Talk:Earth/@comment-112.198.77.88-20120611162339/@comment-5179242-20120619183401

My view has always been that the inhabitants of Earth trade weapons found in the real world for unique weapons that are not found in the real world. In the case of fire-arms, they switched to the Electrical Gloves that the Equalists have.

To see the real reason why there are no guns in the Avatarverse, you have to look at why guns would be needed and how they were invented in the real world.

In the real world, guns are a useful weapon because they allow you to attack an enemy from a distance. This takes away from the physical side of fighting, which means there will be less casualties. However, in the Avatarverse, fighting has already lost it's physical touch due to bending. In this way, using bending to fight someone is like shooting a gun. There's no need to invent fire-arms if non-physical fighting is possible. However, the Equalists may soon invent the gun because they cannot bend and need a way to attack benders from a distance.

Looking at the history of guns, we know that they were invented as a direct result of the discovery of gunpowder. There is no gunpowder in the Avatarverse, so there cannot be any guns. Looking further back in time, gunpowder was accidentally discovered by alchemists in China. There are no alchemists in the Avatarverse either.