World Government Soldiers — May, 2018 — Why Are Guns Still Standard Issue?
In One Piece, guns almost never work on major Devil Fruit users.
Yet the Navy and soldiers still line up with rifles like it’s normal warfare.
Japanese fans asked the obvious question: what’s the point anymore?
Guns Are Useless Against Ability Users?
1: Anonymous Pirate
Why are they still giving soldiers guns at all?
It’s about time they stop.
8: Anonymous Pirate
Just because guns don’t work on ability users doesn’t mean you can scrap firearms entirely.
10: Anonymous Pirate
Guns are enough for fodder, that’s probably why.
17: Anonymous Pirate
>>10
This.
Guys who are totally immune to guns are a tiny minority.
25: Anonymous Pirate
It doesn’t matter what you give mob characters anyway.
30: Anonymous Pirate
So who does guns even work on in that world?
Guns and bombs there are basically trash.
31: Anonymous Pirate
It’s not that they don’t work — they just don’t hit.
Plenty of characters would take damage.
Why Not Use Seastone or Seawater?
3: Anonymous Pirate
Why not just shoot seastone?
Or grind it into powder and scatter it?
4: Anonymous Pirate
Just make the bullets out of seastone.
7: Anonymous Pirate
Wouldn’t water guns filled with seawater be stronger?
15: Anonymous Pirate
>>7
Given that world’s rules, there should be guns that fire both seawater and real bullets at the same time.
14: Anonymous Pirate
It feels really weird they don’t use seawater.
Even Japan’s Coast Guard sprays hot water to burn intruders alive.
19: Anonymous Pirate
>>14
Technically it’s not seawater — it’s standing water they’re weak to.
I agree water weapons make sense, but their own main forces are ability users too, so maybe that’s why.
Explosives, Heavy Weapons, and Alternatives
9: Anonymous Pirate
Rocket launchers should work, at least.
11: Anonymous Pirate
There are worlds where they send tanks and fighter jets at kaiju, so yeah.
34: Anonymous Pirate
>>30
Bombs still work, more or less.
Guns are just lead bullets — if blunt force doesn’t hurt someone, they won’t work.
Seastone Is Rare (And Complicated)
21: Anonymous Pirate
They show it in the movies, but apparently seastone is hard to process.
22: Anonymous Pirate
Seastone bullets did appear in a movie.
Haki Changes Everything
23: Anonymous Pirate
Zoans like Chopper still get hurt, and some Paramecia too.
Rather than seastone, teaching soldiers Haki and coating bullets with it sounds way more effective.
38: Anonymous Pirate
“Haki! Bam!”
That fixes most problems now.
Seastone is probably just too rare — I guess.
Lore Nitpicks & Meta Jokes
12: Anonymous Pirate
Apparently there are guns that work on Germa.
13: Anonymous Pirate
Marco the Phoenix took gun damage even though he’s basically Logia-tier.
Navy guns probably have something special.
28: Anonymous Pirate
>>13
Way too many things wrong with that take.
20: Anonymous Pirate
Tesoro: …
24: Anonymous Pirate
The Rifle Association lobby is behind this.
👉 Why Japanese Fans Think This Way
Japanese readers tend to approach One Piece less as pure battle manga logic and more as system design.
Instead of asking “what’s cool,” they ask “why hasn’t the world adapted?”
That’s why seastone, seawater, and logistics keep coming up — it’s about institutional realism.
👉 It’s Not About Power — It’s About a World That Won’t Adapt
The dominant answer isn’t that guns make sense — it’s that the world refuses to evolve.
Most comments quietly accept that guns exist for fodder, tradition, and narrative convenience.
The frustration isn’t about power scaling — it’s about wasted potential in world-building.
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