Pedantistry

Is that a word?

No, but it should be.

Intersections

My last post mentioned some of my interests. Based on the title of the page (and this post and this post) you can guess I am into guns, as well. I'm also into cars. I'm not a gearhead or grease monkey, by any means. I just like cars.

Well, I like cars I can't afford. And I like listening to bumbling, sarcastic Brits prattling on about said cars I can't afford. So, naturally, I watch Top Gear.

And while Jeremy Clarkson may take the piss out of James May for getting overly pedantic regarding cars, engineering, physics, and design, it is entertaining because they DO IT TO BE ENTERTAINING. They are in on the joke. They expect you to be in on the joke. They expect the audience to understand the humor of a scraggly-haired car nerd at a white board describing the innards of a hovercraft.

Another example of Top Gear acknowledging their personal foibles is Clarkson going on about power, speed, and guns in his exuberant, pseudo-jingoistic manner (imagine a twelve-year-old with a monster truck fitted with rocket launchers and you will have a good idea).

Where I come to the point

So, I happen across a Top Gear video of Clarkson and May racing sport wagons on a biathlon course because of course they will. As part of this race, they do the shooting element of the course, firing the prone targets from inside the back of the car because of course they will. Clarkson, however, forgoes the standard Anschutz for a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachinegun because of course he does. 

Let the theatrics commence. I can wait. 

I showed the video to a friend. This led to questions about biathlon rifles. This led to biathlon, itself. I then happened across a great video produced by Sturm, Ruger & Co. Featuring Annelies Cook from the US biathlon team, the video shows a typical biathlon rifle and the use of it, including the unslinging and slinging (watch all of the various manual checks and manipulation a of covers).  There is some awesome footage of the shooters, proper form, and discussions of how they do what they do.

Really good stuff there.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here...

A mantra of mine regarding YouTube: 

do not read the comments.

do not read the comments.

do not read the comments.

After viewing this video, I accidentally neglected my mantra. And this one time, it was gold.

Gun Guys in the audience will recognize some incorrect usage (clips, bullets, shells, and the like). As can be expected, some of "those guys" make an appearance on the comments lamenting the use of perceived incorrect terminology, America's lackluster biathlon performance in the Olympics, and what can only be described as a cross between "kids these days" and "get off my lawn!"

One of my fave Gun Guys - Steve Fjestad from Blue Book Publications

During my time as the Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum, one of my favorite activities was talking to Gun Guys. One of my least favorite activities was talking to Gun Guys...

The following dialogue from the YouTube comments on the Biathlon video (screen-capped for posterity) made my day. It involves BOTH types of gun guys.

David W. is my new Hero of the Interwebz.

He used his wittiness, knowledge, and snark to defend against the demons of pedantistry. As another associated the woman's use of firearms terminology with reasons behind how America sucks at biathlon, David W. kept his calm and poked the troll in such a manner that he started using all sorts of unrelated arguments (the supposed wealth of Olympians, his military experience, and the use of the word 'Libtard' - the hallmark of all well-planned defenses).

David W. won the internet.

In search of a common language

While watching this discourse, I began to ask myself why we cannot progress beyond this argument of pedantic terminology. I remember getting into arguments about this more than three decades ago - as a GRADE SCHOOLER!

I think we are at a point in the shooting world at which we can recognize that language is malleable. Language changes. Language moves. Language bends. Language becomes new.

Yes. A magazine and a clip are, pedantically, two different things.

Yes. A bullet and a shell and a cartridge are all different things.

But people (most people) use them interchangeably. Most of us (students of firearms history and related esoterica) prevent ourselves from getting the vapors when we hear someone describe how they load bullets into a clip. We stop ourselves from hollering at people "It's a Magazine!!!"

You should too.

Museums and Firearms - why I do what I do

Well, today finds me in Montana, relaxing at my in-laws place. Tomorrow will find me at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman (where my museum career effectively began). I will be presenting my day-long seminar on Museums and Firearms at the Museums Association of Montana (MAM) Conference.

The first time I did this presentation was for the 2004 Mountain-Plains Museums Association (MPMA) Conference in Casper, Wyoming. I had been at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center as the Firearms Curator for about a year-and-a-half. I was leading a charmed life. I had my (at the time) dream job, I was being paid to talk to people about guns, history, and museums, and I was starting to build some great friendships in MPMA.

Anyway, here I am, almost eight years later. I moved on to a great (and in many ways better) job at a different museum. I am still involved with MPMA (I've been a board member for 6 of the last 8 years). I still love talking to people about guns!

Part of what I love about this is that I get to help cross the great divide - the divide between the gun guys and the Museum world. It's not that there are no gun guys in the museum field or museum folks who like guns. However, this is a small slice of a huge Venn diagram. There are lots of gun guys out there who like - but misunderstand - museum operations. There are many museum professionals who are responsible for firearms in their collections but don't fully understand them as objects or have concerns about guns and their accoutrements.

Unfortunately, the channels of communication between the two groups are limited. There are about a half dozen titled Firearms Curators in the country. I know most of them by first name. Some of these guys, by choice or job description, don't have the opportunity to talk to the general museum field. The museum field, tending to skew politically liberal, are often not gun owners. I, on the other hand, fall into both areas to a certain extent. As I have titled the blog, I am a Liberal Gun Guy.

Having set myself apart and acknowledging this difficult and sometimes tenuous position, I am more than happy to talk to both groups about how we can all get along. Tomorrow will be the sixth time I have presented this specific seminar. It has been seen by about 100 museum professionals and others to this point. I had several hunters skip the opening day of deer season to catch the talk in Bismark, North Dakota (thanks to the State Historical Society of North Dakota). I have had input from the (at the time) Firearms Conservator from Springfield Armory National Historic Site. I even have done the unthinkable - I enlist the aid of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

With the aid of these folks (and the host organizations I have dealt with), I get to talk to 20 more people about two of my loves - museums and firearms. Safety and identification, legal issues, conservation and care, and exhibition and curation will all be covered.

It'll be a great day!

Guns, Museums, and Security

I have a presentation I give to museum professionals about firearms. It is a full-day seminar and it covers all aspects of guns and museums. I cover safety and identification, exhibition, legal aspects (I bring in the local ATF Industry Operations folks for this), and security.

My security discussion includes background checks for staff AND volunteers, key control, vault/case access, record keeping, and other topics.

Unfortunately, most folks only think of security in terms of this robbery in Roswell, New Mexico. Short of bars on the door or thick plexiglass or safety glass instead of regular plate glass, nothing would have stopped this crime.

However, the crooks are IDIOTS. The reasons?

• Most museums have many things on exhibit that are more valuable than the guns. Most "Old West" guns are worth very little and the stories associated with them are usually just that - stories.  The resale value on these guns (Granted, I don't know what they took - although I can guess) is probably less than $500 each. This is based on the condition, quality, and type of most guns I have seen in Western Museums.
• Most guns made before the turn of the century may have, ahem, issues with modern ammunition.Try using some hot modern .45 Colt in your 1870s wheel gun. Good luck with that.
• Many guns made before the turn of the century use ammunition that is no longer available - well, at least at Wal-Mart... .45 Schofield, .44 S&W, .32 Short. or various .38s that aren't 'Special'. 

The most useful aspect of these guns to the criminals would be if all of them were manufactured before 1899, making them non-firearms. Possession by felons is then legal and these then fall outside of firearms law.

Have fun fencing them guys!