We’ve discussed gun culture in the past.
Gun Culture 1.0: hunting, plinking, with 22s, blue steel and wood, rural, Fudds.
Gun Culture 2.0: personal defense, AR-15, high capacity magazines, concealed carry, more urban/suburban.
I’ve seen more and more discussion of Gun Culture 3.0.
It’s seems to be an advanced form of Gun Culture 2.0: suppressors, SBRs, nigh vision, hard armor, tactical training, 80% builds/3D printing, etc.
All thing I support, except Gun Culture 3.0 seems to be mutating into “Gun Culture Fuck You Poors.”
I had an issue with the CG2.0 guys who would say shit like: “You’re only carrying a J-frame? You’re gonna die in a gunfight. You need a Glock 19 with three reloads at least.”
GC3.0 on social media ups that ante to ridiculous levels: “What do you mean you have a Bushmaster/M&P15/Delton/etc? You’re just a liability. You need a LWRC or Noveske with an Elcan or Nighforce, NODs, a can, IR laser, LCD weapon light, a SAPI chest rig, etc., have to shoot 1,000 round a month, and go to this shooting school run by an retired SEAL.”
The pictures they post look like they are fully decked out operators with the best DOD funding possible.
GC3.0 seems to have replaced a personality with expensive gear.
The number one rule of gun culture should be “don’t be a prick” and LARPing as SOCOM and shitting on people who buy their guns and gear off the rack at a big box sporting goods retailer is definitely in violation of that rule.
“…High capacity magazines…”
That’s standard capacity, J.
😀
I’m a FUDD. GC1.0. Yesterday I took a new shooter shooting for the first time. Short range (25yards) at steel. I had him shoot a Ruger bolt action .22lr. We went through gun safety first. We talked about ammunition and such.
We went to the range and I let him load one round, talked him through the shot and he got to hear the ringing of steel.
He only wanted to do around 10 shots, but he wants to come back later to do more.
After he did his shots I shouldered the Lee-Enfield No.4 and fired three rounds. One into each of the steel gongs and one into the 2 liter soda bottle.
He was very impressed with the difference. He understands that the rifles are different but he hasn’t had that kick in the shoulder or that huge fireball.
He’s excited to come back and shoot some more.
So GC3.0, yeah, I’d like NODs. Yeah, I’d like all the tacticool stuff. But I’ll settle for my load bearing vests with IFAKs and a few magazines.
Are you really a Fudd?
Let’s be clear what a Fudd is and is not, because it is a disparaging term.
Simply liking blue steel and wood doesn’t make a shooter a Fudd.
A Fudd is the guy who says “I’m a gun guy because I own my bolt action for deer and my 12 gauge for ducks, so go ahead and ban assault rifles and 30 round magazines because nobody needs those for hunting.”
Those guys were the “gun guys” that Leftist politicians held up as the “good gun owners” that gave them cover for their anti-gun bills.
You can be an aficionado of blue steel and wood and not believe that guns you don’t own should be banned.
My dad never owned an AR but was adamantly against AWBs.
Maybe I’m not a Fudd. Though I do love my blue steel and wood.
Nothing wrong with having specific tastes in guns. My favorite shotgun is blued with a non-lacquered walnut stock (it’s smooth, but not shiny — very good-looking and pleasant to hold and shoot).
It’s my favorite, but not necessarily the one I’d choose for “bumps in the night” or when things go pear-shaped.
For that, I’ll take my AR and/or my semi-auto pistol, and for long-distance work we have a bolt-action with a composite stock. Humidity and wet weather are real things here, and I wanted something that would be less affected by them, even though by comparison it’s not a pretty gun.
There’s beauty in aesthetics, and there’s beauty in utility. And there’s nothing at all wrong with appreciating both. 🙂
@Therefore: Hey, any news on the LTC app?
GC3.0 is addressing what’s most important!
After all, who among us hasn’t woken up in the night, alerted by a strange sound in the yard, hastily donned his tactical gear, and looked outside to have his thermal imaging system reveal a zombie horde that needed all his 10 reloads for the AR and 4 for the Glock?
I say you can never be overequipped nor oversupplied. That’s why I’m stocking up on beehive rounds for the ol’ 16-inch 50-caliber home-defense guns.
I am an advocate for “if enough is good, too much should be just right.”
If I cared any at all about what others think of me or what I do, I’d agree with you, J Kb. But, since I don’t give a shit about what assholes think, I don’t. ;-))
Now if a submariner says something, I’ll listen/read until I realize he’s an asshole, then I don’t. But then again, I’ve been told I’m an asshole so don’t listen to me, either. LMAO
As to 3.0 being focused on NFA items, armor, 80% builds /3D printed, and night vision gear and accessories.
