How does a gun model’s backstory affect what you think of it?
While some specific, individual guns might have the kind of backstory that makes them an heirloom or gives them sentimental value to us, for this discussion, I’m more interested in the way a particular type or model’s background influences what you think of it.
Guns have particular features and technical specifications from their various dimensions, ballistic results, to the kinds of things like their capacity, manual of arms and market price. We often use the features and performance of a gun to determine our rationalization for or against it. While these things may play an important role in pleasing us, it’s probably rare that any one of them is essential. In a similar way, we each have preferences for cars or trucks based mostly on their features and performance, but most of us could make do with any random rental car. We probably have even less dependence on our firearms than we do our vehicles, as evidenced by the millions of neighbors that go about their life without any guns at all. Even for someone who has a very evident dependency on being armed like a police officer, I could replace their Glock with any random gun of new manufacture from the handgun counter at the local gun shop and they could probably do their job for the next 6 months without any real consequence. Even the guy who carries a little LCP for personal protection, if presented with no other option but to switch to a Smith & Wesson Model 27, would probably be no more imposed upon than the average commuter who had to drive a Ford F350 for while.
But guns also have a backstory, some of which is a common, shared history, and some of which is formed from our own individual impressions.
The Model 19 is what we saw on the hips of State Troopers growing up.
That J frame is what our uncle Jim always had in his pocket.
Grandpa always used a Single Six running his trap line.
We’re impressed upon by television and movies also. For me, growing up and watching television in the 80’s, a plain 1911 always invokes memories of “Magnum” loading a magazine in the opening sequence of “Magnum P.I.” Mini 14’s, the A-Team -- but I'm writing about handguns in particular because I think you'll agree we tend to more closely associate with them, particularly when we carry them daily.
James Bond probably saved the Walther PPK from obscurity.
Who hasn't heard something about Dirty Harry when there was a Model 29 around?
Nostalgia inspired by western movies in the 1950’s is the basis of a large portion of the Single Action Army’s legendary status and the demand that nostalgia generated was most probably the basis for the creation and success of the whole Ruger company.
The list of ways movies and television have influenced the culture of different guns is probably endless.
But users in real life also influence the history of a gun and our impressions of them, whether they are Prohibition-era Thompsons and .38 M&P’s, or WWII 1911’s.
Our biases and prejudice can influence us too. I don’t intend to legitimize prejudice, but it’s influence can’t be ignored. Someone might think of Hi Points as those gangsta guns. Since they made it their “state gun,” I can’t help but think of 1911’s as “that gun people in Utah like.” Patriotic bias might also influence us. We might think of one gun as being “American,” where another is some kind of “Euro” thing. We might give deference to a gun’s machining simply because it was Swiss or German-made, while casting a skeptical eye on one where the manufacturer imports parts from China or Slovenia.
I already made a comparison of guns to cars in the way that they all serve the same basic function and yet we tend to scrutinize the details in features and performance when determining our personal preferences. In a similar way, we might select cars or guns based on how they affect our self-image or even our identity. Even the collector who has dozens of them has to make choices about which of them they will favor, carry or use most often.
That our self-image and even identity is influenced by our guns is no more evident than in CAS, where a person takes the “cowboy” gun of their choice, effects their dress, and even adds a western-themed moniker to their name so that “James Weston” who might assume the persona and attire of an accountant by weekday, becomes “Lawless Jim” on match day.
What young man who fancies his tacticool ghost-grey H&K with the threaded barrel to compliment his 5.11 wardrobe wouldn’t be put off by something nickel-plated with pearl handles? Ok, maybe that’s too much, but how about even just wood grip panels or a revolver?
Now I’m not saying that all our egos are so fragile that we’ll be butt-hurt because we’ve got to drive a Ford instead of a Chevy. There’s more than enough of us with collections sufficiently diverse to prove that we’re not that imbecile. But our self-image does influence our opinion about what effect a gun will have on it. No one should be more aware of this than marketers who position different products in the industry and craft the identities of brands and their individual products.
