You have to give it to them, they are creative in the way they find shit to be outraged about.
But we in the Gun Culture are truly inclusive and have addressed the plight of our brothers and sisters of the Sinister Hand for many years now.
6 Great Left-Handed Rifles for Deer Hunting (wideopenspaces.com)
Best Pistols for Lefties | The Best Handguns For Left-Handed Shooters – We The People Holsters
Firearms For Lefties | An Official Journal Of The NRA (americanrifleman.org)
We offer real solutions while they offer crappy seminars designed to inflict guilt rather than advance the cause of the Not Asshole Lefties.
Im ambidextrous- I cant do anything with either hand…
Man… I would give my left hand to be ambidextrous
Uh, no.
Lifelong lefty here. And no, the gun industry does NOT really address left handed shooters. Yeah, some companies list a left-handed bolt action, but try actually finding one in a store. And if you do, you’ll note that it is noticeably more expensive than it’s right handed cousin. And generally only available in one caliber which is not the caliber you wanted. And yeah, I understand the economics of production and realize one-off models will cost more, but still.
The Colt Single Action Army (and all clones) are perhaps the best left-handed pistols out there. Everything else is a secondary choice. The Charter Arms piece in the link looks great, but I’ve never ever seen one, nor did I know it even existed. Grab-a-Gun lists it, but not in stock.
But we adapt. I can generally handle most pistols/rifles without complaint. But the three links are wishful thinking compared to the reality on the ground.
Oh, no. Another way that I am an “oppressor”. 😮
And loving it, I bet. ;-))
What Don said.
Left handed stuff exists, but not everything has a left handed version and I inevitably can’t find what I’m looking for and have to make do with less.
Of course left handed gun owners generally aren’t political lefties so we don’t sit around whining about “right handed privilege” and claiming we’re owed something. We improvise, adapt and overcome.
By the way…have you ever tried to use a pair of scissors left handed? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand the physics behind that particular phenomenon…it’s two overlapping blades used to cut paper…what possible difference can it make which hand is squeezing the two blades together? But it does.
I remember a lefthanded store in Boston’s Quincy Market, some decades ago; visited it with my older sister who’s strongly lefthanded. They had lots of stuff, some silly but also useful things like lefthanded scissors. Sailor, it matters because your hand and thumb press at an angle to the plane of the scissors, and the blade arrangement is such that this angular pressure presses the two blades against each other when done by the right hand. The same motion from the left hand pushes the blades away from each other.
I suppose a nice aspect of double-action pistols is that the operation itself doesn’t care which hand you use. It does come in when you want to drop the magazine, or (in a revolver) open the cylinder.
Oh…when I was a kid and it wasn’t yet politically incorrect to play cowboys and Indians, I had a right handed holster for my cap gun. I’d wear it on my left side with the butt facing forward.
I actually got very good at “quick drawing” that way and am still pretty good at it. you put your hand on the inside of the pistol grip, palm facing out, thumb to the rear. Then as your draw clears the holster you rotate the pistol so it faces forward.
The biggest problem with that is that it’s impossible to rotate it around without sweeping some part of your body. I wouldn’t recommend it with a real gun, but with a cap gun, it looked very cool.
Improvise adapt and overcome.
Try using a “cavalry twist” or “cavalry draw.”
Wear the weapon butt forward on your strong side.
Rotate the strong side wrist, placing the top of the hand toward the shooter’s body.
Slip the hand between the body and the butt of the pistol, grasping the pistol’s stocks in normal shooting grip.
Draw the pistol, rotating the wrist to normal orientation as the arm is brought up to shooting position.
If done right, you don’t sweep the body and with practice it can be just as fast as any other draw.
Right handed people make up 90% of the population. Lefties are 1.65 standard deviations from normal.
There is a difference between tolerance and accommodation.
Tolerance is not beating left handed people until they learn to be right handed.
Redesigning society to be fully ambidextrous for lefties is too much.