I’m inclined to agree with it.
After your second or third AR/handgun that’s almost identical to the ones you already have why not buy something that’s firearm adjacent like armor or NVGs?
Most gun owners are accumulators, not actual collectors of a particular model or type.
If you have your basics covered, buying gear that will allow you to do more with what you have is better than another gun.
I’m not one of those snobby dicks that looks down on what people own.
If all you can afford is a highpoint, then you have satisfied rule number one of a gunfight.
I have no problem with this, per say. I do have a problem with people being a dick about it.
To be fair, a lot more people have been killed with bare bones ARs and AKs than $5,000 Gucci builds.
But every group has its dickish members, don’t throw out the good with the bad.
Another thing is that GC3.0 is doing is making mufflers and firearms in rifle calibers with short barrels “in common usage”
It’s the people that tell you you have to train with thousands upon thousands of rounds monthly that irk me. Not 1000 rounds. 10,000 rounds or more monthly. I don’t have $72,000 sitting around to buy ammo with for ‘training’ each year. We have these things called jobs and bills. Sorry I’m not making millions of dollars every year to spend on ammo.
Spot on, my point exactly.
It’s like the guys who say “IDPA/USPSA will get you killed.”
Most people have never fired a gun. If you put 100 round down range and practice the fundamentals you will be head and shoulders above the vast majority of threats.
Sure if you’re going up against Taliban in Afghanistan you needs more training.
This shit is alienating.
For most people it doesn’t come across as “I should train more” but as “I’ll never afford that so why bother training at all.”
This shit is alienating.
Bingo. GC3.0 are the new Fudds. You’re not a “real” gun owner unless you have all Daniel Defense ARs equipped with Silencerco cans and Trijicon optics. If your fully-custom AR build costs less than your car, and if your training budget is less than your mortgage, you’re an amateur who can’t handle and shouldn’t own an AR … or any other firearm, for that matter.
Pure elitist, and completely OK banning everyone else’s guns and gear.
I had a student in her early 70s. Her husband had become quite frail due to poor health. She had gone to a “gun school” run by a bunch of 3.0 tommy taticals..after being ridiculed cause she couldnt reload a glock with both hands tied behind her back using her tongue she came to me for half a day to learn how to run her 4 inch Smith in .38. Its not what you have, its how you use it…Sad how easy it is to divide up so called “gun nutts”…and sad how gun nutts on line are so fast to go all azzhole on other gun people cause your opinion is different. We all in the same boat and still fight eachother
This is not GC 3.0. This is sheer dickheadedness combined with an attempt to replace ability with gadgetry (I flat guaran-damn-tee that none of these idiots are actually spending what they claim on ammo or training unless they have a seven-figure trust fund from daddy), while they pretend they’re John Wick in the mirror. And if you cannot afford to raise three children on a single income so your wife can be a full time mother while spending as much as they do, then obviously your priorities are wrong.
These kinds of lookitme-fools are nothing new, and infest every aspect of life. Have for a long time. You can see them in hobby auto restoration, racing, hunting, model train builders, pets, even “Leche Leagues” for mothers.
Its actually a form of identity politics, except in the social scale instead of political. It’s people attempting to set themselves on a platform above everyone else based on lifestyle choices, opportunities, and preexisting conditions.
This is not GC 3.0. This is people being assholes.
As Weaponsman used to say, the tools only take you halfway.
What you’re describing as GC 3.0, probably would make better sense as 2.1.1. If 1.0 is hunters, then Fudds with old worn out hunting rifles looking down their nose at hunters with expensive gear are 1.1. Those with the expensive gear sneering at the old men in flannel with a worn .30-30 were 1.1.1. Those who still hunted the same but made use of advancements without sneering were 1.5. “If you can’t stalk a moose and kill it with a Winchester” is no more its own version than “if you don’t have an ubermagnumblitzer you arent serious and dont care if the animal runs off to die horribly and slowly.”
The Tactical Tommys are not their own version either. They’re simply assholes wrapping themselves in a false identity of gear and money, just the same as assholes in the previous version.
yeah the 3.0 gun dudes may ‘look cool’ and shoot a bunch but that old ranch hand in dirty cowboy boots and a jean jacked with a 30-30 lever gun is going to actually be competent and will far more dangerous.
The “best” are the 2.5 gun culture types who are teachers that hunt, practice and teach family and friends not only shooting but what shooting is about and how such a tool fits into life.
I’m really confused … because what you described as GC 3.0 sounds a lot like what we used to call mall ninja.
Weren’t mall ninjas more low-budget tacticool? Lots of beer-budget bling, and nothing left for training?