For myself, I am not a cop, soldier or hunter and I do not see myself with any affinity to those identities whatsoever. Yet besides pink girl-guns, and mouse guns, with what products am I targeted as a consumer? A Glock for sure, because it’s good for everybody right? Oftentimes we’re lead to believe that what’s good for the cops is good for us, and what’s good for the warfighter must be even better. The reasoning might be that none of us are likely to impose a greater demand on performance than they, and so we can’t be better served than by the excess of capability their equipment would offer us. Now I’m not saying that “less” should suffice for us. On the contrary, why should we be relegated to 2nd class users? Glock and M&P make guns for cops, and should the rest of us should just buy whatever surplus they’ve got? Even Ruger, who never submitted a gun for the XM17 competition, gives us a gun designed for it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in color. All cop cars are the same color, black and white basically, maybe dark blue. Soldiers uniforms are all the same color too. But other people have cars of every color you can imagine. Of course, I have seen the colorful guns, but most people have been conditioned to think that they’re just a gimmick, toy-like, and can’t be taken seriously unless they’re one of the military and police colors like black, OD, or FDE.
But color is not the only thing. Personally, I don't care for plastic. It's not that I have any doubts or misgivings about the technology. I prefer a gun without plastic for the same reason I would generally not wear a watch with plastic or shoes with plastic, unless I needed to accomplish a specific purpose like I might with a sports-monitor or football cleats.
I’m sure there will be some of you that assert that you buy all your guns and your vehicles strictly by the stats, by the specification sheet, and based solely on the features and the performance and you’re thoughts are impervious to considerations of your ego, your self-image and none of your consideration is given to assuming any kind of persona. For the rest of us, what kind of things have you noticed influencing your own preferences?
While some specific, individual guns might have the kind of backstory that makes them an heirloom or gives them sentimental value to us, for this discussion, I’m more interested in the way a particular type or model’s background influences what you think of it.
Guns have particular features and technical specifications from their various dimensions, ballistic results, to the kinds of things like their capacity, manual of arms and market price. We often use the features and performance of a gun to determine our rationalization for or against it. While these things may play an important role in pleasing us, it’s probably rare that any one of them is essential. In a similar way, we each have preferences for cars or trucks based mostly on their features and performance, but most of us could make do with any random rental car. We probably have even less dependence on our firearms than we do our vehicles, as evidenced by the millions of neighbors that go about their life without any guns at all. Even for someone who has a very evident dependency on being armed like a police officer, I could replace their Glock with any random gun of new manufacture from the handgun counter at the local gun shop and they could probably do their job for the next 6 months without any real consequence. Even the guy who carries a little LCP for personal protection, if presented with no other option but to switch to a Smith & Wesson Model 27, would probably be no more imposed upon than the average commuter who had to drive a Ford F350 for while.
But guns also have a backstory, some of which is a common, shared history, and some of which is formed from our own individual impressions.
The Model 19 is what we saw on the hips of State Troopers growing up.
That J frame is what our uncle Jim always had in his pocket.
Grandpa always used a Single Six running his trap line.
We’re impressed upon by television and movies also. For me, growing up and watching television in the 80’s, a plain 1911 always invokes memories of “Magnum” loading a magazine in the opening sequence of “Magnum P.I.” Mini 14’s, the A-Team -- but I'm writing about handguns in particular because I think you'll agree we tend to more closely associate with them, particularly when we carry them daily.
James Bond probably saved the Walther PPK from obscurity.
Who hasn't heard something about Dirty Harry when there was a Model 29 around?
Nostalgia inspired by western movies in the 1950’s is the basis of a large portion of the Single Action Army’s legendary status and the demand that nostalgia generated was most probably the basis for the creation and success of the whole Ruger company.
The list of ways movies and television have influenced the culture of different guns is probably endless.
