To Judge a Book by Its Cover

My personal AR-15, which I put together with a friend's help.
According to gun store employees, I should have left that to the pros (like who, DPMS? Bushmaster? Pfft.).

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates. I've been busy doing that while "contacting your elected officials like a good citizen" thing, as well as working on quite a few other projects, up to and including contributing to a recurring MechWarrior Online podcast and getting RIPPED AT THE GYM BRAH. As a result, my game playing has been cut down pretty significantly, aside from regular MechWarrior sessions, replaying Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance four or five times and killin' filthy pinko commie bastards in Wargame: AirLand Battle (the latter two games are utterly fantastic and are very much worth your time, by the way). I've been pretty much out of topics and struck with a huge case of writer's block when I do want to write too, which hasn't helped. Maybe I'll write something about Metal Gear Rising later, because it's CUHRAYZEE in all the best ways and has some pretty interesting political/philosophical implications too. Maybe.

Oh yeah, and I bought a shotgun - a Remington 870 Police Magnum, to be exact. It's pretty cool, and maybe someday I'll get it out to a range that actually lets me use it (the closest skeet range has a "no riot guns" rule; local indoor ranges are slug only). Someday.

With that out of the way, I need to comment on something I've noticed lately. The last time I wrote anything for this blog, I had to complain about the way that I was treated like a mass murderer in the making for the crime of being a.) a gamer and b.) a gun owner, which is about as accurate a prediction as saying all gay people will cause an outbreak of HIV. It's a blanket statement that to this day makes me absolutely simmer with rage. Of course, these are just blanket statements - broad generalizations made to appeal to the lower common denominator to score political brownie points. Stupid, but I understand that's just how national politics work. Obviously it won't apply when said gamer is in your store, asking to look at your handguns, and asking how to field strip them so he can inspect the internals, right?

...right?

Hah, hell no.

Let me frame this a bit so you can understand where I'm coming from. I've always been a bit of a dork. Lately I've been trying to remodel the way I present myself to the public; I've ditched most of my video game apparel, try to wear nice clothes when I go out, started working out, etc. On the flip side, I still suck at talking to people. My boss calls me a "people person" but the fact of the matter is that when I'm out on my own (which is pretty much always since my nearest meatspace friends live 50+ miles away), I have a hard time striking up conversation. When I do, I can usually chat for a bit, or in a worst case scenario, talk your ear off about a subject I actually have an interest in. It's part of the reason I started this blog, as it's much easier to talk to people about things that I want to talk about when I put it in writing and don't have to worry about interruptions or stumbling over my own thoughts. I hate the idea of being that obnoxious know-it-all who won't shut his yap, but on the Internet you can sorta get away with it. This isn't really the case in real life. So, when I go out and about, I'm generally pretty quiet, and try not to raise too much fuss.

This is probably my first mistake. My second mistake is that I made the unfortunate decision to get into guns in my early 20s during the rise of Call of Duty. My third and fourth mistakes, by extension, were taking an interest in military surplus and modern "tactical" firearms and living in Texas where your average gun store caters almost exclusively to hunters and your stereotypical "'MERICUH!" Texan.

Not someone from Texas but you get the idea. On a side note, I believe the number of bumper stickers you have may be directly proportional to the likelihood of you being a complete douchebag.

Now, I don't really have any beef with either type (though I admittedly make fun of them behind their back on occasion). I don't go out of my way to talk with them, but when we do, it's generally pretty pleasant as long as they're not fudds, who generally go out of their way to make their presence obvious and piss me off before I can even try to be civil with them. It's almost like elementary school all over again, except instead of talking to someone a grade above yours the person you're chatting with is twice your age. "Hey, I like guns, you like guns, we're at a gun range, let's talk about guns!"

The problem arises when I'm not at a gun range. At the range, I'm slayin' paper, in the primary, goodago, and my technique speaks for itself. I'm one of them. Gun stores on the other hand...

OK, I understand where the store employees are coming from. The first rule of retail has and always will be that your customer probably does not know a single thing about the product, and will generally be as unsafe with and disrespectful of your wares as possible. As I mentioned earlier, we live in the era of Call of Duty, where everyone thinks they know something about modern firearms but probably couldn't find the bolt release on an AR without Siri's help. I've lost count of how many times I've gone into a gun store and seen some 17- or 18-year-old CoD kiddie beeline for the tactical firearms and start talking about "deagles," "AK-47s," and "M4s" while looking at WASR-10/63s and carbine-length AR-15s. They then ask to see some gun or another and promptly proceed to muzzle sweep everyone in the store, with their finger on the trigger of course. Gun store employees have to put up with people like this and other uninformed individuals ("Those guns are illegal, aren't they?") on a regular basis, and they're spectacularly annoying to deal with. I get that.

It does not, however, excuse the fact that so many gun stores have employees that seem to have simply come to the assumption that any young adult male who isn't obviously ex-military or dressed in Realtree camo doesn't know anything about guns, nor should they be treated with respect until the wallet comes out. I've seen it happen to too many other quiet but knowledgeable young gun owners, and the look of exasperation I get along with the "can I help you?" from time to time when I ask about Makarovs and 5.45 AKs is frankly pretty grating. It used to be a lot worse back when I wore shirts with game logos on them, but the fact that it still happens seems to suggest it's more than a case of "oh look, a gamer" like I used to assume it was. There's also something to be said about gun store employees who can't be bothered to learn about their own wares (I've been told that building an AR-pattern rifle from parts is "a waste of money" by someone who then proceeded to tell a customer he didn't know how to field strip an M&P15-22), but that's a whole different can of worms.

I realize that at this point I seem to be ranting - and I kinda am - but in an era where gun rights are under attack from every angle, the correct approach to the issue of "ignorant CoDtards" isn't to blow them off, it's to educate them and make responsible gun owners of them. It's the same reason that gun owners in Washington are reaching out to the GLBT community: we need every ally we can get, and that means being friendly to people besides the typical crowds who grew up around guns out in the countryside. I'm annoyed by hearing someone talk about guns as if they were the be-all, end-all source of knowledge on them just because they played Modern Warfare 3, but at the same time I see potential in them - I was the same way once, and it took a helping hand from the firearms community to get me educated in the way of the gun, so to speak. 

Few people become passionate about a subject without a passionate friend or teacher. (Photo: Oleg Volk)

As a community, we need to be more cognizant of the potential value everyone who sets foot in a gun store brings to the table, and right now, I'm not seeing that happen. When I feel like I'm more at home shopping at a police supply store than the not-so-friendly local gun store because the cop shop guys know shooters come from all walks of life, something's a bit off. It's a sad state of affairs, but it can be turned around, and those people will be a valuable investment for American gun rights in the future. While I'm confident that the free market will eventually snuff out those less-tolerant gun stores, people in the firearms industry need to realize that they play a big part in helping the hobby grow, and they won't be able to do that so long as they're treating first-time buyers like liabilities and making them feel unwelcome. In the meantime, I'm going to keep visiting places like the aforementioned cop shop and the store my CHL instructor runs, where I'm actually treated like a person.

P.S.: For the gun store folks out there - if I visit your store on a regular basis, ask to see a few guns on occasion, and never buy anything, it might be because your stuff is overpriced to the tune of a couple hundred dollars or more and you don't carry the stuff most people want these days anyway (*cough*M&P Shields*cough*). Just FYI.

P.P.S.: Oh, and since I go to your store to see guns, not get your political opinion, you may want to take down those signs about all your non-gun-related, GOP-approved political stances. It's really not helping.