AH Challenge: Make dueling a way to settle disputes in the Current Age

hammo1j

Donor
Dueling, where a man challenges his peer to Pistols at dawn was a popular and manly way to settle disputes up until the 1820's.

Clearly the public interest will be piqued and the outcome is not necessarily the death of one of the combatants. The belief of the challenger must be such that the risk of injury or even death is worthy of the dispute, the winner by God's will, the winner of the argument.

In obvious addition it should be added that the right to challenge persons of high order shall be determined by the court. A personality such as Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn would otherwise be subject to constant challenge. Suffice to say a standoff with pistols should only be possible for those of equal status: Thus Jeremy could challenge Boris, but the rest of the country, even with sufficient grudge as now is the case, could challenge neither.

How would the outcome of such masculine determination be reported in the press. Would the best events be televised?

For the more mundane disputes of "Were you looking at me" would the virtuous triumph due to their sober nature or would the animal instinct of the baser man be racking up scores like a German fighter pilot on the Eastern Front?

I, of course, as a civilised man of this TL, find this whole concept despicable. But if by some warp and weft of God's will, it became possible, I am asking the collegiate of this forum to describe the very possible monstrosity this might entail.
 

Dorknought

Use robots. Here meet my stand-in K2S0.

Or you could go steampunk if it’s 1800’s
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Deleted member 94680

Have German Mensur-style duelling societies expand rather than decline after WWII. Have duelling scars all over the place. Over the years post-WWII, have the scars associated with machismo, higher education and personal honour all over Europe. Maybe it spreads?
 

Meordal

The Art of dueling died when governments decided that a sword wasn’t fashionable enough to be worn in the streets. Honestly, as soon as plebian individuals and nobles stopped wearing a sword (and thus learning how to use this weapon), sword duels slowly disappeared in those populations, even if it was/is still popular in the military and Germanic universities, even in Switzerland.

The result was the introduction of pistol duels that too often resulted in the death of one of the participants, which is why it became illegal. Losing hundreds of fine soldiers and officers or civil influential gentlemen didn’t please the authorities.

I have a solution, let’s turn dueling into a popular non-lethal sport in early 1900’s. The idea is to keep this bloodless duel alive long enough for lawmakers to find a way to forbid the deadly forms of duels (first-blood and to-death), but not wax-bullet duels. Later as the public is used to it, we just need to wait until lawsuits make wax-bullet duel a legal way to solve a dispute. I am happy and proud to introduce you to

Wax bullet duels and Olympics

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wax-bullet-duels-were-the-paintball-fights-of-1909
https://royalarmouries.org/stories/object-of-the-month/bloodless-duelling-at-the-olympics/


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Dueling gentlemen

Duelling was a sport at the 1906 Olympics and 1908 Olympics. In the 1906 Olympics, male competitors fired duelling pistols at plaster dummies from 20m and 30m. In the 1908 Olympics, duelling was a demonstration sport, and featured two male competitors firing at each other with duelling pistols loaded with wax bullets and wearing protective equipment for the torso, face, and hands.

Prior to The Great War the brief popularity of this new and innovative sport even spread across the Atlantic with the Carnegie Sword and Pistol Club in New York and the New York Athletic Club, in particular, sponsoring competitions (OTL).

There is sill a need to turn an upper-class leisure into a more popular and widespread activity.

ITTL, wax-bullet pistol dueling is added to the 1912 Summer Olympics in the new modern pentathlon (POD).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_pentathlon_at_the_1912_Summer_Olympics

Who did participate in the modern pentathlon event at 1912 Summer Olympics for the United States team?

Patton and the military

Shooting at living humans in peacetime is the best way to learn how to shoot at other living humans in wartime. Getting accustomed to being targeted, helps you not to fear your enemy. It’s modern true-to-life training and how we can separate cowards from future soldiers before the war. I discovered it in Stockholm and understood it in Mexico.

George Smith Patton Jr. of TTL
Click to expand...

After WW1, the sport of pistol dueling is lobbied by the military and sponsored by governments in various countries as a way to prepare future soldiers for war. Germany and Japan even made the practice compulsory in schools during the Interwar period. It quickly becomes a part of military training in 1920’s, especially in countries with compulsory military service like France or in a gun-loving country like United States or in the pragmatic United Kingdom. This military training method is quickly adopted around the world after WW2 and civilian clubs are crowded during Cold War.

upload_2019-5-16_21-24-59.jpeg

US troops duel training with wax-bullets during 1950’s : After a few shoots on realistic and threatening 3-D human-shaped targets in uniforms, those soldiers will begin shooting at each others at different distances, using wax-bullets and wearing protective gear.
Click to expand...

This static training was later modified in the sixties with the use of paint-bullets and instinctive (simultaneous) shoots. During Vietnam War, Marines further modified this training by testing groups-tactics through realistic scenarii. It was the birth of the paint-bullets battles.

Civilian popularity :

The IOC recently amended its rules finally introducing paint-bullets equipped handguns, instead of wax-bullets.

Nowadays pistol dueling clubs are popular in United States, thanks to NRA. Pistol dueling clubs are also numerous in Europe, Japan or Russia.

You can also find a lot of practitioners of pistols dueling in poorer countries, where defending yourself makes the difference between life and death. Paint-bullets battles for civilians are growing in popularity among veterans and gun-loving civilians, but are heavily regulated in USA.

Honor, laws and bloodless duels

With the use of wax-bullets instead of real ones, modern pistol duelling turned into a less violent way to solve honor and legal disputes without blood shedding or death. Military institutions were the first ones turning a blind eye on this practice and trying to regulate it with new duel codes and specific laws during WW1 and WW2.

After WW1, the practice of "bloodless duels" was common among veterans and members of the traditional gentlemen's club who considered it as a way to distinguish themselves from the plebeian masses in a world turned upside-down.

The Interwar period also saw a wave of legalizations of those duels in Europe to counter the human thirst for blood. The British Commonwealth (1921) and France (1923) were soon followed by the former central powers and Italy (1925-1929).

The legalization and democratization occurred after WW2 in a traumatized world. The United States legalized duels in 1947, Japan and Communist China in 1970.

Soviet Union kept prohibiting this practice until its collapse.
 
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HB of CJ

Pistols at dawn could end up quite fatal. How about edged weapons? First blood? Sword fighting. Or, if ones emotions are really running high and you intend to gut your adversary how how Bowie Knives?
 
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