"The sword is a weapon of honor and dignity." - Sir William Wallace

The sword and the gun. I’ve always been a reader, a thinker, maybe in my own humble way a bit of a philosopher. And sometimes I find myself seeking the underlying truths of things, the why not just the how.

Many of the influences on my early life were swordsmen and gunfighters of fiction and history. The Knights of the Round Table, the heroes of Middle-Earth and Amber, Musashi, Shane, Wild Bill Hickok, and more. I didn’t just want to read about them, I wanted to be like them. 

One common denominator of all these legendary characters, fictional or historical, was skill at arms. And specifically skill with sidearms, not long arms. In other words skill with the sword or the pistol, instead of the polearm or rifle.

Truth be told, the sword was never the primary weapon on the battlefield historically. That was always the spear, the polearm, the bow. Weapons that had longer range and could inflict more damage. But the sword was always at the warrior’s side, and skill with a sword was always the distinguishing characteristic of a master of his craft. 

It’s really no different today. We have our sniper rifles, our carbines, all these other tools that are more effective and have greater range. But the pistol is the one that is always by our side. And skill with a pistol is what most distinguishes the modern warrior as the master of his craft. 

Why is this? Why do we idolize skill with secondary weapons over skill with primary ones? Part of the answer I believe lies in what I said above. Rifles and spears are set aside indoors, but the pistol stays in its holster and the sword in its scabbard. They are always at our sides. And because of this, they are the weapons of self-defense and of consensual one on one combat. 

When knights or samurai fought duels or defended themselves from criminals they used their swords. When the lawmen and outlaws of the American west did the same it was with their pistols. If given time and opportunity to prepare for combat any of these men would have chosen a primary weapon over their secondary ones. But those primary weapons weren’t worn on their person like a pistol or a sword. Those were always at hand.

The second part of the answer I believe lies in difficulty and transferability of skill. The pistol is exponentially harder to master than the rifle, just as the sword is far harder to master than the spear. This level of difficulty means that someone who’s mastered these weapons has put more hours into polishing their craft than someone who doesn’t have the same level of skill with them.

And skill with a pistol transfers to skill with a rifle, while the converse is decidedly not true. It’s a cliche among line soldiers that they can shoot a rifle well, but not shoot a pistol well. Likewise, a historical warrior who mastered the sword could be counted on to wield a pole arm well. Because of this transferability of skill, more emphasis is put on the pistol in training. I’ve found that I can spend much less of my overall training time on carbine than pistol and still improve in skill with both.

If you carry a gun for a living, or to defend yourself and others, take inspiration from the warrior traditions of the past. Aspire to master your craft with the gun in much the same way the warriors of old treasured skill with the sword. At its core, there’s not much difference between the pursuit of real skill with either the sword or the gun.