But users in real life also influence the history of a gun and our impressions of them, whether they are Prohibition-era Thompsons and .38 M&P’s, or WWII 1911’s.
Our biases and prejudice can influence us too. I don’t intend to legitimize prejudice, but it’s influence can’t be ignored. Someone might think of Hi Points as those gangsta guns. Since they made it their “state gun,” I can’t help but think of 1911’s as “that gun people in Utah like.” Patriotic bias might also influence us. We might think of one gun as being “American,” where another is some kind of “Euro” thing. We might give deference to a gun’s machining simply because it was Swiss or German-made, while casting a skeptical eye on one where the manufacturer imports parts from China or Slovenia.
I already made a comparison of guns to cars in the way that they all serve the same basic function and yet we tend to scrutinize the details in features and performance when determining our personal preferences. In a similar way, we might select cars or guns based on how they affect our self-image or even our identity. Even the collector who has dozens of them has to make choices about which of them they will favor, carry or use most often.
That our self-image and even identity is influenced by our guns is no more evident than in CAS, where a person takes the “cowboy” gun of their choice, effects their dress, and even adds a western-themed moniker to their name so that “James Weston” who might assume the persona and attire of an accountant by weekday, becomes “Lawless Jim” on match day.
What young man who fancies his tacticool ghost-grey H&K with the threaded barrel to compliment his 5.11 wardrobe wouldn’t be put off by something nickel-plated with pearl handles? Ok, maybe that’s too much, but how about even just wood grip panels or a revolver?
Now I’m not saying that all our egos are so fragile that we’ll be butt-hurt because we’ve got to drive a Ford instead of a Chevy. There’s more than enough of us with collections sufficiently diverse to prove that we’re not that imbecile. But our self-image does influence our opinion about what effect a gun will have on it. No one should be more aware of this than marketers who position different products in the industry and craft the identities of brands and their individual products.
For myself, I am not a cop, soldier or hunter and I do not see myself with any affinity to those identities whatsoever. Yet besides pink girl-guns, and mouse guns, with what products am I targeted as a consumer? A Glock for sure, because it’s good for everybody right? Oftentimes we’re lead to believe that what’s good for the cops is good for us, and what’s good for the warfighter must be even better. The reasoning might be that none of us are likely to impose a greater demand on performance than they, and so we can’t be better served than by the excess of capability their equipment would offer us. Now I’m not saying that “less” should suffice for us. On the contrary, why should we be relegated to 2nd class users? Glock and M&P make guns for cops, and should the rest of us should just buy whatever surplus they’ve got? Even Ruger, who never submitted a gun for the XM17 competition, gives us a gun designed for it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in color. All cop cars are the same color, black and white basically, maybe dark blue. Soldiers uniforms are all the same color too. But other people have cars of every color you can imagine. Of course, I have seen the colorful guns, but most people have been conditioned to think that they’re just a gimmick, toy-like, and can’t be taken seriously unless they’re one of the military and police colors like black, OD, or FDE.
But color is not the only thing. Personally, I don't care for plastic. It's not that I have any doubts or misgivings about the technology. I prefer a gun without plastic for the same reason I would generally not wear a watch with plastic or shoes with plastic, unless I needed to accomplish a specific purpose like I might with a sports-monitor or football cleats.
I’m sure there will be some of you that assert that you buy all your guns and your vehicles strictly by the stats, by the specification sheet, and based solely on the features and the performance and you’re thoughts are impervious to considerations of your ego, your self-image and none of your consideration is given to assuming any kind of persona. For the rest of us, what kind of things have you noticed influencing your own preferences?
He 'gave' me his Trooper MKIII when he bought his Pythons, took it back when my overloaded .357's broke the hammer on the 4". I fixed the 4", and bought it and the 2.5" when his Dept. (Saint Paul, MN) became the first big city Dept. to go to the Glock. I did buy a Glock, (21) but not from him, but later sold it. 
