Breda points to a review of the Showtime reality show "Lock & Load" that describes the program as "deadly dull".
Let's see: A dinner theater actor decides to make the rent money by manning the counter in a gun store rather than busing tables. And, to jump start his acting career, he's going to record all the transactions where he helps Imogene pick out a Taurus .38 or fetches a set of Lee carbide .45 Colt dies for Cletus and make an "edgy" reality series out of them because, hey, guns are "edgy" right?
And people are surprised to find out that eight hours of slinging guns across the glass is about as "edgy" as watching paint dry. Heck, I could have told Showtime that before they wasted the airtime.
Did they think it would be the next COPS?
ReplyDelete"PUT THE GUN DOWN! PUT THE GUN DOWN! CUSTOMERS MUST ASK PERMISSION BEFORE HANDLING THE BORCHARDT!!!"
"BREAKER, BREAKER! I'VE BEEN BLINDED! CUSTOMER SWEPT ROOM WITH CRIMSON TRACE DEMO GUN!"
"Ten-4. I'm responding to a call of a riot at the Wal-Mart. Seems a customer bought the entire pallet of ammunition and is trying to leave the store. Verbal shots have been fired at the man's devotion to RKBA and there are at least three people open-carrying near the nachos!"
Actually, I guess the show pretty much writes itself.
I guess they're upset because they haven't seen gang-bangers and Mexican drug dealers buying crates of grenades and machine guns. Oh wait, those are bought at gun shows, not gun stores...
ReplyDeleteI had a good time, but I worked with some pretty funny people.
ReplyDeleteIf he managed to get footage of a phone conversation where the caller asked how much his gun was worth and the counter person said "I can't see it real good; hold it closer to the phone," then THAT would have made for some funny television...
Hmmm, just spitballing ideas for improvement:
ReplyDeleteMaybe if they made it like an interactive game show? So many points for spotting the guy who thinks his felony conviction merely disqualifies him from handguns, points for food stained clothing (over 7 shirts), how many come in unshaven, inter alia.
Maybe you could have "challenges" like in the reality shows? Have customers sprint across the parking lot, touch their toes without ripping pants or do so many sit ups and see how many have cardiac events?
Maybe have a "confessional" for the employees like some shows? "I swear one more mouth-breather asks me if a particular weapon is 'akawrit" I will run screaming for the building." "What I really love about gun stores is cleaning glass cabinets of slimy handprints and scooping up mud."
Shootin' Buddy
Just because they *think* guns are edgy - and now they find out they're not, how disappointing for them, such grand illusions shattered.
ReplyDeleteWe sell by appointment only and do a lot of gun drawings for local clubs and charities...and we generally focus on higher end firearms including Type II firearms and law enforcement sales. The people we generally deal with are highly articulate and intelligent and we have been moving some pretty interesting weapons around (just sold off a really nice collection of Nambu pistols, yeah, they're crap but it was a pretty extensive collection and had some interesting specimens. Ended up talking to a female college prof in Canada who is a recognized authority on them and has a grandfathered license to own firearms otherwise banned there...very cool.) But, most of the time it's boring as hell...checking Gunbroker messages...answering questions...packing boxes...unpacking boxes...on the phone with customers and distributors...photographing items to put on Gunbroker and editing the code for our ads...etc. Oh. Paperwork. Did I mention paperwork? Logging firearms and and out, tax papers, bi-monthly sales reports to the state po-po, Form 2s, Form 3s, Form 4s, Form 10s, 4473s, NICS checks...arrrgh! No clue why I never though it would make great television...
ReplyDeleteWould be neat if they could get H&K to call on Camera!
ReplyDeleteOr another review -
ReplyDeletehttp://pajamasmedia.com/blog/showtimes-lock-n-load-hollywood-finally-lets-gun-owners-speak
---- Quoting -
We’ve been asked to swallow much more from past reality shows, but suffice to say the interactions between the affable Ryan and his customers are strong enough to sell the vehicle. You just have to wade through the first uneventful episode to discover why.
...
Naturally, the first few critical salvos against the show were anything but positive. Newsday and Variety dubbed the show “aimless” and “toothless,” respectively, both bemoaning its lack of an angle.
