Stop whining! This is a GOOD THING!

This will be my first true rant. Screaming into the void, if you will.

OK, since 90% of the things that I post are about guns, it is pretty obvious that I am a 'Firearms Enthusiast'... a 'Shooting Hobbyist'.... a 'Gun Nut,' if you will. I mostly associate with others that share my same interests. Not exclusively, but there is a majority. And I have to say this about our gun culture:

We are some whiny little titty-babies.

Recently, the TV shows "Top Shot" and "Sons of Guns" premiered. This is the second season of Top Shot, and the first of Sons of Guns.

A quick check around the web shows that, as a whole, we are whining and complaining about these shows. Seriously. Check the links.

Shooting shows on nationwide, respected, networks that are not in the Sunday morning "This or an Infomercial" time slot.... and we complain. A lot. We complain that it's not all shooting. That there is manufactured and over-hyped 'drama', that it is not so technical and specific that it bores everyone but gun nuts to tears.

Then we(as a group) talk smack about these shows. We tell other people not to watch them.

Then we complain that gun ownership and shooting is never portrayed positively in the media. The whole time never seeing our own hypocrisy and the irony in the situation.

Complaining about these shows is like complaining the free ice cream is vanilla and not pistachio- it is the definition of looking the gift horse in the mouth. If these shows fail because us gun-nuts don't support it, do you think they will make another one? Do you think they will improve the show if no one watches, or just cancel it? I can tell you, we will not get the show we want if we don't support these shows that are not 100% meeting to our discerning tastes.


We have become our own 'Fudds' or 'Fuddites'. Not familiar with the term? Somehow, on the boards and blogs of gunnutdom, Elmer Fudd became the mascot of the shooters that don't support all the shooting sports. The guy that supports 'assault weapons' bans because it won't impact his Perrazi trap gun or Weatherby deer hunting rifle. You know, the kind of shooter that John Kerry, Mitt Romney, and John McCain are. Or say that they are. Whatever.

Are we this shortsighted? Don't we understand the incrementalism that has been used against us for years by the Anti-Gun groups?

This is a culture war. We are winning. Want to know why we are winning? Because guns are cool. Guns are fun. We need to expose more and more people to the fun and cool aspects of the shooting sports, and shows like this ARE DOING IT.

In this war, TV is a major battlefield. We have gained LOTS of ground with these shows. Want to give that ground back because you don't like the 'drama' that they inject into the shows? We really do want to cut off our nose to spite our own face.

I'll give you a clue here- the drama keeps a lot of females interested. While they watch that, they are exposed to guns in a normal and accepted format. I like that idea. I hope "Sons Of Guns" makes suppressors more mainstream. I hope I don't have to explain to people that my suppressor is legal and that it's not an 'assasin's tool' every time I mention I have one. I hope these shows spawn copycat shows that show the other niche markets in the shooting community.

Goddamnit people, this media exposure is good. Get these shows on your DVR and fast-forward through the drama if you don't like it. Get your wives/ husbands/ Girlfriends/ Boyfriends/ roommates/ life-partner/ whatever hooked on them as well. Support our sport. Get new shooters involved. Talk about Top Shot at work. Normalize shooting and gun ownership again.

...and stop being such whiny little bitches.