Why don't werewolves incorporate silver into their arsenal since it proves effective against the terrorist?

Question

Since their decisive defeats at the hand of the Hellsing Corps thousand of years ago, the werewolves has gone into hiding disguising themselves among the population in many cities worldwide.

Each and every blood moon they would send representatives from every clans to discuss big and small issues and to come up with plans to live with the human amicably, however reports of sabotages with significant death tolls on the human particularly and blatantly destroying infrastructures are coming in hot.

Hellsing had issued them an ultimatum, stop or face extinction! I was wondering since the Hellsing Corps is kind enough of allowing them to iron things out among themselves, they could also borrows their weapons just like how we human fight against the terrorist groups! Hellsing sure wouldn't mind since their weaponry especially the bullets had been electroplated with pure silver coating would be wasted should they are turned against the humankind, so why did the werewolves not make use of this opportunity to use these weapons in their war on terrorism?

Long story short: fearing the ultimatum from the powerful Hellsing Corps, werewolves had little time to waste and must curb their own kinds from committing further act of terrorism on the human population.

Humanity goal: personal gain and prosperity.

Human terrorists: die and be together with their god.

Werewolves: coexist with human.

Werewolve terrorists: vengeance pushing the blame on Hellsing's failure.

Hellsing Corp: make sure humanity is safe from supernatural beings.

P.S: I believe the werewolves can touch silver bare-pawed but a tiny amount introduced into their bloodstream could trigger deadly immune response.

Answer 1

The Evils of Silver:

Silver is the weapon of your enemies. Silver is pure, distilled evil. So why on Earth would anyone civilized use silver if they had a choice?

• Silver is murder: Among the werewolves, using silver is the equivalent of using mustard gas. Using something as scummy as poisonous silver marks you out as the villain. The terrorists would gain popular support amongst the general werewolf populace if the warriors adopted such scummy tactics.
• Silver is obvious: While the Hellsing people might not care if folks know werewolves are real or not, the werewolves don't want awkward questions asked. If a silver-plated bullet is pulled out of a body (especially a physically abnormal body) all sorts of questions will come up. Governments start investigating and making connections. So while you can cover up a private war as gang drug violence, odd bodies + odd bullets = uncomfortable questions. Better to avoid the risk.
• Silver is unnecessary: Back when muskets caused slow, fleshy wounds that werewolves were good at healing, silver bullets were horrifying weapons. The IDEA of silver is terrifying, but in actuality, shooting your werewolf with a large-caliber assault rifle will cripple them up quite enough to allow capture. Then you don't need to kill your enemy, and in a counter-insurgency, you WANT to capture your enemies alive. In fact, the terrorists might carry soluble silver solutions as suicide tools (like cyanide pills) specifically to avoid capture.

Answer 2

Taboo

There is currently a complete and utter taboo on werewolves using silver weapons.

The terrorist werewolves are not using silver yet, they obey the Taboo.

So if anyone else uses silver against the terrorists, then they will also break the Taboo. Pretty soon everyone is slinging weaponized silver around, and the world becomes a bleak place for all werewolves.

It's a bit like Humans and their nuclear weapons. Everyone know how to build them, very nearly everyone has built them. But no-one actually uses them, because the consequences of escalation are just too horrible to contemplate.

Answer 3

Less Lethal Weapons

The werewolves do not wish to kill the terrorists, but to stop them. Since most of their group/infrastructure is in line with this, their reasoning is that shooting regular bullets at the terrorists will help subdue them and allow to capture them.

1. Despite their conflict, the opposition to terrorists is not an ideological one but a practical one. Werewolves are not horrified by the terrorist actions and they concede that the terrorists are trying to improve the situation of the werewolves. It is just that they think their attempts will fail and will only cause Hellsing to attack them and cause them further defeats.

2. Using the methods of their hated enemy to crack down on their own people would likely scandalize many werewolves and it is likely to backfire. This is a time when the future of their race looks dark (after all it seems that they are at Hellsings'mercy, if Hellsing can force werewolves to turn on another werewolves). Doing Van Hellsing's work in the same way he would have done and with its support is more than most werewolves could bear.

3. Regular bullets work as less lethal weapons, stopping its victims from committing their attacks and allowing to capture them. Once captured you can try to rehabilitate them, or even keep them "in reserve" in case some day it is deemed expedient to attack Van Hellsing. Also, their werewolf families will have an easier time dealing with "brother has been captured by our side" than with "brother has been killed by our side", and less animosity will happen against the enforcers.

4. Keeping things "civil" reduce the threat of the terrorists playing catch with the enforcers and turning on the leadership of the werewolves with silver bullets of their own.

Answer 4

Because weapons can be easily lost and used by the others than the original bearer.

They don't want humans to be able, accidentally or consciously, to use silver doped weapons against them.

After all, though Hellsing Corp is publicly speaking of good relationships with the werewolves and avoiding producing those weapons, the werewolves don't want to offer on a silver plate the excuse for some lone wolf among the humans to complete some dirty job and brush it off with a "it was one of your kind to do it".

Answer 5

Major handling/delivery issues

We know that silver is really bad for werewolves. Perhaps we're talking instant massive anaphylactic shock for microscopic amounts in the bloodstream. Perhaps it's a catalyst for some reaction with oxygen which the werewolf metabolism is mostly on top of at regular decay rates, but at catalysed rates the werewolf's cells fall apart from the inside. The effect might be like necrotising fasciitis on a faster scale.

The problem then is that whilst a werewolf certainly could in theory use silver against other werewolves, the risk of them killing themselves by accident is unacceptably high. Maybe it's not going to immediately kill you if you touch it with dry hands. But if it touches a slight scratch in your skin, or you don't fully scrub your hands and then accidentally rub your eye or touch your mouth, or perhaps if your skin is damp and it penetrates your pores, then the process beings of your body rotting from the contact area outwards.

This becomes even more problematic when you look at silver weaponry. Bullets? You've superheated the back of the bullet, and the bullet naturally scratches the barrel on its way down, distributing a small amount of silver into the air around. Swords and knives? Sharpening them leaves a powder/paste containing silver particles. Grenades? How far can you throw before you can guarantee not a single particle of silver will reach you, and are you (or any other werewolf) likely to need to walk through that area any time in the next decade?

Absolutely, a werewolf could dress themselves in an NBC suit and use silver weaponry safely. You won't find many soldiers keen on full-time use of a rubber suit though, and they aren't exactly inconspicuous when you're trying to blend in with regular humans. So generally it'd be easier and safer for the werewolves to leave it alone and find other ways to fight instead.

Answer 6

It's expensive.

Silver bullets cost way more than regular bullets, and the only advantage they have is that they can kill werewolves. For all other uses, regular bullets will do just fine. Silver bullets are in fact inferior to normal bullets since they have less mass. They are also harder to manufacture since the melting point of silver is so much higher than that of lead. So there's no point in using them except against werewolves.

Now if you're a weak human fighting werewolves, silver bullets may just be your best option (though certainly not the only one, there's plenty of other ways to kill a werewolf, just none as instantly effective for a normal person. Fire tends to be good choice.)

But if you're a werewolf fighting other werewolves, well then you're on a more even playing field, much like a human fighting other humans. So for a werewolf, use of silver bullets is just too costly compared to the alternatives. Just fight them claw-to-claw. If you're the better werewolf, you'll be the top dog in the fight.