with a knife, you have to :
1) Realize you're being attacked.
2) Draw your gun.
3) Load it.
4) Aim.
5) Shoot.
6) Hit me. If not, you are dead.
If you have a sword, you will be more likely to kill me, but I will certainly hurt you in the process.

Dueling was banned in many places, so walking around looking like your prepped to duel got you shit from the cops. Speaking of cops, the establishment of cops took away a fair bit of the reason for being armed in the first place. After all why waste money and risk your life when some other fuck will do it for you.
>Wiki : Swords
>As the wearing of swords fell out of fashion, canes took their place in a gentleman's wardrobe. This developed to the gentlemen in the Victorian era to use the umbrella. Some examples of canes—those known as sword canes or swordsticks—incorporate a concealed blade. The French martial art la canne developed to fight with canes and swordsticks and has now evolved into a sport. The English martial art singlestick is very similar. With the rise of the pistol duel, the duelling sword fell out of fashion long before the practice of duelling itself. By about 1770, English duelists enthusiastically adopted the pistol, and sword duels dwindled.[66] However, the custom of duelling with epées persisted well into the 20th century in France. Such modern duels were not fought to the death, the duellists' aim was instead merely to draw blood from the opponent's sword arm.[67]

>If you have a sword, you will be more likely to kill me, but I will certainly hurt you in the process.
Swords take much less time than a gun to be put at the ready and you can even attack while drawing it, it takes like less than half a second to get it out with proper training. As I said, sure, it's hard to protect yourself perfectly against someone who doesn't care about being killed still... it certainly is possible, considering that a one-hit-kill is just as rare but still a possibility.

Just like the "you'll always get cut in a knife" is a stupid absolute. If you believe this you'll be most likely to accept being cut which is silly.

This is of course only exactly valid in an open fight where both people see each other. I'll assume we're talking about fights and not assassination attempts, since the first part was about a sword attack.

Loading it is usually a non issue since modern weapons are safe to carry loader. Also, you can and will instinctevely step away from the attack, increasing the time available to react.
Finally there is such a thing as rapid fire: you dont need to down the attacker with one shot when you can fire 2-3 or more spots in a second.

>Meiji ban

You mean the Tokugawa sword collection?

Not to mention that one shot, regardless of where it hits is enough to stop most people.

Your thinking of Hideyoshi's sword hunt and it was hardly universal.

the Edo laws only restricted the wearing of two swords to samurai. many people were still able to wear a single short or long sword.

On the other hand the Meiji law restricted the public wearing of swords. Only police and military wore swords in public after that.

...

People stopped wearing swords because of a ppk knockoff with dickgrips?

>Every freeman would still have a polearm and helmet for when he was called upon to serve.
I never understood this. I thought the whole thing about feudal era was that there were professional soldiers who were permanent oftne called "knights" and that the whole "fighting peasant with a spear" was mostly a meme. Was there a ratio here where you had 40% knights 60% peasants or something?

Knights would pay professional soldiers who were a good deal of time wealthier "middle-class" peasants.

>hasn't watched Cautionary Tales of Swords