ikrase comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Vaniver 28 August 2013 07:29PM

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Comment author: ikrase 28 August 2013 09:58:50PM 5 points [-]

What? Harry doesn't want a gun because his magic is weak? In canon, guns are moderately effective against wizards. Carrying a pistol or a submachine gun around is the most blatantly obvious force multiplier, especially given that any other spell Harry can cast has at least a half-second casting time AND a two second cooldown.

Comment author: DanArmak 29 August 2013 08:52:48AM 2 points [-]

Guns would be useful against opponents who 1) were not prepared to face them (as the troll was prepared to face specific threats like sunshine), 2) were not adult wizards with shields raised. So yes, that leaves some options against which a gun in the bag of holding would be useful. (Harry will need to practice firing it though.) You're right, I'll update my comment accordingly.

Comment author: Benito 29 August 2013 06:55:16PM *  0 points [-]

Where are guns in Canon please?

Comment author: CAE_Jones 30 August 2013 01:04:04AM 1 point [-]

The only mention of guns in canon that I can recall is at the start of Prisoner of Azkaban, where the muggle side of the Sirius Black scare mentions him as armed and dangerous, and the Daily Prophet agrees that muggles are saying he has a gun, which they describe as being something like a muggle wand that they can use to attack one another.

I assume that a great many wizarding children went on to imagine the muggle world as some very interesting variant on the stereotypical Wild West, where "boomstick" was probably a better description of a shotgun than usual.