The Most Underrated Weapon In The Walking Dead, According To Fans
Survival of the fittest is the name of the game on The Walking Dead. Indeed, walkers may not be quick on their feet — they earned that name for a reason — but once they get their grimy, decaying hands on someone, they're not to be underestimated. Of course, destroying their brains is all it takes to turn them from undead to just plain dead (redead?), so having a trustworthy weapon on hand and knowing how to use it are of paramount importance for survivors. Negan's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) baseball bat Lucille is no-doubt The Walking Dead's most iconic weapon, especially considering the horrific use it's put to in the season 6 finale. Not everyone has a Lucille, however; sometimes, characters just have to take what they can get, whether it be a rusty screwdriver or a palm-sized rock.
For the most part, though, The Walking Dead's cast of characters each has a weapon of choice, like Rick Grimes' (Andrew Lincoln) revolver, Morgan Jones' (Lennie James) staff, or Daryl Dixon's (Norman Reedus) crossbow. That's all well and good, but some fans of the show wonder why a certain weapon isn't used more often — one they argue could prove quite effective in the right hands.
A slingshot offers the elastic advantage on The Walking Dead
Being on the ground with even one walker approaching is not an enviable position to be in, but equipped with a slingshot, it may not be a death sentence — at least, according to the discussion between Walking Dead fans on Reddit. Scoop up a rock lying nearby, aim, fire — and voila. One less walker, one more survivor. It may not seem like the most ideal weapon compared to, say, a gun, but consider the advantages a slingshot offers. For one thing, as user Letmemakemyselfclear aptly notes, "using rocks or any found-objects gives you an almost limitless supply of ammunition." It's true, rocks are far more common than bullets and the materials needed to make them.
As another user pointed out, slingshots do more damage than you might think. They may not have the same impact as guns, but as user Landlubber77 says, since they can "absolutely pulverize a regular human eyeball and/or fracture a skull, think of what it could do to a mushy decomposing carcass." Indeed, walkers may be dangerous, but they're far from invincible; a high-speed rock coming from just a few feet away would make quick work of the undead.
Slingshots have one final advantage that makes them weapons worth considering, as pointed out by u/CashTwoSix: silence. "Great for keeping thing[s] quiet." The same could be said of knives and other melee weapons, but slingshots have the range advantage. Someone both quick on the draw and with deadly aim could easily carry out stealth missions with relative ease. To wit: two characters, Kelly (Angel Theory) and Connie (Lauren Ridloff), have used slingshots to great effect on The Walking Dead, so maybe it's only a matter of time before other characters realize it and put the vastly underrated weapons to use.