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.

Manliness and California

OK. I have stayed silent on this long enough.*

I have known too many women who have been the recipient of mistreatment, negative attention, slut-shaming, and harassment, at best; abuse, violence, and rape, at worst. This is not the result of their actions as people. This is the result of the choices of others. These choices deriving from a belief that women should bend to their will and be the object of whatever attention the others choose to give.

I have known too many 'men' who act like this because we are still raised that women are chattel and somehow become our property once we enter into any sort of a relationship. (I use 'men' in quotes simply to denote that I do believe 'manliness' is very much a concept that drives a lot of this behavior)

I am hacked off at any of the attempts I have seen to make it sound like all men are guilt-free because "it wasn't us, it was him" (check out #notallmen on Twitter). Bullshit.

It was us. We may have not pulled the trigger, but it was us who allow others to act this way. The same self-perpetuating nonsense allows white men (of which I am one) to continue to fail to realize that we ARE a privileged group. This is not a case of white guilt, male guilt, or any other guilt. This is an acknowledgement that there are differences within our society - differences in how we are treated.

I have never been singled out by a cop, a clerk, or anyone else because of my skin, my sex, my dress, or my mannerisms. I have never had to be in fear of my safety because someone had any sort of intentions, sexual or otherwise. I never had to worry about how I dressed and how that would make others perceive me other than in a business sense.

I have been guilty of ogling and making assumptions of women due to their dress and actions. I have been guilty of making advances that were unwanted. After reflection, I realized I was in the wrong. That may have been years ago and miles away, but there are still people who still may feel the effects of  my actions and words. That is where my guilt lies.

What I can do now is show others that it is not OK to let this slide.

A boy in California (yes, I will call him a boy) was turned down by girls. In response to this, he decided he had to go on a shooting spree.

I know he had issues. I know he needed help. However, despite what some pundits have proposed, he didn't need to get laid - or, interpreted in another way, none of the women in his life needed to give in to his desires and give him what he apparently felt he deserved.

If a woman says she does not want you in that way: Let. It. Go.

If she wants to be 'friends': Be. Her. Friend.

Just because you want something and you do not get it, whether a look, a word, a kiss, a feel, or more, it does not mean she is a bitch, a tease, or any of a number of worse words. She is being a person with every right to control what happens to her being. If you choose to act in a manner that forces her to unwillingly give up this control, you are the one in the wrong.

If you are preventing someone from exercising their control over themselves (or you are enabling this), you are part of the problem. You do not have the right to someones agency. You have not "put in the hours". You have not "earned it".

You only have to acknowledge that the issue may not be with them. The issue may be with you.

Either way, driving around town with a gun and bad intent is not an appropriate response.

---

* Although I do discuss a male-female power relationship in this post, this type of situation can be present in any type of relationship, whether straight, gay, or otherwise. In all of these relationships, believing others are less can only lead to bad things. All of this article is a poorly-written attempt to straighten out some of this view in my own head. I can't guarantee any logical clarity or simplicity of view.

Sorry, but we can't fail...

I love how folks on both ends of the political spectrum believe that their beliefs are the only ones that support Freedom and Liberty and that the other end of the spectrum is, at best, sending our Country down the drain or, at worst, actively striving to destroy the country or turn it into some sort of fascist or socialist state (depending on how you roll).

The beauty of our system is that NO ONE PERSON who gets elected - regardless of office - is able to irrevocably harm the nation. As the Chief Justice just told us, if you don't like what someone does, vote them out. If they do something illegal, they will be prosecuted. If they do something stupid, they will be called out for it. If the minority gets beat up, they can (and often do) come back in the next election.

No one person can destroy America. 236 years of various idiots, plutocrats, warmongerers, adulterers, liberals (Yes, I consider TR to have been a Liberal), conservatives, slave owners, racists, gays, Christians (they were all Christians of some sort), or other -ives/-ists have failed to screw it up beyond recognition yet.