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A common claim online is that J.K Rowling said (at some point or another) that a Muggle with a gun would beat a wizard with a wand. For example, on TV Tropes:

J.K mentioned that in a battle between a wand and a shotgun the gun wins.

Or here:

JK Rowling is on record as saying that a witch or wizard wouldn’t be able to stand up to a muggle with a gun.

Some people, though, suspect it to be manufactured.

The question of whether this quote is accurate has been exhaustively covered in other questions, but its veracity hasn’t.

Is there any evidence that Rowling ever actually said this?

Adamant
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    Ironically, I've already seen a couple of people on forums / boards linking to SFF:SE and saying "I think it would have come up in Stack Exchange if it were true". – DisturbedNeo May 23 '17 at 10:18
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    There's a character on Reddit's /r/WhoWouldWin called "Rational man with a shotgun". I've got an idea that the character actually existed before that quote was made up, and then the fake quote was made to explain his origins later. Haven't got any evidence of this, however, hence the comment instead of an answer. – DisturbedNeo May 23 '17 at 10:22
  • She gets to define the world, but it would be a major mistake if she said it. It really doesn't make sense. (On the other hand, the somewhat odd choice of "shotgun" might make sense for her in that shotguns are probably much more common firearms in the UK so the might be more familiar with them.) – Wayne May 23 '17 at 13:21
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    I vaguely remember reading this in an informal transcript (something she'd've responded to a fan with, for example at a public appearance). It wasn't simply that a "gun would beat a wand" or variations on that, it was a bit more specific - if given preparation time, a witch/wizard would defeat a muggle with a gun, but if surprised or unprepared, a gun would be faster. – Izkata May 23 '17 at 14:12
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    @Izkata - Find that and you could have a good answer. – Adamant May 23 '17 at 16:02
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    Migrated to [Skeptics.SE] :) – ABcDexter May 23 '17 at 16:13
  • Is there really a definite answer? Would on a variety of factors, to name but a few: ability of the witch/wizard, whether they're willing to use lethal force, or whether disarming spells affect muggle weapons. – Tom Kelly May 23 '17 at 17:33
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    @TomKelly - The question isn’t whether a gun is better than a wand, only whether JKR ever said it was (or something like it). – Adamant May 23 '17 at 17:34
  • Sure, hence this is not an answer. No matter what JKR (or any fan theory) says on this will depend highly on the context so I think the question in general is utterly pointless. – Tom Kelly May 23 '17 at 23:30
  • It's because you have no idea what a competent wizard can do, having encountered not one in any of the stories by JKR. – Joshua May 24 '17 at 02:00
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    When a man with a .45 meets a man with a wand.... – frarugi87 May 24 '17 at 07:45

1 Answers1

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I'm gonna go ahead and say this is most likely a made up quote.

In the first link provided (to Post-Modern Magik), after that quote it says

(see Muggles Do It Better)

In the literature examples of this page, we have the following:

Regarding weapons, there are extremely long debates, some on this very wiki, about how far this goes. It's generally argued[note] that a Muggle with a shotgun would usually beat a wizard...

Clicking the [note] expands the text and shows:

It's generally argued [note - at least by the fans; Rowling is surprisingly silent on the debate] that a Muggle with a shotgun would usually beat a wizard...

Unfortunately, the link goes to another TVTropes page and not anything meaningful. However, if the extra [note] is to be believed, JK hasn't actually said anything about whether a firearm would be useful against a Wizard.

I think the fact that we have so far been unable to find anything said by JK even remotely similar to "rational man with a shotgun" speaks for itself.

