Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)/Headscratchers/Why Don't The Trio Just Shoot Him?

Please check JK's FAQs before asking a question that may have already been answered.


 * Given that they're in hiding since their main enemy has taken over the government, why don't either of the Muggle-born main characters (Harry or Hermione) realize just how good an idea getting a lethal weapon that doesn't require pure hatred to use would be? Such as, say, a gun. An old, cheap, easy-to-acquire (in the right places) AK-47 has a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute and an effective range of 300 meters. This easily outpaces any wand and out-ranges most (if not all) of the magic that we've seen. And it operates on purely mechanical principles, so the magical wizard plot field of inconvenience shouldn't have any effect. A handful of people armed with these and trained in basic marksmanship could have eliminated Voldy and any of his cronies before they'd even realized they were under attack. And they're way too arrogant and self-superior to ever do any research into Muggle weapons, even if they're getting killed by them. It would undermine everything they believe in if Voldy came to the next monthly Death Eater meeting and announced, "It turns out that magic is of remarkably little use when one is too full of bullets to cast it. Also, one killing curse every few seconds has nothing on a rate of fire of ten bullets per second, each plenty lethal. Therefore, we are looking into defenses against these weapons, and are arming ourselves with them. Starting now."
 * This has honestly been discussed to death. Long discussion short, it would have been difficult for them to get a hold of guns in Britain, which has very strict gun laws. But most importantly, this is a fantasy book for children. It's not the moral JK wanted to send that using guns solves all your problems.
 * It Just Bugs Me that half of this particularly sizeable Headscratchers page is "Why wasn't [Insert Character Here] packing a Glock?"
 * The "It's Britain, guns aren't legal" doesn't hold as much water in the final book as it does in the first 6. Being WANTED FUGITIVES with extensive knowledge of Muggle civilization makes it a lot easier to justify them apparating into an RAF base and apparating out with a trio of pistols.
 * Values Dissonance. Anyone who apparates into an RAF base and nicks weapons is a terrorist.
 * Yeah, me too. Especially since (a) A simple shield charm could probably stop a bullet, (b) You could easily say "Accio Gun!" and (c) We've constantly been shown that wizards are physically tougher than Muggles - Neville was dropped out of his house and fell twenty feet, and the worst he got was a broken wrist. If a bullet was flying towards a wizard, presumably he'd do some involuntary magic to stop it.
 * Then there's the point that Fred and George could probably come up with something that would turn any nearby gun into a rubber chicken...
 * Actually, when he was dropped from his house, he didn't get any injuries at all, falling from about the second story of a house ("an upstairs window", he says). He "bounced all the way into the garden". When he broke his wrist, he fell from about seven stories up or so from a broomstick during flying lessons.
 * Twenty feet isn't actually that far to fall. A broken wrist is believable if most of the impact was absorbed into it as he hit the ground. That's not super-wizard-endurance, just basic jump physics.
 * "A simple shield charm could probably stop a bullet"—I haven't seen any evidence for this. Specially since the shield would have to be up and pointed pre-emptively; bullets are too fast for reflexes.
 * Especially since WORD OF GOD says that wizards can't easily stop guns.
 * Surely the best evidence for it is the simple fact that even the bad guys, who would have no problem with either the morality or the practicality of stealing them, never use guns in the series. Also, Hagrid says that James and Lily couldn't have been killed in a car crash, which would also be "too fast for reflexes". It seems wizards just aren't vulnerable to mundane means of murder.
 * The bad guys don't use guns because guns are (say it with me, now) Muggle weapons, and they're all about distancing and distinguishing themselves from (and looking down on) Muggles. It's the exact same psychology that led Hitler to forbid his scientists to use Einstein's work in the German atomic research program. They were Jewish theories.
 * You're freaking kidding me, right? James and Lily couldn't have been killed by a car crash because they don't have cars, not because they are magically immune to car crashes. On the other hand, we see Bellatrix trying to kill Harry with a knife, the owner of the elder want having his throat slit, and trolls, giants, and centaur arrows being effective weapons against wizards.
 * Centaur arrows. Kinetic or close fight weapons made in the wizard world can kill wizards. It's not absurd that you could perform a charm protecting yourself against any Muggle weapon.
 * What about Arthur Weasley's Ford Anglia? Or, if he's too much of an anomaly, consider that Lily Potter, as a Muggle-born, might have learned how to drive. Regardless, I always got the :impression, from Hagrid's implied tone, that he WAS, in fact, claiming that a car crash would have been incapable (and far too mundane a method) of killing James and Lily Potter. That they were too powerful. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but apparently it does. As for the knife, Bella might have only wanted to wound him..
