Every damn time I see one.Originally Posted by HeavyDuty
Chris
Every damn time I see one.
Chris
I will from here on out…🤣
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits - Mark Twain
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy / Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Not so sure about that. Let's not forget that the whole reason Colt re-introduced the SAA after WW2 was because western TV shows got popular and people wanted what they saw on the teevee. In 1956.
[angry truck noises]However, we're also living in a time where everything seems to become fetishized and made into some kind of lifestyle talisman.
To both points above: The internet happened. It's a magnifying glass that your subconscious mind reflexively points at the strange, the novel and the bizarre.Consequently, firearms seem to be viewed as cool toys, or tactical fantasy fashion rather than the serious weapons they are. Firearms like this play into that trend, one that personally concerns me.
The last 20 years has seen The Internet taken from the nerds and given to the masses and the result is a dozen facetweeters where a relative handful of fetishists have put it all on full display for an audience consisting of everyone. Hell I don't even use facebook or twitter and I still can't avoid screenshot memes of someone's tweet or fb post. So, counterpoint to the average person being less mature or holding onto their childishness is that the bizarre and the novel naturally attracts attention. And everyone now has access to "content"-- regardless of quality-- from everyone everywhere. Case in point: 20 years ago you would have never even heard of the chipotle twins unless you were local.
I'm not so sure that the human has really changed. We just have a broader view. Which is why it's more important than ever to make sure broad assertions like the above are backed by data because it's become trivial to see what you want to see in the world.
Although, yes. I do own completely impractical things that I probably wouldn't if I hadn't seen it on the internet. But I'm not entirely sure how it's all that different except in scale from someone wanting a Wyatt Earp special in 1956 because TV.
I am completely and wholly guilty of owning firearms that are not tools. In fact, the vast majority of what I own is for fun. It is no secret that there is only one .22 I cannot abide, the USFA ZIP gun. I have way too many rimfire handguns and rifles to justify as tools. I have some that I use as tools but the vast majority are more likely to see twenty rounds or so on my backyard range after a frustrating meeting ends. I have strange models like the low-fidelity Iver Johnson copy of the Colt Woodsman and the Norinco copy of a Walther competition pistol to which they ascribed the wrong name (TT Olympia). I have conversion kits for pistols that I do not (yet) own. I have more Ruger Standard-pattern pistols than can be justified because the first pistol I shot was my father's Standard, and I enjoy how shooting one takes me back to 1973. Others collect S&W M29 revolvers after watching Dirty Harry or HK P7M8s after watching Die Hard.
But collecting firearms is not treating firearms as fetishes. One has to ascribe something unusual to an object for it to become a fetish. Collecting alone is not enough. There is a line that must be crossed even if the line is hard to describe. Ascribing unusual values is one way, and treating the item as a talisman is another. I am sure there are more.
How many revolvers did Dirty Harry sell for S&W? That's at least 99.9% of the reason I own my Model 29, and I think that's probably a 'fetish' in the context of the thread. Owning it makes me feel cooler via the association with the movie.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Would these be considered a fetishized talisman?
I used to be on a gun forum who's members were mostly over 50, probably over 60, and centered around a specific firearm manufacturer and one sub category with firearms ranging from 1890s to 1960s. The "golden age". And most of these people did nothing but clean these guns once a week, and talk about how nice it was to look into its deep dark bluing and how relaxing it was to clean and polish it once again. These are retirement age men. Is that acting childish and fetishizing?
Cool toys and fantasy fashion? Is that like a bbq gun? Where some old guy has a pimped out SAA on his hip? Sometimes two!
Last edited by 4RNR; 08-18-2021 at 08:31 AM.
I think until S&W could catch up the answer is "all of them".
If those 1858s are wrong I don't want to be right.Would these be considered a fetishized talisman?
You can just say "S&W forum". Everybody understands.I used to be on a gun forum who's members were mostly over 50, probably over 60, and centered around a specific firearm manufacturer and one sub category with firearms ranging from 1890s to 1960s. The "golden age". And most of these people did nothing but clean these guns once a week, and talk about how nice it was to look into its deep dark bluing and how relaxing it was to clean and polish it once again. These are retirement age men. Is that acting childish and fetishizing?
Childish? Not to my mind. Fetishizing? Maybe. I think this is where we start to separate the act from the personality type. It's one thing to collect a bunch of old S&Ws. It's another thing entirely to become weirdly obsessive about them.
LoL ok. It was that obvious?
There is nothing new under the sun. People have always pimped out their weapons. The wealthier one was the more extravagant they could go. Even poor people would do something. Home made engravings for example.
Doesn't mean it's everyone.
This is tangentially related, but it's interesting to me, and I think it fits:
In the 14th century people wore daggers a lot. Generally the richer you were, the nicer the dagger. Knightly classes, specifically, could wear what was called a rondel dagger, and it was basically an advertisement that you were of a knightly class and had some disposable income, because it was almost entirely deficient for any task other than putting holes in a man wearing heavy armor. Wearing one showed you had the income to buy something useless for everyday life, and that you were of a high enough social class that you might have to someday tangle with a man in heavy armor. It's not fetishization, but it's using impractical weaponry in a non-combat situation as a social statement because the weapon says cool things about you.
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