Guns as modern fetishes (culled from shotgun thread)

[NWshooter]

I purchase what I like and won't apologize or try to defend to anyone for what I buy.

Have a couple safe Queens that I might shoot once a year but I think the gun is beautiful and something my kids will appreciate being passed down to them.

People need to stop being so judgemental and worrying about what other people do.

[BehindBlueI's]

Open carry dudes that caused Chipotle to ban firearms except for LEOs in their restaurants.

Chipotle asks customers not to bring firearms to stores

Ah, ok. Not nearly as much fun as the Doublemint Twins. I honestly expected them to be some sort of instagram celebs or the like.

[jh9]

a similar meaning to the owners within their own cultural trappings.

If we don't restrict it to religious/spiritual significance then there's similarity between something like this:

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/ori...l-made-in-1893

and this:

https://www.collectorsfirearms.com/p...es-c16964.html

Reminds me of a thread where nyeti/db was talking about engraved DA revolvers from the 20s or 30s or something being kinda popular amongst some period lawmen.

They didn't leave the factory like that. People that have been dead for decades modified them in a way that is relevant to the culture of the period. Everything there from Native American art to gaudy riverboat gambler is a snapshot in time. It's hard not to find that interesting.

[bofe954]

To me it lot of it can be summed up by George Carlin:

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

If I didn't do any competition/fun shooting or collecting I could get by with my slug gun for deer and my 340PD. For my age, disposition and lifestyle I probably don't need the 340PD either. Given we've decided to waste time on a firearm forum, most everybody here probably has something that isn't strictly a tool. I can point at other people's stuff and laugh, and someone can point at me and laugh. Here we are...

[Baldanders]

Perhaps, but it's interesting that, in a statement I wrote consisting of 107 words, that's the only one that's been fixated on and some seem to be offended by the association. I also used the term "lifestyle talisman ", but that has gone largely untouched. From a social standpoint, there are some very unhealthy things going on in the gun culture that don't serve us well. It doesn't matter if these things happened in antiquity. To that I say, "Well, no shit Captain Obvious." We don't live in bronze age Greece, or medieval England. We live here and now in 21st century USA with the attached concerns. Excusing all of this with the "muh rights" and "you do you bro" mentality doesn't benifit us, or make us stronger as a collective. I'd like to see some behavior that exhibits maturity and responsibility, rather than infantile ass hattery from people who should no better.

I'd like to have people consider how their actions reflect upon everyone else in the group, rather than pose on instaface with an AR while you pull your leggings down to your pubic bone, or put the "your fucked" dust cover on your rifle, or strut around the stop and rob with your SA sixgun in a fast draw holster (saw that just the other day). I wish people were mature enough to take just one second and think. "Who and what are my actions best serving?"

We constantly condemn the left on their behavior, and yet we seem to be completely unwilling to question or analyze the highly debatable behaviors and underlying pssychology of gun owners. Or rather, our condemnation doesn't proceed past posting a photo of the Chipolte Twins.

I share Trooper's concerns. "Fetish" has heavy sexual/abnormal psychology connotations in our language at the moment, so I tend to use the word "totem," thinking of the following definition I yanked from Google:

a person or thing regarded as being symbolic or representative of a particular quality or concept.

I am disturbed by photos with young women posing with longarms with the book of ancient wisdom their culture values, and usually some flag connected to that book, or the country they think the is the result of that ancient wisdom.

In situations like these, the gun not only is a totem representing freedom, it is also an implied threat. Don't forget I could kill you.

That attitude does little good for public discourse. And it inspires reckless gun use.

The Punisher emblem is another example of the same sort of totem, with a similar implied threat.

Marvel had the Punisher tell off two cops with his emblem in a comic sometime in the past few years. I believe he said something like "I'm a vigilante. You want a symbol, put a Captain America shield on your car."

When the gun becomes a symbol, the overall message using that symbol is often a threat.

[mmc45414]

I honestly expected them to be some sort of instagram celebs or the like.

They sorta were for a while a while back, you might have been out of the country...

To me it lot of it can be summed up by George Carlin:

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

I remember being in the audience hearing that live the first time I heard that.

I admit that the aesthetics of all of my guns are important to me, probably more than it should be. But I contend that I do not own a gun I won't lay down on the ground if I need to.

[BehindBlueI's]

If we don't restrict it to religious/spiritual significance then there's similarity between something like this:

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/ori...l-made-in-1893

and this:

https://www.collectorsfirearms.com/p...es-c16964.html

Reminds me of a thread where nyeti/db was talking about engraved DA revolvers from the 20s or 30s or something being kinda popular amongst some period lawmen.

They didn't leave the factory like that. People that have been dead for decades modified them in a way that is relevant to the culture of the period. Everything there from Native American art to gaudy riverboat gambler is a snapshot in time. It's hard not to find that interesting.

I think the difference between a fetish and simply decorating is the notion the fetish grants some power or attribute. God's intervention, Dirty Harry's coolness, whatever. I think we often use this sort of thinking when we talk about guns as talismans, that people believe that their mere presence somehow prevents bad things from happening to them. That doesn't require any decoration at all.

[Jim Watson]

Wouldn't it suffice to say, as in many other threads: A Glock 19 is both necessary and sufficient.

[revchuck38]

Wouldn't it suffice to say, as in many other threads: A Glock 19 is both necessary and sufficient.

Yeah, but that doesn't make it desirable.

[peterb]

I think the difference between a fetish and simply decorating is the notion the fetish grants some power or attribute. God's intervention, Dirty Harry's coolness, whatever. I think we often use this sort of thinking when we talk about guns as talismans, that people believe that their mere presence somehow prevents bad things from happening to them. That doesn't require any decoration at all.

Right. It’s the the difference between “I am a cool/righteous/deadly person with a gun” and “I am a cool/righteous/deadly person because I have this gun.”