 * Another interpretation of Hagrid's line is simply that he is so shocked to hear Harry, of all people, giving a wildly different account of deaths that are iconic in wizard history. It's rather like saying "Lightning? A lightning bolt killed Abraham Lincoln?"
 * I took it as him finding it insulting. To Hagrid (and the rest of WW) being killed by Voldy, by Voldy himself, is a VERY big deal. It says that the people in question were strong, brave, and fighting for freedom, all to an insane and signifigant degree. For their son to be told that they died in some mundane, pointless way was insulting to their memory, to Harry, and to everything the Order fought/fights for.
 * Enchanted knife, perhaps?
 * Yes, this troper fully believes that a strong shield charm would block a bullet. Even Dolores Umbridge—who was probably pretty bad at magic, seeing as she only taught theory—managed to block centaur arrows. the Death Eaters in DH were simply overwhelmed by trying to block a dozen curses and arrows at once, and, even worse, having a bunch of gleefully blood-hungry house elves with cleavers on them. After becoming completely protected from bullets, the wizard could then simply turn the gun into something harmless—or harmful to the wielder—or melt it, turn it to dust, etc.
 * Umbridge only taught theory NOT because she had to have sucked at magic, but rather because she and Fudge were paranoid about Dumbledore turning the students into his own private army and so was trying to sabotage that. Besides, arrows are a LOT slower-moving (and thus easier to block) than a freaking bullet.
 * Word of God explicitly states that guns triumph over wands any day, JK actually says this. Go on. Muggles Do It Better. Take a look. The only reason this seems to never be an issue is because the Ministry of Magic are so anal about keeping up the Masquerade, and the Muggle and Wizarding Worlds barely mix. So really, any witch/wizard could have whipped out a gun and pwned their opponent, it's just too Muggle for them, they don't bother with interacting at all.
 * Enough with that Word of God. That sentence has never been sourced. I have never seen anything that attributes it as to anything more than a rumour.
 * She doesn't say that, she says something like a Muggle would have an advantage. She doesn't really answer the question fully. Ron heavily implies that a shield charm can protect one from falling hundreds of feet from a broom. Bullets don't actually pack all that much energy—it's just the tiny area it's concentrated over.
 * To me it's mostly because, as far as it is in the wizard world, everything is like Middle Age. So, you can't use firearms because, in heroic fantasy, the most powerful range weapon allowed is the crossbow.
 * I'm gonna have to see a link to believe that. Because canon actually does have one (and only one) wizard vs. Muggle-with-gun situation in it. The Muggle loses.
 * As I recall, said Muggle was scared out of his mind and is established to be an incompetent nitwit. Basing the relative efficacy of Muggle weaponry on Vernon Dursley's performance is like evaluating the relative efficacy of the Briish army based on Arthur Percival.
 * Also, for all those Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? types, remember this takes place in England, not America; it is much much harder to get firearms there, and guns are nowhere near as prevalent in the culture. Even beyond all the "not wanting to stoop to Muggle means" arguments about why they didn't use guns is the fact that even among the Muggles there, guns can almost border on taboo.
 * It's been stated earlier on in the page that in a world where wizards don't use "Muggle technology" like pencils, it's pretty unlikely that they would use a gun. The Muggle Artifacts rule seems to be if there's a wizarding equivalent of a Muggle object, then the Muggle object won't be used, and if there isn't a wizarding equivalent, a magic-infused Muggle object will be used. For example, the wizarding world uses radios (which are Muggle inventions) made better by magic, because they don't have a wizarding equivalent. They don't use guns because there is a wizarding equivalent - Avada Kedavra. This rule can apply to pretty much any object in the 'Verse.
 * The villains don't use guns because they're arrogant pricks who refuse to believe that any Muggle device could possibly be more effective than their magic, or worth their time to obtain or learn how to use. The heroes don't use guns because it was too hard for them to get access to them, and they had not be previously trained in their use. Yes, a gun-wielding Muggle beats a wand-wielding wizard, but only if the Muggle is well trained with the gun! Presumably, if there are wizards in America in the Potterverse, some of them might have enchanted guns that fire magic bullets.
 * Unlikely. Wizards rarely improve Muggle technology. They prefer to use pure wizard items. OK, there is the Ford Anglia, but because it can be used for camouflage. They prefer brooms to fly.
 * He's talking about a hypothetical case involving American muggleborns, who would grow up shooting guns and thus be entirely willing to enhance them with magic once they learned how. Seriously, we're Americans. We officially have more guns in this country (360 million) than we have people (318 million).
