Everyone who’s been abroad has seen the Ugly American. They’re tourists. They flaunt the local laws, they mock any customs they don’t bring with them, and they get offended because not everybody in the world speaks English.
Then they throw a self-righteous hissy fit because their rudeness doesn’t get rewarded.
The good news is, you don’t have to travel to a foreign country to see this animal in the wild. You just have to take a look at what the gun culture has turned into right here at home.
If you’re new to it, great. Welcome aboard. Bear in mind, you’re entering a culture with roots and customs going back several centuries. We’ve got rules, they’re important, and not following them could get someone hurt of killed.
We’re a bit sensitive about that sort of thing, as you could imagine.
Some things may not be as you expect. Don’t whine. There are reasons things are the way they are. Here are a few simple rules you can follow while you get assimilated acclimated:
- Memorize the Four Rules of firearms safety. Live them, every moment you handle a gun.
- Show respect for others, particularly your elders. They all have something to teach you.
- For goodness sake, clean up after yourself. Leave any area in which you shoot cleaner than when you found it. Other shooters do notice this stuff.
- Don’t try to impress anyone. Pulling crap you’re not trained for (trick shooting springs to mind) could get someone seriously hurt.
- We don’t go around yelling at people for no good reason. If you’re getting chewed out, you did something very wrong. Learn from the experience, and try not to repeat it.
- Never, ever chide someone for knowing less than you do. It marks you as a first-rate prick.
- Be teachable, always.
- Be willing to teach, when possible.
The biggest problem we face is when someone decides, since they went to Vienna and bought the t-shirt, they’re now official Hapsburg nobility. They take none of the above advice to heart, they presume to speak for the culture, and they often make gun owners as a whole look very, very bad in the eyes of those who don’t know us.
We’ve been fighting the stereotype of the overweight, beer-swilling, shotgun-waving hillbilly too long and too hard to have someone with an inflated sense of self-esteem screw things up. There are people who’d like to see our way of life driven out of existence, and they pounce on things like that.
Just bought your first gun? Great. Instead of pronouncing yourself the Second Coming of Elmer Keith, perhaps you should take some classes. If someone outshoots you at the range, ask them what they’re doing. I’ve never denied anyone a few minutes of my time, nor have I had anyone blow me off. No matter how good any of us are, we can still learn.
Rather than assuming you’re already a 2nd Amendment scholar and lecturing everyone in earshot, familiarize yourself with the issues, the underlying debate and your local laws. Remember: the other side has emotion and propaganda, but we have the facts. Make sure you’ve got them straight.
Choose your fight and your arena wisely. City council meetings might be a good place; your daughter’s cheerleading practice might not be.
The same goes for carrying a gun. For Pete’s sake, these things are weapons, not fashion accessories. The whole world doesn’t need to know you have it. People spook easy, and spooked people tend to get hostile quick.
Even if your state allows open carry, it’s best avoided in many urban situations. If you get trouble for it, resist the overwhelming urge to engage in a heated argument on your 2nd Amendment rights on the spot. The other party’s already made up their mind on the issue, and you’re not going to convince them. All you’re doing is making them very suspicious of the rest of us. Thanks a lot.
Don’t go around discussing “what if’s.” Some folks call it SHTF, “when the zombies come,” or, “when the balloon goes up.” What it amounts to is the juvenile fantasy that, if civilization crumbles into anarchy tomorrow, you’ll be prepared for whatever may come by simple virtue of owning a gun.
No, really. Lots of people believe this. Folks who’ve never slept a night outdoors in their lives go around (particularly on the internet) claiming they have the knowledge and skills to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland while the rest of us get gobbled up by the zombies.
Worse yet, many of these discussions come down to bizarre and disturbing fantasies about killing government agents (or other people in general), and they can get quite elaborate. The revolution isn’t on our doorstep, and even if it were, guys like that aren’t who I’d want watching my back.
And again, stuff like this gives some people something to point at and label the rest of us as crazies.
In short, be responsible. Be open-minded. Do what you can to give back to the community. And think first.