Military research is where a whole lot of the cool science comes from. There's nothing like knowing the guy who gets there first is going to blow your head off to spur the competition.
In fact, maybe governmental science grants should have some sort of gladiatorial combat requirements for disputed priority...
The word "ballistics" is not a synonym for "weapons".
so people already wanna make a gun out of it, that's just sad
mankind will always pervert science for power?