Gun culture trends
If you’ve been following the gun issue for the last 20 or years, you’ve noticed that the trend now is away from hunting and more toward self defense. If you haven’t been paying attention, this may come as a shock to you:
Range Day is the Monday prior to the Shows opening when manufacturers demonstrate their wares. People like me are bussed out to handle the goodies. This year, Range Day sounded like the Battle of Dak To, or perhaps Fallujah, with the distinctive pop-pop-pop of full-auto fire, which was extremely popular amongst all the SEAL wannabes. Indeed, this was symbolic of the whole show, which has now become so heavily militarized that you have to look fairly hard for something designed to kill animals instead of people.
There’s more. That this surprises someone at Field and Stream is rather surprising to me.
January 27th, 2016 at 9:01 pm
A reporter from F&S is likely a east coast FUDD that thinks anything “more deadly” than a cute over/under should be registered/banned.
January 27th, 2016 at 9:36 pm
Come on Unc, it’s Dave Petzal. He’s not a fudd, he is proudly the rifle world’s biggest curmudgeon! He was anything but surprised by range day at SHOT. He would just prefer it was a 600 yard bullseye match. He owns, shoots and occasionally condescends to write about evil-black-rifles. He also vigorously defends use and ownership.
I actually have grown to love his grizzled view of the world, you should give him a read.
January 27th, 2016 at 9:49 pm
Did he just commit zumbo?
January 27th, 2016 at 9:52 pm
Let’s face it, there just hasn’t been much need for a change in hunting rifles since about 1920.
January 27th, 2016 at 9:54 pm
In defense of Field and Stream, their point of view is given due notice from the name of the magazine.
January 27th, 2016 at 11:07 pm
Well, when you have the feds executing people driving down the road, not offending anyone, then this shit happens.
Molon Labe
January 28th, 2016 at 8:17 am
I went to SHOT a few years back and happened to have a friend in town who was working a parallel show called “World of Concrete”. We went to each others’ show. I though WoC was vastly more intriguing than SHOT.
How many booths do you need to see hawking almost-the-same black rifles before you think a concrete canoe is really freaking unique?
I am a “black rifle” kinda guy. But when you spend coin to fly across the US and put up with Vegas-yet-again, it’d be nice to have more variety. SHOT’s variety is thinly spread out between literally hundreds of tons of the same damn rifles all claiming to be just 0.005% better than the next one 20 feet over.
A lot of SHOT regulars at the show agreed that “black rifle fatigue” sets in after about three hours. We’d trade info on where the “cool stuff” could be found (or at least the guys giving away beer and food).
Why do think the KSG (at the time Keltec vaporware!) got so much press a few years back? Hint: not an AR/AK.
So I don’t go to SHOT anymore, because if you’ve seen one…
January 28th, 2016 at 12:27 pm
There’d be a lot less people to defend “hunting” guns if there weren’t as many people using self-defense guns. I, for one, welcome this as well as having many more women involved. That’s why we’re winning the Second Amendment battles in the political realm (except for a handful of long-going states).
The only downside is that ranges are a lot more crowded than they used to be. Send more ranges!!!
January 28th, 2016 at 2:28 pm
Yeah, cause no one hunts with an Ar15. Lol, what a rube. Exactly, an example of gun owners eating their own that permeates this otherwise wonderful culture.
January 28th, 2016 at 3:19 pm
Liking guns and wishing you had more opportunity to shoot lots of different guns does not make you anti-gun.
Wishing you could shoot more than just a bunch of black rifles does not mean you hate black rifles.
It means you are a first-class gun nerd who went to the gun prom and wished they played more than Journey the whole time you were there.
January 28th, 2016 at 9:01 pm
BTW, I think Patrick is right. Given a choice, I’d far rather go to IWA Nuremberg than the SHOT show. More variety.
January 28th, 2016 at 10:01 pm
The saddest thing in the world is an old man who has let the world pass him by. I’m an old man who believes in .300 Blackout pistols. Plus, I’m not an asshole…well, not as much of an asshole….
Michael B
PS: Michael buys the beer in Louisville…organized by IDPA, cosponsored by DoubleStar…BIG FRICKIN’ FUN
January 30th, 2016 at 9:08 pm
In the book, “Bodton’s Gun Bible”, author Kenneth Royce writes that “if the gun grabbers really knew anything about guns, they would be trying to ban scoped hunting rifles”.