Well, to be fair, we know how to make both good guns and shit guns. We didn’t forget how to make crap guns; we just stopped making them. If we really wanted to, we could probably make deliberately poor guns intended just for dueling. We could make low-powered inaccurate guns. Make them low powered so that a lucky shot directly to the aorta would kill someone, but even a shot right in the center of mass won’t be lethal. And the low accuracy ensures a low chance of a critical hit.
Now, there are bigger problems with the idea, as you note. But at least the firearms issue would be perfectly solvable through the manufacture of special dueling pistols.
Well, to be fair, we know how to make both good guns and shit guns. We didn’t forget how to make crap guns; we just stopped making them. If we really wanted to, we could probably make deliberately poor guns intended just for dueling. We could make low-powered inaccurate guns. Make them low powered so that a lucky shot directly to the aorta would kill someone, but even a shot right in the center of mass won’t be lethal. And the low accuracy ensures a low chance of a critical hit.
Now, there are bigger problems with the idea, as you note. But at least the firearms issue would be perfectly solvable through the manufacture of special dueling pistols.