newsbypostcard:

i’ve been rewatching the early marvel films and steve uses a gun liberally in the early days. in tfa in the warehouse fight he punches schmidt, schmidt punches back and dents his shield, and then he reaches for his pistol. he realizes he’s outmatched and would absolutely have shot that fucker given a moment to keep his grip on it, possibly in the face. in avengers (2012) he also uses a semi-automatic weapon on the SHIELD ship. it’s interesting to think of the change and why he began moving away from guns. i imagine that by tws he’d spent enough times having an existential crisis about his role in the public eye that he was very conscientious of how he appeared

or maybe he was just trying very consciously to be a better man than he was a good soldier. either way, there was an obvious change as a result of some kind of internal struggle.