Oh, ho!
I received a snarky email from someone in response to the blog where I mentioned I make my living testing firearms. It was not the most articulate email I have ever gotten, but the implication seemed to be either that I liked guns because I am a lonely little man, or that I am a lonely little man because I like guns.
I assume that by “little” he or she means psychologically or intellectually little, since physically I am right in the middle of the pack. (Literally. When I boxed, I boxed as a middleweight.)
Psychologically, I am also pretty much in the middle of the pack. I’ve had my share of troubles (notably PTSD and its handmaiden, Depression) but I don’t hear voices, I’ve never been taken to outer space by little green men, and I don’t believe I’m really Marie Antoinette or a polar bear or anything, so I don’t think I’m in immediate need of a room with soft walls.
A lot of teachers over the years told me I was intellectually negligible (this was usually accompanied by a hearty whack on the side of my head, remedial teaching being a trifle more primitive in those days and those countries) but as I have managed to make my way in the wide world using whatever wits I do have, without ever having to resort to manual labor at minimum wage, here too I would say I’m staggering along in the middle of the pack.
But what really intrigued me about the email was the implication that, if you like firearms, there must, by definition, be something wrong with you. Wow. Those who dance are thought mad by those who don’t hear the music. Putting aside Olympic and other competitive shooters who enjoy using their unique skills to get a projectile from point A to point B (sort of like throwing a football or baseball or basketball), and putting aside the artists who love creating works of functional art using wood and steel as their canvases (sort of like the people who build and restore vintage cars or motorcycles or boats), what reasons might one have for liking guns?
I shan’t enter into any discussion here about need, or personal rights, but why might I like firearms?
For the same reasons Olympic shooters do. I may not have their skills, but just as they enjoy exercising a certain skill set and achieving certain goals, so do I. In my shotgun case I have saved those little patches you get for shooting a straight set of twenty-five. There are embarrassingly few of them, but I’m proud of the ones I do have, and I derived great enjoyment and relaxation from the process of earning them. I have never done any competitive pistol or rifle shooting, but I get great pleasure and relaxation from those activities too. And pride, when I shoot well.
I like fine guns for the same reason that people go to watch regattas or concours d’elegance. I have zero interest in building, restoring, owning, or even driving an antique car, but I can’t look at an immaculate old Duesenberg or a Jaguar Mark IV or practically any pre-war Mercedes or Packard without a gasp of delight. You may be terrified of water, but how can anyone with a soul not be thrilled by the sight of a brigantine under full sail, or a gaff-rigged ketch heeling in the wind? London “best” shotguns, exquisite rifles built by American custom makers on classic and greatly re-worked actions and capable of fantastic degrees of accuracy, those may be things I can never even dream of owning, but I can appreciate the skill, the artistry, the lifetime of commitment that goes into creating such things. It’s like looking at a great handmade watch, something by Patek Philippe, or Breguet or Audemars Piguet; you are looking a piece of exquisite working art that is also capable of performing extraordinarily accurate tasks. And when I am lucky enough to have someone like Joe Smithson, Ryan Breeding, Pat Holehan, Hill Country Rifles, or Kilimanjaro send me one of their works of art to test, I am profoundly grateful.
And if anyone reading this is a financial bracket that allows them to own a Patek Philippe or Breguet or Audemars Piguet, how would you like to adopt a nice middle-aged man?
Geez, I must be a pretty lonely woman even though I have a husband, 2 kids that I homeschool and great neighbors that I cook out and go shooting with. I must admit I HAVE been longing to go to the range lately because I haven’t had time to go recently. Its funny how some people look at guns though. A couple of years ago, we hosted an exchange student from Germany. I found her one day in the magazine section of the grocery store with a strange look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she sort of waved at the section of magazines about guns which is pretty large since we live in the deep south. When she finally spoke she said, “Does EVERYONE in the US have a gun?” I said no, not everyone. A few minutes later she kind of nudged me and said “Is there a gun in your house?” I laughed and said yeah, but I’m not telling you where it is! By the end of the year she had become really good friends with one of my husband’s students who was preparing to join the Marines. He took her out shooting regularly and she absolutely LOVED shooting his assault rifles! Ha!