I know it sounds like I was complaining, but really I was just commenting to what Miguel posted about the firearms industry being lefty friendly. It’s ain’t. That said, I really don’t expect the world to accommodate me, I largely just adapt and overcome. I think that’s what most lefties on here are saying.
What is really difficult (moreso than scissors) is locking forceps. The type you’d use for tying flies and such. You simply cannot use a regular locking forceps left-handed. It’s impossible to unlock that way. I’ve found left-handed ones at 10 times the regular price. But yeah, everything else I simply adjust myself to suit.
Good point. I didn’t think of the foreceps because I don’t use them nearly as often as scissors, but you’re exactly right.
I always forget and pick them up with my left hand, then have to switch to my right when I can’t get them open. Grrr.
J.,
And Jews are Two standard deviations from normal in America. So?
My Father was made to switch to right handedness by his school.
About half his family including great grandchildren are left handed.
My mother got hit my nuns until she was right handed. My mother in law writes write handed but is lefty because of public school.
Some things like scissors and forceps are hand specific. I’d agree. The problem is the economy of scale. Pumping out 90% one design means it’s going to be cheaper. Especially if big box stores only stock right handed items because they are more likely to sell.
It’s no different than being big and tall. I rarely find shoes my size, definitely not in big box stores, and when I do, they are more expensive. Somethings I can’t imagine the cost of making left handed, like chainsaws. I’ve never seen a left handed chainsaw.
The more standard deviations from the mean you are, the less stuff is made for you, and the more specialized it will be and the more it will cost.
The rise in ambi guns has nothing to do with left hand shooters and everything to do with the rise in tactical drills for off hand shooting or to meet military contract requirements.
And yes. As a Jew I know I’m two standard deviations from the mean. So I’m not offended by Christmas lights or Christmas music in the stores or going to an event and not seeing a kosher option. As long as I’m not being actively discriminated against I’m don’t fine. I don’t expect to be accommodated as a minority.
No argument there. That was part of my point: left handed right wingers don’t expect society to form around us, we make do.
If it were imperative upon us to do something to alleviate the “problem”, what we’d most likely do is start, support or invest in companies that cater to our particular oddity, not whine about how it’s society’s responsibility to accommodate us and cry that you right handers are privileged and owe us something.
I understand completely why there aren’t more products for lefties…it’s still damn inconvenient whether I understand it or not.
That doesn’t make it your job to fix it.
My husband is 6’7″. My sons are 6’8″, 6’3 1/2, and 6’3″. Shoe sizes range 13-16. Clothes and shoes are hard to find and always expensive. My husband has his height in his legs, and there are many cars he simply cannot drive. My sons (from a previous marriage) have their height in their torso, and sometimes their heads touch the ceiling liner of the car. I have short, wide feet, and shoes that fit correctly are almost impossible to find and very expensive. My youngest is left-handed and decided to try to play violin left-handed. I managed to find him an affordable violin built for a lefty … but when he played in orchestra, he was always bowing opposite the other violinists. Extreme String Ensemble! Every performance looked like someone was going to lose an eye. He eventually realized that unless he was satisfied with playing solo, he’d need to switch back to right-handed playing.
Standardization makes goods affordable for the majority, but many of us have challenges because we don’t fit the standard — whether it is handedness, height, weight, shoe size, etc. We all learn to find the things that work for us or adapt to things that are less suited. That’s life. I think the gun community is one of the most inclusive and most willing to accommodate everyone as best as we can. That might not make it easy, but it is a bit easier.
Your story about violins reminds me that most musical instruments are built for the hands to work a specific way, not necessarily an obvious one to non-players. I always had a hard time understanding why on a violin the left hand (for most people the less nimble) does the rapidfire fingerwork of choosing the pitches.
Then there are instruments like the woodwinds, where both hands do about the same work and it doesn’t really matter which is dominant. Some early recorders could be played with either hand on top. Some early flutes were played either to the left or the right. But none of that really matters, except for amateurs like myself — I can play trills well if they are made by a right hand finger, poorly if they involve a left hand finger.
Are trumpets ambidexterous? Trombones? Clearly French horns are not.