 * For the Trio, this is especially true. Ron's a pureblood who can barely grasp how to operate a telephone, let alone a 'fireleg'. Harry was raised in a cupboard under the stairs. This leaves Hermione as the only one of the bunch who might possibly have ever had weapons training bef-... sorry, couldn't keep a straight face. Really, when and where are any of the Gryffindor Trio ever supposed to have found weapons training? Even if they used magic to loot a Scotland Yard Armed Response unit, they'd be lucky just to load the things, let alone fire them, without accidentally shooting themselves.
 * Lets assume for a second they did this, they found Voldemort alone, and shot him in the head, then managed to get away before they were killed by his legion of followers (itself straining credibility to an absurd degree). What part of "immortal lord Voldemort" don't you get? The only reason it took him that long to return to life the first time was because his body was completely disintegrated. If he was just shot, he'd probably just get up and brush himself off. But even if his body was destroyed again, he now has an army of loyal followers, an easy way to capture the people who hate him with a fiery passion (Mrs. McGonagall, please come to the grounds at once), and they know exactly where his father is. They could perform the exact same ritual that brought him back the first time easily. It would sidetrack him for maybe 20 minutes, only now he considers Muggles a direct threat, and starts genociding.
 * I probably should've realized the anti-gun law thing before I thought that same idea to myself. Guns are practically impossible to obtain in the UK (though that apparently didn't stop Vernon from carrying a rifle in the first book, assuming the law was in effect in the year the book takes place in (1991).)
 * Vernon owning a rifle is plausible because it was before 1996. The trio getting a gun to use on Voldemort is far less plausible, especially a handgun (which, unless they're antiques or you cannot get ammunition for them at all, are completely illegal). Semi-automatic rifles over .22 calibre are also illegal. Basically, the only guns that are easy to find in Britain are shotguns, and then only if they can only hold 3 rounds at a time.
 * As much as I'd be amused at Harry going "#### THIS!" and shooting Voldy, I'd much rather see a wand to wand fight between the two.
 * Yeah, except we didn't get that, either. We got a monologue and a rebounding spell.
 * Why is "they're in England, they have gun laws!" a valid counterargument? They are Wizards! They can teleport anywhere in the world. Including places where they can pick up weapons that are illegal elsewhere. And as for Voldemort's immortality, they can take care of that while he's searching for a new body.
 * Ignoring, of course, the other Wizarding governments that would no doubt be suspicious of people trespassing into their country. You have to remember that they have little to no money, are on the run, and it's never confirmed they can teleport large enough distances to, say, cross the body of water surrounding England. Also keep in mind that Voldemort had Harry listed as undesirable number one, a person of interest, and had the whole Magical Government keeping an eye out for him (so if they keep track of unscheduled transportation across borders, they probably check it out). If other countries found him, they might be scared enough to turn him over to Voldemort.
 * It is actually confirmed that they CAN'T apparate over large distances. Even Voldemort had to spend time flying back to England after visiting that Wizard prison thing. He had to get "close enough" to apparate into the country.
 * Which is odd, given that you can apparate from Hogsmeade to Little Surrey quite effectively, and the distance between Northern Scotland and the London greater metropolitan area is almost identical to the difference between London and Germany. Simply reaching France requires only the ability to Apparate slightly less than 25 miles, i.e., the narrowest point of the English Channel.
 * For that matter, muggle Customs is hardly set up to deal with the security problem presented by people who can teleport around security barriers, turn invisible, shapeshift, or Confound/Imperius/etc. the guards.
 * Although to be fair, the original question is about them Apparating to somewhere its easy for them to obtain handguns, and it is impossible for wizards to make the jump from the UK to North America without somehow obtaining an international Portkey. And easy access to Western Europe isn't helping them much, the gun laws there aren't much more forgiving than England's.
 * All three of them are fugitives from the law—Harry is, of course, Undesirable Number 1, Hermione didn't present herself for questioning, and Ron should be on his death bed with spattergroit. Other Wizarding governments probably wouldn't know or care about Hermione and Ron, but Harry is literally the most wanted person in England at the moment. Assuming that Wizarding nations have the same loyalties that Muggle ones do, don't you think that, say, Magical USA would try to capture him and give him to the British government if they found him?
 * Debatable. "So, why do you want this kid, exactly?" "Ermmmmm..."
 * Besides, they're in England, they have gun laws, probably none of them can shoot a gun. It's a lot more complicated than you might think.
