actually forget me the fact that prewar america is really forgeted up and economically shaky totally DOES justify pipe weapons n stuff
like i dont like it but that makes it sound like protag is of like an upper class (possibly because they work for the government?) and much of the middle and underclass has to engage in shady business to make sure they can continue to eat in an overpopulated and understocked world, and part of that means that everyone is just really good at either making and using their own unlicensed weaponry or lower-class 'street gunfights' are loud and imprecise (EXACTLY like raider-to-raider gang fights) and could only last so long before the authorities would swoop in so pipe weapons were effective at scaring people away but not necessarily actually killing them
so pre-war america had a bunch of proto-raiders (which i guess are just normal gangs) that history covers up because why would they tell anyone about the horrible gang violence that 50% of the world has to engage in
Poll