KJ
Mr. Parker I read this blog I was extremely angry at this person for saying this to you. I found it wildly offensive. I was ready to type in the word that rhymes with duck and firetruck, you get my point… In the land of the free and the home of the brave it is YOUR right to bare arms should you wish to do so. You are not using arms to harm any one unlike the American Government. You use them in a wise manner. You TEST them to make sure they are working properly so they won’t hurt anyone. How dare they, freedom of expression is one thing but I think this person needs to realize that they are a breathless idiot!!
Tena French Halifax, NS Canada
I’m envious, sir. When I was young an older brother of a friend of mine had a couple of revolvers, and he used to take us shooting sometimes. I really liked it, I found it quite relaxing for some reason. Always wanted to buy one for myself, but, mostly due to financial reasons, kept pushing it to the next year, and the next. And then the rules here got tightened to a point where I just had to drop that idea. Back then the place where he took us shooting was simply a nearby field, with a steep hill on one end (we lived on a fairly rural area). If you tried to do something like that here now you would get to meet the local version of a SWAT team. Except for hunters during the hunting season using guns is for official ranges only. And a lot of hoops to jump through before you can buy any kind of gun, and it’s all very expensive (and only the police can carry). Since I do make my living doing manual labor at a minimum wage I just can’t afford a hobby that expensive. If the rules were still the same they were 30 years ago, maybe, but not the way things are now. And I think it sucks. Especially since all this really hasn’t had any noticeable effect on general safety, which of course has been the official reason for trying to get guns away from as many people as possible.
Kiti
Beautifully stated, JP– I think somebody once took the length of a book to try to say that less eloquently.
And, oh yes, for anybody who might be tempted to draw conclusions from that ‘manual labor minimum wage’ part towards -> likes guns because she has low intellectual capacity,
, sorry, 136 IQ. Unfortunately being born above the 60th parallel and belonging to that small percentage of people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder in the worst way kind of trumped that card. I’m fairly useless for anything which requires the ability to concentrate during the winter months.
So you try new guns!!! Its not like your targeting them at living objects!!
but this person sure makes it his JOB and hobby to do so with his “snarky” comments!
its a fact that people like this are the ones with little knowledge or bad manners and who actually tend to live lonely and badly need to attract attention. sadly this is the only way they know how!
as Tena said:” You are not using arms to harm any one”
you said it helpes you relax,same thing I heard a gun firing professional young kuwaiti woman said during an interview,she expressed how she used to get angry most of times for no reasons and how this hobby helped her become more calm!
lots of women in my country are practicing it for this!
well its better to try this than shoot thier husbands!! lol!
beside whats the different between this and sword or knives making or testing?!!
its normal and honest part time job,MOST IMPORTANTLY you like it!
speaking of weird jobs! and what poor people have to endure!
some are forced to take odd ones -I saw on net- like chasing runaway monkeys around the Zoo for more than 7 hours a day or this disgusting Deodorant testers!! and some works as guinea pig in labs for scince researches and get themselfs bitten by Mosquitos!!!
others are even hard to mention!
thank God for my job!!