 * AND there's still the point about wizards simply being tougher. There's lots of evidence around—they take freaking lead balls to the head for "fun". Harry himself gets knocked out tons of times with no ill effects. Also, Neville, who until book 7 was pretty useless, bounced when dropped from his house and ended up fine, right? AND then there's Hagrid's quote about Lily and James being impervious to death by a car crash (the actual quote: "CAR CRASH! ...How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage!), which heavily implies that involuntary magic would save them. Finally, the Ministry is aware of the dangers posed by firearms: surely if there was a risk of one killing a wizard, they'd have intervened? Muggle with a gun killing a wizard? I ain't buying it. Besides, the story's much less fun if it could have been resolved in 3 minutes.
 * People being knocked out countless times with no ill-effect is a side effect of them being fictional characters, not of them being wizards. I was under the impression that Neville bounced because of involuntary magic, which stops after a certain age, or only rarely happens in extreme situations. And as for Hagrid's outraged reaction over the Dursleys telling Harry that James and Lily died in a car crash, I thought that was because it was such an insult to their memory to pretend that they had died in a mundane accident, when they had in fact sacrificed themselves to defend their son from the darkest wizard of all time, rather than because they literally couldn't have been killed by a car accident.
 * "Too fast reflexes"? "Harder to kill and more resilient"? "Spontaneous magic"? Ok, let's assume they're all true. It doesn't change anything. The Trio can acquire/create some explosives, then set a trap with Harry as bait, maybe in an old castle, a cave or the like. Then, just detonate the bomb and drop 200K tons of rock on him. Also mage seems able to transmutate object via magic. So: just transmutete the air around V into contrete, blocking his jaw. He's buried deep, can't cast a spell and you did't use any of those bad, bad firearms... Also, if he comes back to life due to Horcruxes, he'll still be buried.
 * Yes, it has been mentioned many times on the main Headscratchers page that one prepared Muggle with a firearm can probably overpower one wizard. But then you must think about what a wizard can do. The strength of magic is not in pure offensive power and killing things, it is more subtle than that. A competent wizard can disappear in thin air and reappear anywhere he chooses, he can modify people's memory, he can turn things invisible, and he can create something bigger on the inside on command, and if he wants to be sadistic, he can rip every bone out of someone without spilling a drop of blood. So yes, a Muggle can probably defeat one unprepared wizard (assuming the unlikely situation where he can find and corner a wizard in the first place), but then that hapless Muggle will have to fight the aforementioned wizard's seriously pissed-off friends; when your opponents regularly fool around with the laws of reality itself, guess who's gonna win?
 * Maybe, but he's got to stand in place to kill you. Also, claymore mines.
 * I always imagine a gun vs wand fight a bit like an ordinary gun vs gun duel (and let's face it, wand vs wand duels aren't too different from that either). The one who aims better and faster wins. The end. The only difference is that you have more options (and also, painless/bloodless options) with a wand.
 * That's the point: the wizard has more options. Aiming better and faster doesn't matter if your opponent gets behind you by the time you pull the trigger. Or transforms your gun into a kitten, or a poisonous snake, or a hail of knives. Or just makes you forget why you're pointing a weapon at the nice person with a stick. And that's not even counting the involuntary magic that might kick in at just that moment.
 * The arguments against either side using a gun are BS.
 * Guns are hard to get in England FOR THE LAW ABIDING. Criminals don't have nearly as much trouble. And even then, WIZARDS. They could hop a broom or a portkey or a floo or whatever to another country with more lax gun laws--- or just to the nearest black market--- load up and come back.
 * When someone yells "Draw, pilgrim", "Click, Bang" is always faster than "wave wand, say silly words".
 * Nowhere, not even once, is a magic shield shown deflecting a bullet. In fact, they're shown only partially effective against far less powerful impacts.
 * Even the most paranoid wizards don't keep shields up 24-7. Or are even capable of it.
 * Even ignoring hand guns, shot guns, machine guns, grenades, etc., a man with a rifle and a scope can put a bullet between your eyes from over a mile away. The effective range of magic spells is little more than a hundred feet. Night unkillable or not, one sniper in a Hogwarts tower could have ruined Voldemort's whole day, to say nothing of all his non-horcruxed-up followers. You would have to limit the defending forces to muzzle loading blunderbusses to give the attacking wizards a shot in hell; doubly so if the riflemen had a couple of wizards on their own side.
