He couldn’t even stop famine in Ethiopia back in the 80s. And that was with Batman (prepared) and Lex Luthor on his side.
If the crooks aren’t armed, why do the cops need to be? I’d point you to the bobbies in England.
At least in folk lore, their lack of firearms meant the average crook didn’t feel the need to be armed either. Which made things safer for both cops, robbers, and innocent bystanders.
Eliminating all the world’s firearms is hardly a “game over”. People will just race to make new weapons unless Superguy actively keeps control. If Superguy just eliminates firearms on an ongoing basis and takes no other action, people will just kill each other with swords and arrows. There is some truth in the cliche that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. If Superguy wants to stop crime and war, at some point he’s going to have to deal directly with criminals and warriors and not just the tools they use.
I will point you right back. The Armed Response Squads in England have machine guns. Just because the average cop on the street doesn’t carry a gun doesn’t mean they aren’t prepared. And that doesn’t mean just bad guys with guns. No cop is going to go after a nut with a sword without massive firepower.
Even Superman couldn’t eliminate all guns on the planet. To think otherwise is foolish in the extreme.
I’m actually aware of the Armed Response Squads (embarrassingly, mostly from The DaVinci Code).
However, if we’re positing that SuperSlacker actually destroyed all of the guns, then the playing field between cops and robbers is as level as it is today.
And if he does leave guns in the hands of ‘the authorities’, then either the bad guys steal some (and we’re back where we started), or some of the authorities use in the way the more paranoid 2nd amendment supporters have always suspected governments would act.
Finding and destroying munitions factories is even easier than disarming the guns. And maybe guns can be created by 3-D printing, but once he gets rid of the bullets, that presents more of a challenge.
I’m not expecting Bob to get rid of all crime everywhere, but getting rid of guns would certainly put a big dent in it, big enough that I think Superguy could tell people that what was left was their problem, and they had the tools to solve it.
But warfare, OTOH, with swords and arrows is hard. You need a hell of a lot more people to help you impose your will with such weapons than you do with guns and bombs and stuff. It was hard for medieval armies to take and hold territory with the weapons of their age. I doubt it would be much easier now.
I thought this was the topic under discussion. You’re a super-powered being. Are you obligated to use your super-powers to make the world a better place and at what point do you draw the line?
It’s also not a thing you can just jump into on a moment’s notice - or a year’s notice, for that matter. The whole reason firearms took off isn’t that they were better than a good archer. They weren’t - slower, less accurate, less range. But the archer took years and years to train to a state of combat-readiness.