What makes things like poisonous gas or some firearms banned? Most importantly, why would nations play by the rules?
Bonus question: what exactly is a war crime and how is it punishable?
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Most “banned” weapons have a reason. But they’re only banned if others choose to enforce that ban. Basically the idea is that if you used banned weapons, the rest of the world will turn on you and that won’t be good.
The idea is to keep everyone in check. If you use a banned weapon, you’re taking a risk that others aren’t gonna be happy. Whether or not anyone cares enough to do anything though, is up in the air.
Poison gas / chemical weapons got real nasty in WWI and the big issue is that against an equipped army, they aren’t particularly effective, except as a first use when they’re not expecting it, otherwise you can prepare for it. All it does is make the army prep for chemical warfare and cause additional, unnecessary burden and suffering against soldiers, civilians, and the environment. Chemical weapons are also pretty nasty in their effects, but mostly, its really nasty and its not really “better” than other weapons, so no need for them to be used.
To my knowledge, no specific firearms are banned, I’m not sure were you got that from.
The most prominent things that are banned are chemical weapons (and bio weapons), certain types of bullets which are hard to extract fragments or bullets that expand when hit, and laser weapons specifically made and used to permanently blind enemies.
Some countries have voluntarily put self-bans on various other weapons, but this is far from as universal as the ones above, for example, many nations, but notably not the US, China, or Russia, have agreed not to use anti-personnel land mines.
“war crimes” are mostly an unrelated topic to this question, so you’re better off posting that on your own.
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