David Yamane

I May Never Be Fully at Home in Gun Culture

I come to gun culture from the outside, and as comfortable as I have come to feel in my journey into gun culture, every now and then something will pop up that makes me think I will never be fully at home in it.

And I am good with that, because guns are just one part of my life, and being a gun owner is not among the most important parts of my identity. Stuff like this just insures that it is so.

H/T ET

If I didn’t verify this on the company’s website, I would have thought this was put together by The Onion or some anti-gun organization.

29 comments

  1. Reblogged this on and commented:
    Lower: The Wall, is a farce. Draining the Swamp, is a farce.
    Best to go with Option-C.
    Hmmm…

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  3. The gun community, like all other communities, has members that thrive on controversy. Extreme rhetoric from the left has begotten extreme rhetoric from the right and there are plenty among our own willing to delve into such nonsense. This is similar, though perhaps not quite as bad, as having crap like “You’re F#&@*D” on the dust cover. However, David, the most solid among the gun culture are indeed more sophisticated than this and I, for one, think you fit in splendidly. Keep up your great work. Guns, at the end of the day, are just a tool, but their importance is elevated above other tools for us because they are the teeth of personal liberty.

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  4. I kinda like it, and so did my wife!
    I don’t believe in “gun culture.” It’s simply free people who own firearms for sport and defense.
    We don’t say carpenters are involved in “hammer culture” or doctors are part of “scalpel culture,” but if they own and practice with a couple of firearms…they’re part of the “gun culture.” The label diminishes gun owners and implies that they have no life other than hanging out at gun shows and reloading.
    Americans have always painted messages on bombs, planes, tanks, and weapons. We personalize trucks, cars, tools, and everything else we get our hands on. It can be argued that it’s in poor taste and sometimes inadvisable, but it’s also a personal choice, it’s freedom, and it’s not really anyone else’s business.

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    • Say it ain’t so! If there is no such thing as gun culture then I’m out of business!

      Personal choices may not be other people’s business, at least when they don’t negatively affect other people unwillingly, but choosing to advertise your products in a public forum makes it other people’s business. Of course I exercise my freedom to not patronize that business and to publicize their promotion of a terrible idea. As proof that it is a terrible idea, I submit that if I were to grab the mother, wife, or daughter of these gun makers in the p*$%& I would likely find myself on the business end of one of their firearms.

      It is my personal view, as a son, husband, brother, father, friend, and teacher to women that we ought not promote grabbing them in the p&$*#.

      I understand you and your wife see it differently and I appreciate your expressing your views on the topic here, sincerely.

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      • Fair enough. We heard the tape, and Mr. Trump clearly said “they let you” which indicates consent, so that comment doesn’t bother me at all. It is “locker room banter” and I’ve heard as bad or worse, sometimes from women. It’s called “sex” and though it was a crude comment, to engage in sex or procreate…there has to be some grabbing going on. Usually on both sides. In the previous (2016) Army-Navy game the Army held signs that said “Grab them by the Navy.” I’m a devout Christian, father, instructor, and more…but I thought it was funny.
        I think the “gun culture” phrase is oft used as a slur by the left to paint a picture of firearm owners as stupid, ignorant, and so forth. I’m not those things, nor is any other gun owner I know. I live in the South, but I’m pretty well traveled and I even gots me some education. I submit the average gravel truck driver in Georgia who owns 12 ARs is way more intelligent than the average highly educated Senator, especially if they’re a Democrat Senator.
        Thanks for letting me comment, and responding. May GOD smile on you and yours, Frank.

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  5. They and companies like them represent the Dewey Crowes of the gun world. Owning a gun is like driving an Audi. There are some good people driving Audis…but also some commies, and some idiots. Same could be said about, “Americans”. I stopped using “Gun Community” as an identifier a long time ago.

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    • Gabe, it is amazing how you can explain so many things about the world by use of characters from Justified! As a follower of your blog I have seen it before and you use it to good effect!

      David, I am not sure if you have watched Justified, but it is worth it for a gun guy even though the gun handling is not particularly realistic at times. As someone who is quite familiar with certain areas of Appalachia I can affirm that some characters are portrayed quite well in this series.

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      • Gabe, thanks for weighing in with this analogy.

        Salvatore, I have watched some “Justified,” and also seen Gabe deploy it to great effect in the Pistol Gunfighting School I observed viz. the Gentleman Killer.

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  7. Weird stuff.

