Saw some Formosan Rock Monkeys yesterday: dexterious little buggers. Which naturally got me thinking: could you train one to use a gun reliably? What about a chimpanzee or other ape?
To fire it reliably? Probably. But I sure wouldn’t trust it to handle it unsupervised nor use good judgment on when and at what to fire it.
It would only be sporting to teach them how to reload as well.
The recoil could be a problem for the little guys.
The results would be disastrous. But yes, it can and has been done. Humans are apes. Ape - Wikipedia Millions of gun trained apes, and not gun trained apes, have killed people and animals with guns. Also themselves.
Yes, I’d hoped that would be seen as implicit in my question. But to elaborate: could members of any extant, non-human primate species be trained to use firearms, including shooting an intended target, reloading the weapon, and possibly even cleaning and disassembly/reassembly?
Imagine the following scenario, not an all-encompassing one for purposes of the question at hand but still perhaps a useful illustration: I would like to keep vandals and ne’er-do-wells from my banana plantation in the Congo, and have resolved to train a group of chimpanzees* (raised by me from birth in my underground laboratory) to be self-sufficient in guarding the grounds and shooting all humans aside from myself and the small number of human field hands I’ve trained them not to shoot. I’m away from the plantation for months at a time, so I leave the chimpanzees a stock of ammo for them to take care of themselves. Could it be done?
(*Or bonobos or gorillas or gibbons or baboons or Ourang-Outangs, whatever)
Throwing in another preemptive response, though I know it will make the thread far shorter: yes, I know it’s a bad idea, uneconomical, and so on. I’m just curious about whether it can be done at all. I suspect it can: if you can teach chimpanzees and gorillas sign language, why not this?
“yes you could but It would not end well”
Charlton Heston
I seem to recall, that chimpanzees are much worse than us at precise hand movement. They can’t, for example, thread a needle. I think that also means that they literally can’t aim precisely. Even if they could understand how to use sights to aim, they couldn’t keep them on target. Also, they would have trouble fitting magazine into magazine well and operating all that small switches. Not to mention that gunshot sounds would be very stressing for them. Overall, I think it would take very long time and very special chimpanzee to learn how to operate standard firearm.
Now, if it was some simplified special model with minimum of service needed, big plastic handles and easy point-and-click sight, I could see that.
Or, even easier, teach little buggers how to throw hand grenades. They’re already doing good with shit, just show them how to pull the pin. And run. Fast.
Did you read “Congo” by Michael Chrichton?
He posits a race of specially bred grey gorillas who had been trained by the original inhabitants of a lost city centuries ago to use stone paddles to crush skulls of interlopers/ diamond thiefs.
The thread title sounds like the setup for a Parris Island joke.
Bonobos are too precoccupied with sex from what I’ve heard about them, and Gorillas are said to be peaceful vegetarians, while Chimpanzees do lead wars in the wild against other groups and also eat meat and have no problem killing leopards.
I wonder why you would go the complicated route of guns, though. For one thing, the chimps depend on ammunition not running out, getting wet etc., and neither the guns themselves breaking down etc.
Secondly, as Cecilonce said, Chimps are really strong, so you could simply train them to beat up interlopers.
Thirdly, Cecil said
so I advise against that, too.
Lastly, just a WAG I assume the time and money spent on training (and getting) the chimps in the first place is much higher than simply hiring some tough guys to patrol around.
I’ve never handled one, but wouldn’t a shotgun be much simpler, and obviate the need for precise aim? (My impression of a shotgun is that you somehow break it so it opens in half, you put in one or two large-ish cylinders, you snap it back in place, then aim in some general direction and go to town. But TV might have given me the wrong idea.)
I was reading this, and remebered the old 3 Stooges short, where Moe gives an automatic rifle to a gorilla. Mayhem ensues
Yup, TV gave you the wrong idea. While spread of shots vary, it’s rather something on the order of dinner-plate size at fifty paces. You still have to aim rather carefully.
Depends. Would they have to be able to join the NRA?
Reminds me of the Gilligan’s Island ep where Gilligan teaches a gorilla to throw grenades.
You would be able to see if you gave the ape a squirt gun or a Nerf gun or something.
That would be interesting to put some apes and show them how to use a Nerf gun and see what they use the gun for?