I am very left hand dominant. There are very few things that I can do right handed with any skill, but I played Trombone in elementary and high school (and for a short while after). I never noticed any dominant hand related difficulty around playing the traditional way (operating the slide with the right hand), even though many trombones could be assembled either way. I think the limited dexterity needed to position the slide accurately makes them pretty much ambidextrous, but I imagine a lot of it would have to do with how you learned.
I learned to play Guitar right handed because the people I learned from were right handed. That feels natural to me and I have no desire switch, even though I think if I practiced that way for a few years I could probably eventually learn to play with more skill than I ever could right handed. Maybe if my livelihood depended on it…
My left-handed son became a switch hitter because the first year he played T-ball, I was at sea and the coach never noticed he wore his mitt on the right hand. Made him bat right handed. That’s what he got used to from the beginning and was always a much more confident hitter from that side. After bugging him about it for a year or so, I got him to start hitting left handed, and when he made contact, he had much more power that way, but for some reason he never got comfortable batting left and was a much more consistent hitter from the right side. To the day he stopped playing, he’d only bat left when strategy demanded that he swing for the fences.
When left to our own devices, lefties will typically use our left hands to do most things because we’re more coordinated and dexterous with that hand, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to do it the other way…we may never be as good at something right handed as we would be left handed, but it’ll get done.
Jimi Hendrix never complained about being a lefty. He just re-strung his standard guitars and continued being an awesome guitarist.
I don’t think that works with violins, unless you also move the sound post (underneath the bridge).
Fellow lefty here and all I can do is lol at this. Funny thing is, gun wise, I find many guns ostensibly designed to be right handed have much better lefty ergonomics.
Especially mag releases. Even with handguns I have with ambi mag releases, I find it much easier to operate the one on the left side with my middle finger than trying to reach the one on the right side with my thumb.
I don’t have large hands so that may have something to do with it as well, but I do like right handed mag releases on pistols.
My biggest problem is those tiny little mechanical safeties on the left side of so many compact and subcompact guns. They are not ergonomic at all for lefties and I’d hate to have to try to operate one while in the middle of an adrenaline dump. I avoid those like the plague.
Actually we need to update that cliche. How about “I avoid those like the Kung Flu”.
Anyway…
So, let me see if I have this correct.
The world is a random and variable place. Those fancy designer shoes might not fit your feet perfectly. You may be a few inches too tall to fit into that sports car. You may be a few inches too fat to fit comfortably into that airplane seat.
Deal with it. There is no vast global conspiracy to keep you down. The reason why the world is not designed for equal ease of use for both left and right hand dominant people is because of economics, not oppression. 90%+ of the market it right handed, and re-tooling a factory to produce a line of products to satisfy 10% of the market is prohibitively expensive.
Then again, it is easier to complain than it is to adapt. And, leftists are lazy if nothing else.
At 6’3″ I’ve been talking about the 5’9″ Conspiracy for years (jokingly of course).
I’m also ambidextrous, shoot right-handed and right-eye dominant. I write primarily with my left hand, but do most other tasks right-handed. I’m grateful that I don’t need to use left-handed scissors, or other devices made to accommodate those who can’t switch hands.
Actually, the biggest annoyance in school was the desks, which were designed for right-handed people.
Someone is desperately trying to be special by finding something new to be outraged over. I bet whoever wrote that foil is actually right handed.
I’m left handed and learned to adapt, lefty scissors are nice and left handed bolt actions are helpful with a scope but my son makes do with a regular bolt action. The only gun thing that’s a real PITA is loading a revolver with a,swing out cylinder. FWIW Savage usually charges the same for lefthanded and IIRC Sportsman’s often stocks or can order lefthand models since I got my Savage 11XP off the shelf. We the People missed one of the more common left hand friendly pistols. The S&W M&P has an ambidextrous slide release and switchable magazine release. The Shield doesn’t but I run my carry gun easily.
This push for lefty rights seems rather sinister to me. At the least, it’s rather gauche. 🙂