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DisturbedNeo
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    Warning, warning! TV Tropes link in Answer! Beware! :D – Gunnar Södergren May 23 '17 at 11:46
  • Mildly referring to the debate, I find it hard to believe that a man with a shotgun would be able to get a shot off. If he did though, I doubt a wizard would be able to stop the bullets... whether they died or not is an issue of medical care and whatnot. After all, we don't all die from shot gun shots if we get to a hospital ASAP. – user64742 May 23 '17 at 15:31
  • "I find it hard to believe that a man with a shotgun would be able to get a shot off" It all depends on the context. If the muggle "heard a noise" and were holding the gun almost at ready, he could quite easily put a fatal spread of buckshot into the wizard before he could point and mumble. – RonJohn May 23 '17 at 19:41
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    @RonJohn true, but a muggle with a shotgun wouldn't be able to go into combat against a wizard on a field of battle. Voldemort or Dumbledore would probably curl the shotgun into a ball of metal. – user64742 May 23 '17 at 20:15
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    @TheGreatDuck assumes that the wizard would be at the ready at all times. That's an impossible assumption. (A gun at the ready with finger on the trigger discharges really quickly.) – RonJohn May 23 '17 at 20:19
  • @RonJohn I'm specifically saying that the wizard is in the middle of a battle. Any man with a gun that is hidden could shoot a wizard. However, the question wasn't postulating a 'sniper rifle', now were they? ;-) – user64742 May 23 '17 at 20:20
  • @TheGreatDuck where did you write that? (I must have missed it.) – RonJohn May 23 '17 at 20:29
  • @RonJohn "true, but a muggle with a shotgun wouldn't be able to go *into combat against a wizard on a field of battle*. Voldemort or Dumbledore would probably curl the shotgun into a ball of metal." does that make more sense now? :p – user64742 May 23 '17 at 20:43
  • How long does it take to cast a "curl metal" spell? (That's an honest question, because "pull trigger" is really fast.) Also, the first time a muggle who has any sort of tactical sense saw that happen to a muggle's gun, he'd send a team of muggles. Lastly... and most importantly no one fights on the field of battle anymore; it's long obsolete. – RonJohn May 23 '17 at 21:04
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    @RonJohn Wizards sure do; it's not obsolete for them. HP is filled with fields of battle. – rickibarnes May 24 '17 at 04:18
  • @rickibarnes fair point. The discussion was about wizard vs. muggle. So, I'll rewrite it, "muggles don't fight on the field of battle anymore; it's long obsolete." – RonJohn May 24 '17 at 04:24
  • @rickibarnes of course, if wizards were real, they wouldn't fight in the "field of battle" either, for the same reasons that muggles don't: with all those highly accurate range weapons, standing out in the open is likely to get you killed. – RonJohn May 24 '17 at 04:26
  • Good answer. If you cannot find a source, then by occams razor she most probably didn't say it. However, to make the answer great, maybe a few more informations where else you searched (not that you searched) and what you found instead would be good (or which search terms you used). After all it's pretty hard to impossible to prove something doesn't exist, so the value is rather in showing lots of research that didn't yield results. – NoDataDumpNoContribution May 24 '17 at 09:29
  • @TheGreatDuck and RonJohn: You might be interested in MythBusters' knife-to-a-gunfight challenge. They reproduced the standard law enforcement dictum that a knife is more dangerous at close range. More than that, they found that if a handgun is holstered, even if you have your hand on it and it's cocked and loaded, the knife wins up to around 20ft distance. Bottom line is that the guy who launches the attack has a big advantage in terms of time and range, and that's going to be true whether it's magical or not. – Graham May 24 '17 at 10:27
  • Graham and @RonJohn I'm presuming that once they start fighting, they're probably not going to need to repeat the spells over and over. There are quite a few times where wizards merely flick their hands and stuff happens. I guess I just assumed that would be the same. – user64742 May 24 '17 at 15:39
  • Depends on the Wizard, and whether you're talking about movieverse or bookverse. In the bookverse, very few Wizards were capable of either wandless or non-verbal spellcasting, let alone both. The two only known wizards that could do both were Dumbledore and Voldemort, and they're both dead. Movieverse, on the other hand, was rife with non-verbal spellcasting in duels, even from the kids still at school. – DisturbedNeo May 24 '17 at 15:47
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    Unfortunately, most book wizards would be at a serious disadvantage, because they'd have to both yell the incantation and do some complicated wand movement. I imagine they'd only get as far as "Expelli--" BANG. – DisturbedNeo May 24 '17 at 15:48