By angle, they mean the show doesn’t demonize gun owners or the Second Amendment. Had the series taken an aggressively pro-gun stance, said critics likely wouldn’t like that particular angle one bit. The critics were likely expecting another Bowling for Columbine, one of Michael Moore’s many slanted polemics.
Whatever happened to introducing a topic and letting the audience draw its own conclusions?
Newsday goes further, saying Ryan is selling “death” even though many of the customers make it clear they want to own a gun to protect their loved ones against intruders. That critic should have holstered her biases at the door.
---end quote...
Yeah, none of my HTML worked. A_Href and Blockquote both "not closed" - bah.
Retail counter work --
ReplyDeleteGoes from pretty banal and repetitious, to pretty repetitious and banal, most of the time.
It is interesting getting an earnest newbie couple or individual hooked up with the right stuff, the right training, the right info and eventually seeing a new shooter'[s] bloom.
However, the amount of gun ignorance, personal stupidity, overweening know-it-all-ism, unsafe at any speed operators, apparently dressed and prompted by Michael Moore as stereotypical clowns and brainless media fodder did tend to depress me -- way back now.
Every time I think of picking up a few bucks by dossing down the glass cases, I forget all about the good people on both sides of the counter and remember the miserable and ineducable cretins that make retail a walking sideshow.
Yesa, of course, there were good days. And good peeples. And long lasting friendships. But the 'romance' faded pretty fast when faced with day to day gunshop reality. Itsa job, folks; justa job.
"blecoons" -- beyond my feeble powers of commentary, but rich in potential.
John the Red,
watching that cold front rolling in on the West End of Lake Erie -- an old Chessie, woodcock and ducks in the Ayem.
I had a great time working at a great store; but 6-8 of the 10 hours I would be at work were generally boring as hell.
ReplyDeleteMy sharpest memory of a gun store was when a young lady, after an hour at the counter, handed over her credit card and some stranger yelled out "She got the SP101!" and everyone in the store cheered, and she responded by pumping her hands into the air.
ReplyDeleteIt was like a Scientology recruitment center, or a timeshare sales weekend. Absurd and beautiful.
so, would anyone know where episodes might be out on the web for those of us without showtime?
ReplyDeletethey were probably expecting all the customers to look like the cast of Sons of Anarchy and the episodes would play out in a according to the season one plot line.
ReplyDelete"I had a great time working at a great store; but 6-8 of the 10 hours I would be at work were generally boring as hell."
ReplyDeleteYeah, don't get me wrong; it was fun for me or I wouldn't have done it for so many years, but it's not like most of it would have made for great TV. (Although Gunsmith Bob and Shannon could put together about an hour of good television a week... And then all of America would be talking in Bobspeak.)
Sure. With editing, anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteWe had a store owned, and mostly staffed by nutjobs, so it was even more... uh... interesting in our case
I was a part time instructor, class III armorer, and gunsmith; plus occasional subject matter expert on firearms or ammo the rest of the staff were stumped on.
Adding to the fun, several of the other staff, including the other gunsmith and the other instructor were just plain bugfucknuts. They just weren't there most of the time, or days would have been infinitely more interesting.
Someday I'mna have to share stories about what we found when the old man finally went round the bend with alzehimers, and we had to clean out and inventory the store to be auctioned off.
Who buys 800 pairs of rubber waders, and hides them in custom built storage cubbys all around the shop?
Or 200 identical left hand holsters for a gun that was out of production decades ago...
Then theres all the ... fun... folks who would come through the door. In a week, we'd get more than enough of those to have some interesting television.
That said, I only ever had to physically remove someone from the store once, and she was a tiny little woman (albeit a tiny little woman high on meth).
Look, I hand it to the guy, he's a good salesman thats for damn sure, and the show doesn't demonize us. At least he isn't like the jerk at my local shop with no personality, makes buying a gun like a teeth cleaning. It is retail after all. I would much rather be entertained than have some guy be a dick. I will support the show as long as they don't get on a soap box against guns. It's easy to rag on the guy behind the counter, because you didn't think of it when you were working there, but he did it. He turned his boring ass job into a show. My wife thought he was good looking and funny. Go figure. It would be cool to see pro gunners back the show, and rally behind it. It's rare to see a show that doesn't take sides. What would showtime do then? Stop ragging on the guy, it's easy, try to point out the positives, because there are many.
ReplyDelete