Tactical Timmy’s are just GC2 snobs with internet powered bullhorns. GC3 is more of the “You can’t stop the signal, Mal” 3d printing/milling/barrel making/etc as a worldwide community. It does have trolls and clowns of its’ own (Biggus Dickus and a Menendez mag, anyone?), and dickheads are universal, sad to say, but most of GC3 are more focused on being able to make their own.
Eric: Ah, Gecko45 (https://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/).
Myself, I’m more beer budget, range every month (more when I can swing it), train when ammo is spendy with co2 powered pellet look/act alikes.
Although, honestly, med response is kinda my forte.
No matter what you have, the question is: what are you going to do with it when the government tells you to hand it over and get in the boxcars?
That’s a no-brainer!
The gun wisdom I follow: DEAR INSTRUCTORS, GET A REAL JOB
(On point discussion is about a half our in, IIRC.)
I want a silenced (not suppressed, silenced) coilgun with an oil-finished madrone stock. (Though I would settle for a railgun, despite the barrel/rail wear issues.)
Does that make me part of GC(4+1j)?
Would you settle for a long-slide .45 with laser sighting in the 40 Watt range? ‘Cause that could very nearly be a thing these days.
As for a silenced coilgun… as long as you keep it subsonic, a coilgun ought to be pretty quiet, depending on how the coils are mounted. Hey, how about a baby EMALS for launching barely-subsonic crossbow quarrels?
And there’s nothing wrong with your Gun Culture being part imaginary; that’s what drives innovation!
Agreed, coilguns should be pretty quiet, if the coils are potted and mounted properly. (Railguns you actually could use a suppressor for, as the things form a nice plasma arc when the projectile leaves the rails.). Really, I just don’t want the whine as the system charges up for a shot. 🙂
And now I’m wondering what kind of beam diffusion you’d get from the muzzle blast….
Don’t forget the “safe transport” snobbiness. “If you don’t transport your gun in a padded, oversized, Pelican case inside a Maxpedition range duffel, you don’t belong at this range. And if you don’t do off-body carry in a $400 Maxpedition sling, you shouldn’t carry.”
I had this discussion in comments somewhere. How to prepare a “Get-Home Bag” without breaking the bank. All the “tacticool” guys were hyping Maxpedition and Vertx internal frame packs, and if you spend any less, you’re not prepared to get home, you’re a supply drop.
My response was along the lines of, “I’ll keep my $20-on-clearance day pack, thanks.”
Their opinion was, “You’ll hate that pack after you’re forced to carry it for a week.”
My reasoning was and still is: It’s a Get-Home Bag. It’s not a “BOB” (Bug-Out Bag) or an “INCH” bag (I’m Not Coming Home). A GHB is a personal thing prepared for a person’s specific needs. Before working from home effectively removed the need to commute, my office was 7 miles from my house as the crow flies, and about 8.5 if I want to skirt around town. The most I need is a hat and gloves, a rain jacket, snacks, water, and a few other items to help avoid trouble along the way (the biggest is a pair of binoculars, to spot potential threats before they spot me), and my day pack is so innocuously “suburban commute” normal that nobody notices it.
I realized long ago, my “Get-Home Bag” doesn’t need over-priced gear to survive a week in the wilderness if the actual walk will only take a few hours, and that’s assuming things are so bad my car doesn’t work, which is extremely unlikely. Carrying any more than that will only slow me down (read: being over-prepared with an enormous and obviously “tacticool” backpack makes you an even more attractive supply drop than being under-prepared).
But there are always guys who will swear you’re not “real” if you don’t spend what they spent to get exactly what they got.
(Hell, Joe Biden did it; I wonder how many “people of African descent” … er … “ain’t black.”)
They have become gear whores… We saw this coming back in the 90s with the Tactical Tommy’s that would show up at the shoots in NC with the latest and greatest ‘stuff’ that they had no idea how to actually run.
I’m going to have to disagree that “Gear Snob” = GC 3.0.
As pointed out above, gear snobs have always been with us, I’m sure that 150 years ago, some dude told someone that his old cap and ball Navy revolver would get him Kilt on Da Trail, and he needed to upgrade to a new S&W Schofield.
Or consider Col. Cooper arguing for the 8 shot customized 1911 over the 6 shot revolver. In that case, it wasn’t so much about snobbery but a recognition that tech can give one an advantage.
And finally, as reported on these very pages, the threat we face has changed. Thanks to that Bastard Soros, we now face larger groups of hardened criminals that we did even a mere 10 years ago. Flash mobs, “mostly peaceful” protestors, and so on do make having a bit more rounds in a gun a bit more sense.