Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Among the natives...

Reading Dr. Wintemute's little anthropological tour the the darkest wilds of Gunshowia, wherein he observes the rituals of the primitive inhabitants and attempts to interpret them for his civilized audience, is simply hilarious.

It would be fun to do one of Wintemute's natural habitat...
"The tweed jacket is a sign of maturity and a request for deference from lower-ranking herd males, or "neckbeards", as the juveniles of the species are termed. Note the artfully rumpled look that signals to prospective mates that the silverback is too preoccupied with affairs of the mind to be bothered with petty things like grooming. Note also the way that the sunken chest puffs outward in the presence of junior herd females, or "undergrads" as they are referred to in the vernacular..."

Meanwhile, I apparently need to get with the progam and buy one of them there pink guns, since the Patriarchy has gone out of their way to make them extra attractive for my l'il sensibilities. (This is me, rolling my eyes...)


(H/T to RobertaX)

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pink guns are what women want? And no one told me?

*makes modification to Christmas shopping list*

Shootin' Buddy

West, By God said...

Page 9 of the PDF, picture #2, check out the kid's trigger discipline! Seems like some of the people at the gun show might be *gasp* responsible parents.

Tam said...

Impossible!

Responsible parents can't even pronounce the word "gun" without going into quivering hysterics and covering their child's ears.

Brian Dale said...

"zOMG! - Tacky People are allowed out in public! They're allowed to speak freely, to buy and to sell, even to have hobbies and indulge in crude humor! They have children! We must sound the alarm!"

The page with the greatest insight-to-specious-conclusion ratio is page 5-13: "This page has been left blank intentionally."

Joanna said...

Pink guns annoy me for the same reason pink toolkits annoy me: They look cheap and generally tacky, and the assume that I wouldn't be interested in the object in question unless it was pink. Give me a nice yellow Stanley screwdriver any day. Those pink jobbies look like they would snap in two the second I applied torque.

/preachin' to the choir

Don said...

I confess: I thought a lot of women liked pink guns.

But I saw a link to a study that concluded that they're not popular with women the other day . . . and promptly lost it in the ether.

Tam said...

I'd get a pink 20ga Remington 870 Youth to use for a housegun, but only as a tongue-in-cheek gesture.

pax said...

Perhaps someone in the industry may be beginning to realize that while some women might have specific gear needs, "pink in color" is not necessarily at the top of the shopping list. See this link. What, hunters don't need pink camo? Go figure.

Midwest Chick said...

As a gun show vender, I have found that I receive more respect and that men are more polite to me at shows than they are in academia.

staghounds said...

I'm sorry, but this is pretty straight reporting, except for the quotes on the side.

The things he saw, and we all routinely see, at many gun shows are embarrassing and give the lie to what we say about ourselves.

Just because we are free to be rude and abusive doesn't mean we should be.

His actual and most serious point is the demographic one. When I first went to gun shows, I noticed that I was well to the younger end of the age bell curve. I still am, and that was twenty years ago.

In thirty years, half of today's active gun owners will be dead.

Anonymous said...

My oldest daughter (6yo) wants a pink Chipmunk 22lr in the worst way. I'd gladly buy her one too.

Chris

Tirno said...

I built a .22lr-dedicated-upper-equipped AR-15 with pink M4 handguard, pistol grip and collapsible butt stock for my almost 6-year-old daughter. She says it is cute. She may even get to fire it next summer if she can nail down the Four Rules cold.

I know full well that those parts are going to get replaced by the time she is 11.

Anonymous said...

@staghounds

straight reporting?

you're telling me this is a reasonable sampling of a gun show?

what about the table full of nazi knives?

Joanna said...

Having just now skimmed the PDF, I'm reminded of my sister's gun show game: "Spot the Serial Killer!" I will say, though, that despite it being perhaps a rougher crowd than a simple population sample is likely to provide, I always feel very comfortable at the 1500. This is mostly because if a guy tries something, all I have to do is yell "Get your hand off my ass!" and the guy will probably get a major beatdown.

You get crazies in any large group of like-minded people. It's just that these crazies are interested in scarrrrrrrry things, so they get noticed more than, say, crazy ferret enthusiasts.

Also, anon @ 12:47: You'll notice that the Nazi guy is generally avoided, and that everyone else sort of wishes he wasn't there.

sam said...

Why do I get the mental picture of Tam holding the pink 870Y, with a goblin on the floor, and her saying (and batting her eyelids): "Why officer, that bad man was trying to hurt me!"

Anonymous said...

Is this real? Would a professor or researcher really publish this? Some points that caught my attention...
- Page one he is amazed that signs would mention the Enola Gay and the USS Indianapolis with absence of further information. To him this is a sign that the sub-culture of gun nuts share a body of knowledge distinct from that of common American folk. WTF?
- Also on page 1 he states that the demographic homogeneity at some shows is remarkable, and then goes on to say on page two that gun owners are diverse in many ways so there is no unitary gun culture. WTF? I guess we're not the right kind of diverse.
- And I wasn't aware that John Wayne is a demigod, but apparently we always place is image in a place of honor and invoke his spirit.

This guy is insane; I would love to see this guy's take on a car show.

Sigivald said...

If it was $50, I'd buy one of the pink mother-of-pearl and gold trim Taurus tip-ip .22s, just for a laugh.

And I'm not even a girl.

staghounds said...

"the sub-culture of gun nuts share a body of knowledge distinct from that of common American folk.".

Yes, that was exactly his point. He teaches university students, remember?

Actually I took the Enola Gay/ Indianapolis comments as compliments, contrasting our base of knowledge with the ignorance the general public would have.

I'm just saying that putting this sort of thing on, or out for sale, makes the putter look like a fool, pig, or criminal.

Putting it on or out at a gun show makes gun people look that way.

Actually I envy Prof. Wintemute- he's clearly figured out there is a pretty good living to be had from the antis for just going to the gun shows and writing it up.

John B said...

Hey Tam, I own a tweed jacket. It has all the best features, big pockets, that heavily padded patch at the right shoulder, to heavily press the 10 gauge super magnum into.