Swords and Guns

A couple of random, but loosely-linked posts:

Rocket Jones found (via Flea) a great video of a machine gun versus a Katana sword. The super-slow-motion of the bullets striking the blade is breathtaking.

At Troynovant, William H. Stoddard has updated an old book review of The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe. He observes the ambivalence of the residents of the 16th century toward the sword, and draws an analogy to our current culture's ambivalence toward handguns.