I’m in the camp that firearm culture is better now than it ever has been. From a gun rights perspective, we’re done compromising. From a training perspective, we have more options than ever with a ton of fantastic instructors. In terms of firearm options, we have more than ever, and cheap guns are better than they ever have been. That doesn’t mean modern firearms culture doesn’t have some dumb stuff attached to it.
As someone who’s deep into the culture, I’ve noticed five things that I just enjoy the hell out of within modern firearms culture.
Getting Dumb in Gun Culture
Flex Culture
Flex culture isn’t exclusive to guns, but since I don’t follow watches, cars, sneakers, or pinball machines, flex culture is what annoys me. There is a difference between owning a good gun or a good piece of gear and flex culture.
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Flex culture equates quality with skill. It tries to claim that spending a lot of money on a gun or piece of gear translates to skill. This is best evidenced by a term that makes me cringe deep down in my soul. Flex off.
Flex-offs occur when two guys start arguing about largely inconsequential factors and decide they can win the argument by posting their most expensive guns and gear on social media. Flex culture says that if I spend the money to buy a rifle used by XYZ special operators, then I’ve gotten a little closer to being an XYZ special operator.
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‘Gram Gunnery
The ‘Gram, or Instagram, has become a mix of cancer and cure to gun culture. You can learn a lot from the right creators through Instagram. You can also run into a lot of ‘Gram gunnery. I define ‘Gram gunnery as performing rather than training.
Sure-fire signs of ‘Gram gunnery are things like rapid reholstering. When will I ever need to rapidly reholster my firearm?
It’s a lot of seemingly fast and robotic movements that look cool, with a focus on the shooter and not what they are shooting. We don’t know the range or the target size, but man, that guy can shoot fast. Mag dumping a rifle at 15 yards isn’t that impressive.
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Sadly, rifle shooting at rifle ranges just doesn’t look all that cool. Relatively slow fire at long range onto small targets doesn’t have the same sensationalism
Watching a lot of Ben Stoeger and Matt Pranka will show you what a high level of skill looks like. It’s fast, but remarkably smooth, and you see the targets, you know the range, and you hear the shot timer. That’s content worth watching and learning from. Flex the skills, not the guns.
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Obsession With the Result, Not the Effort
This part of modern firearms culture is one I partake in. I try not to, but I do. I want a consistent, cold sub-second draw time, I want a sub-2-second Bill Drill, I want a sub-ten-second Valhalla Drill. When I don’t reach those goals, I get frustrated.
Having training goals is great, but getting obsessed with the result is silly. The effort is what we should obsess over. How much are we training? Did I do something to make myself a little faster, a little smoother, and harder to kill today? I should obsess over making sure I dry-fire every 15 minutes rather than on my Bill Drill time.
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Obsess over the progress you’re putting in to get the result. Take joy in shaving off tenths of a second consistently. Don’t let the internet tell you you have to be at a certain time. It’s largely arbitrary. If you’re getting a little better every day, you’re ahead of most people. Obsess over getting the training in to get the result, not just the result.
Preoccupation With Inconsequential Increments
Jeff Cooper coined the concept of Preoccupation With Inconsequential Increments. He defined increments as inconsequential when they have no significant relationship to the purpose of the exercise. I don’t want to retread Colonel Cooper’s work, but repurpose it to consumerism.
This is another part of modern firearms culture I’ve fallen victim to.
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Don’t get me wrong, buy guns if you can afford them. Buy them all you want. If you want it, buy it. I’m a compulsive gun buyer myself. However, don’t be tricked into buying guns because it’s ‘better.’ For example, 2011s are the current hotness. Most of them are good guns, but they are expensive.
Replacing your Glock with a 2011 because you think it’ll make you a better shooter is downright silly. Sure, maybe your split times will decrease a hair, and maybe your groups will shrink a little. That could happen, but so can spending $2,500 dollars on ammo. The tiny benefits of a ‘better’ platform aren’t often worth spending the money.
The same can be said of swapping triggers. Sure, it might be a little smoother and lighter, and that’s great, but can you actually outshoot your current trigger? You have to ask yourself, would you benefit more from ammo and training or from spending more money on accessories?
Where’s The Fun?
When did stuff get so serious? Why does everything have to be based on a serious use case? You see this a lot with stuff like PCCs. Is it the best option for duty or defense? Not at all. Does it still have a reason to exist? Yes, because it’s fun.
I shoot because I have fun doing it. I shoot at soda cans because it’s fun. Not every gun has to be useful, and not every shot fired needs to be in pursuit of mastery. Some guns can just be silly, cheap fun.
Old Man Rants At Sky
That’s my old man ranting at the sky discussion on modern gun culture. Again, I think firearms culture is the best it’s ever been, but some aspects of it annoy me. I can’t be the only one.
