QUOTE (Umbralfox @ Nov 27 2011, 08:27 AM)
My two cents: How many people who legally own firearms nowadays will (outside of a military situation) actually utilize those firearms in an act of self-defense or self-preservation? I would imagine it will be a very, very small percentage.
Now, does that small chance actually impact the number of people who own firearms? I doubt it. To a lot of people, it's a nice thing to have... a security blanket of sorts, a 'better to have and not need than need and not have' security measure. I would imagine it's the same with the world of 2070. If firearms are legal and commonly available (and depending on the location, they are and they definitely are) then I imagine you'd have at least the same percentage of people owning those then, as you have now... for primarily the same reasons.
Security blanket? So you are implying having a firearm even in the case of being threatened by two leggers a firearm would do no good? I would say it is more like a fire extinguisher, sure can make a difference if used when fire first starts.
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In a lot of the shadowrun stories, the majority of corporate employees seem to act like the corporate employees of today: They trust in authority to take care of things... it's why Panicbuttons are so prevalent. From what I've read, other than the occasional global issue (IE crash 2.0) many employees will rarely if ever see the shadowy side of the dystopia they live in (unless you live in a Pink Mohawk campaign, perhaps, where a building blows up every other day) and those situations that arise should (in the belief of the employee) be taken care of by corporate/government security.
A corp employee who owns a firearm will most likely do so out of a sense of comfort, not out of any kind of 'statistical chance of conflict' or what have you. Realistically, in the case of a corporate sheep getting caught up in an actual shadowrun going down in the proximity? Three words: Someone else's problem. The typical response of most of these people will be to hide, hit the panic button, and wait for the scary noise to go away. Let the heavily armed and armored security force respond to the threat... that's how it works now, and I imagine it'll be even worse 60 years from now when someone built (cybernetically) for combat has such a massive edge over the typical employee built around a deskjob. This is especially true as Shadowrun seems to move further and further away from runs involving violent conflict and random collateral damage, and more towards the black trenchcoat, in-and-out, subtle runs.
Realistically, most will recognize that having a pistol will not make an ounce of difference between being killed and not being killed (especially when the chances of your attacker having incredible speed, reflexes, implanted aiming hardware, and heavy subdermal bodyarmor), at least on a logical level... and so owning a firearm is not based upon reason, but (again) upon emotion/feeling safe. As such, I believe that shadowrun has no more and no less of an armed society than the locations they're based around now. Heck, in 2070, even a lot of the awakened wildlife seems to have been cleared out of the major population centers. Gone, typically, are the days of a random hellhound chewing on somebody in Seattle's business district. As to the barrens? Well, many corp citizens will make a long, healthy life goal of not going to the Barrens. At some point, the only way for an employee to survive a firefight with a typical street sam will be to become a street sam on his own, at which point... what company will hire him for a typical desk job? That kind of paranoia (is it really paranoia when it could some day be necessary?) looks bad and might freak out the other employees... plus, obviously, someone decked out as a street sam for a desk job is a shadowrunner in disguise... even if he's not!
Not all trouble comes from runners. There are regular criminals and thugs that like to steal from wageslaves and the megas when they can. And remember the build rules for a runner are far above the average person, they are top notch in ability. Carrying a firearm in-case of runners would be like carrying in-case of the 101st showing up today; runners aren't the reason. Its the lesser threats. Now perhaps some old timers still do carry their warhawk on their side loaded with exex or apds in case of hellhounds with a rifle chambered in 577 tyrannosaur in their truck because they remember seeing hellhounds eating someone in a back alley on a regular enough basis.
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This brings up another point... how often do shadowrunners infiltrate businesses by posing for entry-level jobs? Would this kind of behavior lead companies to be suspicious of employees with heavier-than-typical weapons and armor? Even arms and armor that are legal... why would they need that kind of firepower? Etc, etc.
Again, just my two cents.
How often to runners infiltrate businesses with by showing up saying hi I"m Joe, take no heed of the heavy flak jacket and full body armor nor the ingram valiant on my hip? If that is normal for your games then I must say you play in the most pink mohawk I've heard of. Personally, when my PC is infiltrating (assuming its one that can do so), I'm not going to look any different from a worker, so in Ares I'd have two or three pistols of different sizes concealed on me and on Fridays I'd have my Ares Alpha on my back. Bring your rifle to work day of course