Novelty in a practical world.

[OlongJohnson]

It's all fun and games until you get wrist cancer, or it breaks when shooting .380 due to reduced bone density.

[rob_s]

you boomers

God, if only.

[Rick R]

Yeah, think of the EMP attacks. All those suckers carrying phones and battery watches will be late for the train or board meeting because their watches stopped working.

Several counties in WV are in the “Quiet Zone” near Greenbank Radio Observatory. It was fun in the old days to see the tourists pull out their flip phones and to their dismay no signal = no clock. Modern phones at least keep time without checking into the mother ship.

[mtnbkr]

Who wears a watch to tell time?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The same folks who use their phones to talk?

Chris

[rob_s]

If I was 100% "practical" I'd spend the rest of my life with just a single J frame.
Every other gun I own is just some degree of want not need.

This is kind of a sidebar to all of this, but...

There are already even several definitions of "practical" in this thread. One definition is people that clearly think that gunfighting (and associated activities like training, practice, etc.) is the only "practical" use of a firearm. I used to think this way as well.

After awhile, I started to define "practical" as anything that wasn't just shooting for shooting's sake. Hunting being probably the most "real" example, but also expanded to competition shooting (e.g. USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, $-Gun, NSCA, etc.) and even potentially recreational, or informal competitive, shooting beyond basic "plinking" (e.g. shooting sporting clays with friends vs actually shooting a match). For me, these things became far more "practical" than gunfighting because I do/did them all the time and never wound up in a gunfight. I still mostly employ this idea, only buying guns/gear/widgets if there is an outcome I'm trying to achieve/improve, or a new activity I'd like to participate in but truly lack the equipment to do so (for example, I want to shoot PCC action steel but my 9mm SBR is suppressed and that's not allowed, and the optic on it is dead, so I "need" to rectify those things if I want to "practically" use the thing, who's existance dates back to my more LARPy past to begin with and therefore I now mostly see as novelty without the upgrades/changes).

next "tier" down would be plinkers or dirt shooters. At least they are getting out and shooting, and frankly the first two tiers are often more about the social aspects than anything else, and plinking certainly can be all about the social aspects without any of the ginned up bullshit.

I would say that ultimate "novelty" would be the guys that buy shit just because brightshinyobject. "Not that there's anything wrong with that", but I think that's a pretty small demographic on this site.

However, I'd say most people are probably some combination of all four.

[NWshooter]

Thank goodness there is a need for novelty in the world, or we’d all be driving an old Reliant K cars instead of having the options of adding a Hemi or a getting a lift for that 4x4.

Variety is the spice of life.

[JTMcC]

I could have a lot of fun with that Ruger and a red dot and a bunch of ammo in the middle of a big prairie dog town.

The ranchers consider it very "practical" when I shoot a bunch of them.