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?

Under the Gun

Kept you waiting, huh?

It's been a while. For good reason, I assure you. Please bear with me - the tone of this post is probably going to be a lot more serious and relevant than I'm used to writing. In the past two months, I've been rather busy. Granted, work takes a lot out of me, and I basically work a second job in MechWarrior Online at this point, but I've been meaning to get something off my chest. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, and I've been waiting for someone in the video game community to come out and say it, but as far as I can tell, nobody has, so I guess it falls on me. Here's hoping it doesn't fall on deaf ears.