By Sam Hoober, Alien Gear Holsters
Just because something lacks the greatest of practical purpose doesn’t mean it’s worthless and doesn’t mean a person shouldn’t be able to have it. Practicality, as David Petzal wrote, isn’t everything when it comes to guns.
Obviously, guns have legitimate purposes such as sport, sustenance (hunting) and self-defense. Duh. And we, as Americans, have a right to own them, as vouchsafed for us by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Duh.
Guns are ultimately tools, but not all of them have the same amount of inherent utility, meaning they are less useful than others. Some guns are made, bought and used solely for enjoyment and for the hobby, not for any other purpose and boy, do some people get real sensitive if you acknowledge that.
We all know it, but some people don’t want to admit it.
I wrote a column a few weeks ago pointing out there are a number of guns on the market that have drastically less practical purpose than others. Specifically, a number of them which have a “gimmick,” some sort of special trait or attribute that some gun owners and enthusiasts insist makes them far more practical than they actually are in the real world. And boy, were some people ticked.
Some believe that the acknowledgement thereof is tantamount to saying it would be okay if the government made impractical guns illegal which is not, in any way shape or form, what I said or implied. If that was you, you made that leap on your own and I disclaim all responsibility for it.
It’s my experience a lot of gun owners/gun enthusiasts stick to the script because they feel the need to justify their purchase ex post facto. A few don’t; a co-worker of mine owns a .50 BMG and a .50 AE Desert Eagle and has said flat-out he bought them because the big boom puts a smile on his face.
Some folks in the comments section – as is sometimes the case – apparently lack in reading comprehension and started inferring a great many things about what I meant. I said in the opening paragraphs that there’s nothing wrong with owning a gun just because you want to and reiterated it several times. However, since the peanut gallery infers what they want to (the confirmation bias is strong with some folks!) and accused me of everything from pushing gun control to “advancing the globalist agenda,” which is hilarious.
Do you have a cell phone? You’ve advanced the globalist agenda. Do you only buy produce from farmer’s markets? If not, you’re advancing the globalist agenda. If you don’t get how governments and trade are tightly interconnected, how huge that became in the past thousand years, and how it’s never going away absent global extinction – I just don’t know what to tell you.
I’m fond of using analogies and metaphors to explain similar relationships between things. So here’s a good one:
The VW Golf is arguably the most useful car in existence. It’s reasonably affordable, gets decent mileage – but take VW’s claims with a grain of salt! – is reasonably well-made, and has enough interior room and cargo space to suit most people’s needs. That’s why more than 30 million have been sold since it replaced the Beetle in 1974.
Granted, that doesn’t apply to everyone – some folks really do need a pickup truck – but you get the general idea.
Aston Martins are desperately impractical. Some of them can barely get over a speed bump, forget driving one in the snow, you can especially forget finding a mechanic or parts; they only take premium gas and most of them only seat two. Does that stop me from wanting one? Heck no.
Does anyone need an Aston Martin? No; most of them spend most of their lives in a garage and barely get above freeway speed. A few people try, and wind up in jail or wrapping the car around a tree. There isn’t a practical purpose for one.
Does that mean you shouldn’t be able to buy one if you can afford it? Heck no, and more power to you.
Similarly, there are a lot of guns that have little to no practical purpose. We all know it. Does anyone, if you were to really think about, really need a lot of the popular range toy guns out there? Of course not, but no one would want or buy an Aston Martin, or a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini or what have you if practicality was everything.
Likewise, no one would buy anything but typical guns like Glock 19s, Remington 870 shotguns or Savage AXIS rifles, because they do darn near everything you’d need a gun to do. Plenty of other guns are on the market because people just want them as range toys and there is nothing – not a darn thing – wrong with that. But if you expect me to stop calling a spade a spade because it offends your delicate sensibilities…you better start mailing me checks, because it isn’t happening otherwise.
I guess I understand that some people are concerned that such guns could be regulated out of existence. After all, when governments are empowered to tell people what they do and don’t need, what people end being allowed to have is usually something nobody wants!
After all, there probably is a Lada owner’s club out there but who the heck wants to belong to it? Aston Martin owner’s club? Now that I wouldn’t mind being a member of. But don’t tell me that a Golf isn’t a better daily driver all things are considered, because it is, and don’t tell me that an obvious range toy is anything but.
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Sam Hoober is Contributing Editor for AlienGearHolsters.com, a subsidiary of Hayden, ID, based Tedder Industries, where he writes about gun accessories, gun safety, open and concealed carry tips. Click here to visit aliengearholsters.com.