Guest:

1) Try acquiring a moniker, even if you don't sign up to the board. It makes for a much more coherent argument, because you can be properly identified. You also get far more respect from everyone else for the simple fact that you look much less like a troll!

2) I suggest you desist from the sneering & snide personal remarks. It adds nothing to your arguments & impresses no-one. Quite the reverse.

3) There is nothing 'weak' about my intellect, thank you. I am both a re-enactor & an archer. I shoot longbow exclusively, up to 4-5 times a week. At the moment I'm mixing posting on Mudcat with fletching more arrows. Are you so very sure that you know more about the historical context than me?

4) Your analogies are fallacious! By your remarks, you display considerable ignorance of social, military & historical context. Like all too many people, you seem to have investigated a given topic only far enough to confirm the prejudices you had before you started! A longbow is no more a 'personal sidearm' than any standard issue infantry rifle. A crossbow is not "the assault rifle of its day". Such comments display your lack of knowledge. Frankly, I wouldn't even subscribe to the implied "personal sidearms need more training than assault rifles".

I won't suggest you stick to music. I will suggest you stick to talking of modern weaponry (with which you presumably are pretty familiar?), & leave out the erroneous historical parallels!

Oh, and no, personal sidearms aren't the original discussion, but it was YOU that used the phrase first... ;)