took some time off from studying just to tell you this,
So never get upset”nice middle-aged man”
Naeema
…a lonely little man that likes guns. Hummm. The only one that comes to mind is “Yosmite Sam” in the Looney Tunes
to each it’s own, why people always have to judge others for what they do – or don’t do is a mystery to me. Patek Philippe? ok high quality work but all this watch can is show the time! how boring! For the same money I’d rather get me a horse, a rifle and figure out about my sharp shooter qualities. ^_^
Tanja
HEY!!!! Some of my best conversations have been with little green men! And I thought my accepting all of those manuel labor jobs for minimum wage, because I chose to live in an isolated undeveloped area to be closer to wilderness, and that’s about the only employment that was available, which was a choice to avoid the rat race and comsumer enslavement, as some sort of positive intellectual choice? And I knows ah got some ah that thar intullekt, cause shore enuff wuz paid fer it in college! An ah got TWICT tha college eddikashun az most folks, az ah took most ever course at least twict! But back to the gun thing. BORING! Getting all googly-eyed over some antique firearm–ditto fer them fancy old cars! I have ZERO interest in such! But at least(perhaps because of my doubly-lengthy college education?) I realize that that is just a difference in individual interests, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to be the complete animal geek/nerd that I am! And such comments are simply knee-JERK(emphasis on the “jerk”, note) reactions by an over urbanized person that ONLY has narrow, media-negative views on guns, that has made no effort to educate themselves on broader aspects of the subject. Just following the current “politically correct” ideas on the subject. Except “politically correct” is often so, so RONG! Aesthetic and sporting considerations aside considering GUNS , there ARE lots of completely practical reasons to have/keep/shoot guns. Though I am not in the habit of carrying one around much(I do have a coupla rifles for home protection/discouragement of unwanted intruders–and NOTHING works better to send any variety of critters packing like a rifle boom over their heads in the dark!), there have been numerous times when I have been shot AT myself(never hit–so far– at least) that I didn’t waste any fraction of philosophising at the time about gun control and what terrible things they were(which does no good at all in such scenarios)–I just WISHED I had one at those times to shoot back! Would have made things considerably less stressful for me! But there are other considerations other than self-protection from the REAL irresponsible gun-toters out there, things the citified folks have no inkling of. What if a rabid(yes, I really mean with RABIES–not uncommon in some areas) critter shows up, threatening you, your pets/livestock/family? You COULD go club it to death with a shovel or something, but personally, I’d rather not get that close to a rabid critter! What if you have a cow or horse or other animal dying in AGONY, and you must put it out of it’s misery?(never pleasant, but a sad fact of life–this stuff does sometimes occur!)–you gonna club or stab a horse to death? You COULD, but how much more traumatic and inhumane for the wretched animal! As uninterested and totally devoid of the aesthetic aspects of gun keeping as I am, I still find having them around in a rural habitat and lifestyle rather a necessity, and with them already invented and widespread, just irresponsible NOT to have one for such emergencies. But then, maybe I’m just a dumb hillbilly(except, to be “politically correct” I prefer to be called an “intellectually challenged Southern Highland American”, thank you!)…..L.B.
…..but this gun-criticizer DID give you the oppourtunity to get to use the word “Snarky”–which is a really neato word that you don’t get to use very often, so you gotta at least thank them for that…..L.B.
So sorry that you were snarked. I think your snarker has fallen to the bottom of the pack – intellectually. Why else would one vent and snark at one who is just doing what they like, without (e.g. writing snarky emails) harming anyone.
By the way, I do like the word ‘snarky’. It is a personal favourite of mine. My mother used it, especially in an argument, ‘don’t you get snarky with me’. It says it all. I carry on the tradition.
Delphine
No Swiss watch…not much cash…but more than happy to adopt…..;)
Appreciate the gun-watch illustrative analogy. However, is luxury gun marketing also mostly selling ‘fluff to the fluffy’- which is true for many luxury watch brands? In guns the essential mechanism (leaving out rail-guns) has no electronic equivalent, except, perhaps, in a scope or a precision firing system. Handling an all-mechanical successor to John Harrison’s H series is grand, but, accurate time-keeping is now dominated by electronic watches. The ‘tick-tock’, in this sense, is obsolete (17 jewels, Swiss chronometer!). And, in any case, there is no user-enabled movement comparable to a rifle’s bolt-action in a watch, with all the amazing workmanship mostly hidden from view. If affordable, a ‘beautiful’ (read well-designed and smooth in action) gun mechanism seems more attractive, especially nowadays as the watch companies seem to be putting most of the jewels on the outside.
However, marksmanship is what attracts many (most?) folk to guns. The user can make the tool more precise. Superior firearms aside, there is a distinct pleasure in eking out high-performance from an ordinary rifle. I have a fond memory of boyhood, from before I renounced hunting: a single 0.22 shot to the legs made a kite (hawk/eagle family) drop a duck (‘belly-up’ in the pond, from a shot from my rifle, from about a minute earlier) that it had picked up. In hindsight it was probably just dumb luck, but my 13 year old mind felt that it was a direct result of a tight grouping achieved on a bulls-eye at 75 yards on the rifle-range, just a few months prior to that amazing day. I had never heard (nor have I again heard since) my father and uncle whoop with joy and pride, as they did when that duck dropped and the bird-of-prey flew away unharmed.
Hope you are able to post or provide a link to your own writings on guns.
RA