A longbow takes years of training, can’t be concealed, can’t be stored strung—a crossbow has to be rewound between shots, and that’s slow—if someone throws a weapon at you, they don’t have it anymore!—traps have to be set up in advance and maintained—
it’s not the same.

“A cardiac stab wound is an uncommon and potentially lethal injury. With appropriate treatment, better than 90% of those admitted alive will survive.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2494362/
That’s your baseline for human-powered weapons. Guns are different.

I suspect the learning curves are different, too. Someone with good training and a knife is a terrifying opponent – knives are really versatile. (I have some training. And I had a housemate who loved knife fighting, years ago.*) But I would far rather deal with an idiot with a knife than an idiot with a gun. (I have dealt with with young idiots with knives, twice, in real life situations. It was not fun, but mostly because of the setting – things I do not want to deal with while I’m responsible for young children, gah. Disarming the idiots wasn’t actually hard. Also, I was younger, myself. Hell, my research students are the age I was. Okay, that thought is alarming.)

* I seem to have a lot of honored dead friends for being only 44.

Reminds me of the game “Arkham Aslyum,” the first in the series. Playing as Batman, starting off beating up unarmed baddies… then comes the very first time you go up against baddies armed with guns. HUGE wakeup call for any players forgetting that Batman’s supposed to be a regular mortal. Even the second game, with the more free-roaming, open world gameplay, still makes it clear: guns are bad news, even if you’re a top athlete wearing a costume made out of high tech protective materials.

Actually, there are far more ways to kill someone with a sharp object than just stabbing them in the chest. A favored target for swords was always the upper leg – that part of the limb is filled with not only arteries that can quickly leak out when cut, but also muscles that are very important for standing up and continuing to fight.

Furthermore, a longbow or crossbow is actually not all that different from a rifle – as in, extremely lethal, and you DO need training to hit something with it. Which is why all three were used side by side for many centuries (yes, medieval knights and samurai dealt with guns. They even used them personally – a Polish Hussar would go into battle in full plate armor and with lance, sword, and a brace of pistols. Plus some very impressive “wings” on his back that looked awesome when the horse was in full gallop). Weapons have always been nasty things – and modern weaponry is actually a boon to people who are less than martially capable, as with that 60 year old grandmother.

As for the realities of violence… well, here are links to discussions of mass graves filled after some medieval battles:

http://www.economist.com/node/17722650

http://museum-of-artifacts.blogspot.com/2015/11/bloody-medieval-warfare.html

Check the death toll rates (not just the total number killed, but also as a percentage) and you’ll find that things have actually gotten less violent over time – WWI was horrific and no denying it, but look at what the Mongols did to the middle east.

Going back to the Renaissance period and you’ll read about genocidal campaigns waged against the native Americans – who actually abetted it because they were fighting against each other (the only reason Cortez won is because he became the figurehead of an armed uprising against the Aztecs, who were undeniably vile). And about child soldiers and slave conscripts on sailing vessels (i.e. the typical British Empire’s crew) being killed by those “inaccurate’ cannons (because two cannons firing at the same time, with their cannonballs linked by a chain, means “everything in a broad swath gets ripped apart. Ship masts and people alike).

Go back further and we see peasants being butchered by the heavily armored knights, where elite and well equipped professional soldiers treated war as a game (because for them it WAS a game. The Battle of Agincourt was a shock to the French not just because they were slaughtered, but because they went in thinking that war with the English was like hunting foxes – fun for them, and who cares if the fox doesn’t like it?). Further yet and you’re in the days of the Roman Empire… AND their Barbarian enemies. Attila the Hun was NOT a nice guy.

Yes, modern day weaponry allows “one” person to mimic the effects of previous weapons (in fact even rocket launchers and machine guns are generally two-man weapons), but that has to be coupled with training to overcome the resistance to kill – because otherwise the crew-served weaponry is MORE likely to be used (back in the American Civil War, WWI and WWII it was found that most of the soldiers didn’t even fire their weapons; the only units who reliably fired upon the enemy were either being ordered to do so by an officer who was physically present, or a crew operating an artillery or other “group effort” device). Whereas with older weapons, including melee weaponry… those things were actually fairly sophisticated for their time. A sword is a finely engineered tool used for butchering another person with maximum efficiency (yes, they’re essentially big butcher knives – only made to be faster and more responsive; real medieval swords were quick and fast), and when placed in the hands of someone both trained in its use and eager to use it, you essentially have a cuisinart on legs. Not to mention spears, polearms, etc… this is one of the reasons why ancient stories of the “heroes” slaughtering hundreds of common soldiers are merely exaggerations rather than fabrications – a bunch of guys holding spears who don’t even want to be there, versus a bloodthirsty and highly trained athlete with a finely crafted weapon.

The REAL reason why war used to be seen as “romantic?” Because of the people who were starting the wars were also in control of the media (i.e. town criers, pamphlets, songs, stories, etc). Making it seem like a glorious thing because for them it was fun and profitable. But throughout history we also see surviving accounts by the average soldiers involved, and they make it clear that for them it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t romantic, it was something nasty and dirty and they were killing the poor bastards in front of them because of the evil bastards behind them. The reason why it’s fallen out of favor? Because while the official media STILL pushes a pro-war angle (look at some of the stories coming out of CNN OR Fox News. “A U.S. Navy battleship fired warning shots at an Iranian patrol boat in Iranian waters coming to investigate. We are all on high alert because how dare the Iranians send a skiff with a machine gun on it to investigate an intrusion onto their territory.”), more and more we’re able to hear the other side of things, and see it for ourselves.