    I have been meaning to make a t-shirt that says “Gun toting vegetarian, bicyclist, and nuclear weapon scientist”

    Every avocation has its three-sigma outliers. One fellow I follow over at Guns.com changed his moniker from Disarmed in California to Gun-Toting Racist after that infamous war of words between the NRA and BLM. My local circle of gun toting friends are all Ph.Ds. at a major government R and D lab in Northern New Mexico. We are a bit off normal. I don’t self identify as a gun person alone although that is part of who I am. I am a registered Democrat although that party increasingly taxes my patience. As Popeye would say, I yam what I yam.

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    • We are all fairly unique in the combination of things that go into making up our identities. But we also have some things in common, even if thin. I just wish that people wouldn’t make those thin connections even thinner.

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  8. IMHO sir you are as much a part of the gun world coming to it when you did as I am who grew up with it. Indeed I see your research and writings as being on the front line of truth that the liberals are trying to cover up with feel good lies.

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  9. I get less and less comfortable with the “Gun culture” every year. It started with the Nazi re-enactora singing in he camping area at Knobb Creek in the 1990s and I still find myself amazed and embarrassed by much of what comes it of my fellow gun owners’ mouths and keyboards.
    The picture you posted is reprehensible, if I see that at SHOT Show, I will (loudly) lobby for the NSSF to have it removed.

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  10. I agree with Keith. You are a welcome addition to GC. We all do our best to represent this hobby/passion/past time/ vocation as best we can.
    There are always members of the family who eat with their elbows on the table (or in this ugly case, #2 right on the table).

    You’re no more one of that cheap-laugh, bombastic, distasteful crowd than are the majority of us. They paint *themselves* and all we can do is denounce it and go on being ourselves so the world can see we are not of that ilk.

    It’s embarrassing and makes the stereotype-breaking more difficult.
    Why someone would give ammo to the “antis” like this is beyond me. It’s some kind of myopic in-crowd mast**bat**n.

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    • Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I feel welcome more than I feel unwelcome, but when you’re new somewhere you do tend to notice the unwelcoming signs more. I know many people in gun culture who find this product immature, in bad taste, politically stupid, abhorrent, or [fill in the blank]. Still, I was shocked when someone sent the image to me today.

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  13. I find that picture really disgusting. Being a gun enthusiast doesn’t mean we are assholes and frankly, devolving to such a low form of “humor” or “political commentary” does no one any good. The company making that stuff needs to realize that regardless of its own standards of taste, its dragging us all down.

    A big box appeared on the deck today. It was addressed to my wife and was pretty hefty as I noticed while hauling it into the house. I asked her about it and she said “its your birthday present”. I said “golly, is it 1000 rounds of 45 ammo or a new gun”? Actually, it was a full set of remastered CDs of most if not all of the major operas in which Maria Callis ever sang. I was stunned. Meena knows I absolutely love opera; the Santa Fe Opera is a few miles from our retirement home. So as I type this, I’m listening to Tosca as recorded in London on the day I turned 10 years old.

    We are multidimensional, something our foes would like to deny. I would rather be remembered for my less asinine dimensions than those I cringe to try to forget. But as far as representing this fraternity, appearances matter and I think we need to count on each other if our gun-aficionadoness (?) is to survive in an often hostile political environment.

    Now, back to Callis. Have a good night, gun-toting colleagues.

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  14. I understand your sentiment on this, as I don’t feel “fully at home” in any of the cultures I inhabit. On the other hand, being 100% OK with every aspect of everything is unrealistic, in my opinion. One can still avail oneself of the positive (or neutral) aspects of a culture while acknowledging its negatives — it’s when it becomes a serious imbalance towards the negative that’s the problem.

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  16. While some of it is crude, some of it more along the lines of having vanity license plates for your car. (Something I also don’t do) Though some of the designs from Spikes Tactical are interesting. https://www.spikestactical.com/collections/stripped-lowers

    But assuming that all members of the gun-culture are the same is about as odd as assuming all tennis players are the same. Though it doesn’t usually stop the media from trying to paint with a broad brush.

    Just like not everyone will buy a Westley Richards Shotgun. (Not the least of the reasons is that used guns start somewhere around $85,000 and people usually buy a matched set. (The fitted case can cost more than I paid for my car.) https://westleyrichards.com/new-guns/

    Granted, you can get engraved shotguns for less.

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    • Thanks for the comment. I don’t think anything I say or suggest here assumes that all members of gun culture are the same. But I see the sentiment in this product reflecting a significant part of gun culture. And I want nothing to do with it. I’m sure that part won’t miss me!

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