 * Values Dissonance again. To Brits, a sniper in a Hogwarts tower is bad. It is evil. It is Family-Unfriendly Violence to the Nth degree. Several of the points in the book are about the 'good' side descending to the same sort of tactics used by Voldemort; sniper in a tower would be exactly that. Yeah, it would work, but at the cost of making a load of kids think Harry's just turned into Voldemort... Even the British Army's recruitment ads use euphemisms for the job (Snipers 'take out key enemy targets').
 * Wizards have invisibility. If you can't see someone you can't shoot them, but said wizard can basically teleport to your location, kill you then do the same thing to your friends. Assuming both sides are in equal number and are aware that the other wants to shoot them, wizards win every time by virtue of invisibility and teleportation alone.
 * You get a lot more energy falling hundreds of feet than getting shot; bullets are only effective because they are relatively sharp and thus have a lot of pressure. Also, technology doesn't work near Hogwarts. Finally, Hagrid said a car crash (more energy than a bullet) COULDN'T kill Lily/James, not DIDN'T. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James? It's an outrage!" I am not buying a gunman bringing down DEs. Especially since, even if one managed to somehow subvert a wizard's superior toughness, unconscious magic and Hogwarts' tech-destroying aura, would not a prudent Death eater simply cast a Shield Charm to save themselves when they heard fire? Oh, and they could heal each other.
 * Actually besides the arguments on where they could possibly get a gun and learn how to use it I don't think that's it's a stretch that Harry and Hermione who've built their entire lives around their identity as a wizard and witch might not even be capable of considering the use of a gun at all. Well Harry is more likely since he's thought of things like walkie-talkies and aqualungs, but all of Hermione's solutions revolve around how skilled and creative she is with magic.
 * It's really very simple: Voldemort had Horcruxes. Horcruxes are damn near impossible to destroy, only destroyed in the story by a sword and fang with the power to kill anything and an immensely powerful spell. Needless to say, a gun wouldn't do the trick. If they shot Voldemort, he would just live on in a Horcrux. Besides, Harry and his friends were hunting Horcruxes, not Voldemort. They wouldn't bother getting guns because they wouldn't use them.
 * The Trio don't use guns because in Britain only bad guys use guns. If you want to show someone being a nasty piece of work, then they get given a gun. Americans can chalk it up to Values Dissonance, but guns=bad here, especially in children's works. So no sleek, steel, murder-death devices for heroes.
 * When they finally got to Voldemort, they were at Hogwarts, where the "magic in the air" would have messed with the gun. A gun wouldn't destroy a Horcruz either, because it needs to be put past magical repair. And lastly, it's not just Shield Charms that can stop bullets. There's also a simple household spell known as an UNBREAKABLE CHARM, aka instant bulletproof armor.
 * Hogwarts' magical aura is specifically said to screw up ELECTRONICS; most guns aren't electronic. Hogwarts doesn't disrupt all mechanical devices (they still have working door latches), nor does it disrupt chemical reactions (for example, it's shown that, unless enchanted otherwise, even magically-created fire still needs oxygen to burn) so there's literally no reason given for a non-electric firearm not to work. As for Unbreakable Charms, they likely have a limit to their effectiveness. Otherwise, why didn't Voldemort just use them on his Horcruxes?
 * Invisible spell> go to an army barracks and steal guns. Invisible spell > go to the barracks when Drill Sergeant Nasty teaches the new recruits which end of a gun is the pointy bit. Silence spell > go to the firing range and practise. Occulmens spell> change the channel, so instead of Dark Lord Broadcastig Network, they watch Myth Busters and fall in love with the Mini Gun, 1000 rounds a minute, cartridge cases akimbo. Riddle has Hor Crux, if you kill him once, he will rise again. If you kill him seven times, he is dead.
 * Because it's a book about wizards. Wizards don't shoot each other with guns. What's so hard to understand about that? On an even simpler lever, stories need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning, the man character has flaws and is presented with some challenge that he cannot meet. In the middle, he grows, changes, learns, or meets people. In the end the main character uses what he has learned or otherwise obtained to overcome his challenge. "Obtain gun; shoot Voldemort" does not satisfy this very simple structure.
 * Taking a different tack: The whole "wizards can do X, Y, and Z to a gun before it could be fired" thing falls apart pretty quickly:
 * How many Death Eaters would be familiar enough with a firearm to neutralize one before they caught lead?
 * How many Death Eaters get perforated before countermeasures (other than "find cover" and "hope they miss") are developed?
 * How many Death Eaters still get whacked out of sheer Pureblood arrogance that a Muggle weapon could do them in?
 * To sum up: Yes Wizards can do any number of things to a shooter, but how many would and could before they got shot and how many get shot before they learn to do "X, Y, and Z?"

Back to the main Headscratchers page