I know, by painful experience, the irrevocable damage a desperate person with a gun can do to a family. (Sometimes I feel really shallow for still being able to have fun with guns after having my world shaken so terribly by someone wielding one, but that’s a different topic.)
When we all know the damage a gun can do, why are they still so cool?
Guns don’t show up all that often in BtVS, do you think they add something positive when they do? Why/why not?
We've gotten into the topic of guns and gun control here before, and it always leads into what I like to refer to as a "Cave men vs Astronauts" debate, because there are people here, myself among them, who feel so strongly about the subject. It's ironic to me that your first statement above pretty much sums up the real problem with what is sometimes called "gun violence." "...my world shaken so terribly BY SOMEONE WIELDING ONE." A firearm, ANY firearm, is an inanimate object, incapable of any action, either destructive of harmful, in and of itself. To blame one for the deaths caused by the irresponsible or criminal use it is put to is no more logical than blaming automobiles (which are, by the way, involved in as many as 8 deaths for every 1 attributed to firearms) for traffic deaths. That's my rant on that subject, and I have no real desire to engage in a debate here and now that neither side can ever win.
As for the use of guns in the Buffyverse, the only character who regularly used them, to the best of my knowledge, was Wes, and when he did, he seemed particularly competent with and respectful of them. I think that the main reason that Joss avoided the wholesale use of them was that he didn't want Buffy to become another "Blade," Her confrontations with demons and vampires were almost exclusively one on one, and it simply looked better to engage in a little hand to hand (or claw, depending on the particular demon) combat before dispatching her opponent. (Dollhouse is another subject entirely, but even there, guns are used mostly for their dramatic effect, and in almost every case, a knife or a club would have worked just as well)
As to whether guns "add something positive" to Buffy, I don't think so in particular, with the exception of the rocket launcher, but then, neither, really, do stakes, crossbows, or swords, except to serve as the tools of the Slayer's trade.
Why do "men's movies" or "action movies" involve guns and explosions? Probably the greatest action movie ever made, "Enter The Dragon," never made use of a single gun or explosion. Unfortunately, very few, if any of the other well known "action stars," with the exception of Seagal and Norris, both of whom are real martial artists of the highest order, actually have the skill required to pull off anything of the magnitude of Lee's classic without looking ridiculous, plus almost none of the current writers working in Hollywood have the least clue about what it would take to make an action movie WITHOUT guns or explosions. So, for Hollywood, guns equal action, simply because so few people involved in the movie making business have the talent to do it any other way.
