Anyone else find inarticulated opinions frustrating? (aka "beware the old guy lurking at the LGS")

Some types of people sure can be irritating, and make no sense whatsoever. I try not to get so jaded that I don't listen to the opinions of others, even if they were unsolicited. Because ya never know what slop bucket may contain some pearls of wisdom.
And if push comes to shove, I have this ability to say, "welp, see y'all later!" And beat feet.

The world would be so very boring if everyone was just like me, and agreed with me on everything.....
Because then we'd all be wrong on a lot of things!

I'm more of an objective person. I'm not sure if I dislike or pity the less logical type, but I just try to stay clear.
I try to see how opinions are formed. '9mm underpowered'? Experience (or secondhand info) with FMJ under situations when the objective is to cause serious damage, not to just get something to stop. 'AR15s are unreliable'? Again, experience or the old tales of their parents being issued in bad conditions without proper cleaning equipment. Or a bad experience with one.
In my case, none of my opinions are iron-clad or formed without first-hand experience or research. They may not always be universal (I generally dislike plastic guns because of the mechanisms, feel or balance) or even correct, but when something contradicts them I reevaluate, or accept that exception and keep my eyes open for more.
So if I go spouting off, it's for a--personal--reason. If I'm wrong, people are welcome to correct me--as long as they have evidence.
And it irritates me when they don't, or aren't able to accept the same.

Stchman wrote ".... he started calling magazines "clips" so I walked away."

So true! I stop listening to anyone who does this, and anyone who pronounces Leupold as "Lee-a-pold" or refers to rounds of ammunition as "bullets".

Starter52 said:

Stchman wrote ".... he started calling magazines "clips" so I walked away."

So true! I stop listening to anyone who does this, and anyone who pronounces Leupold as "Lee-a-pold" or refers to rounds of ammunition as "bullets".

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I am usually a stickler for correct nomenclature but if you talk to vets, a lot of them use the term clips when talking about pistol or box rifle magazines, particularly WWII and Korea vets. And danged if I'm going to correct them or feel superior to them based on what term they use. The clip vs mag nazi is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Everyone is an idiot at something... just whether they can recognize it or not is the issue...


When it comes to guns, I play dumb for fun. I might not be the biggest gun genius ever, but as a "youngin'", I would rank high in my peer group for firearm knowledge. If I go to a gun show or an arrogant shop, I always say "clip" and "bool-its" and "kickback" and "ninja silencer". Watching people get so worked up for no reason is more fun than correcting idiots.

Don't believe me? Go test drive a car and ask the salesman what all the letters on the shifter mean.

This article is worth reading to understand something we see on line all the time. And of course, observe in real life. Not only observe, but act upon, at one time or another, we are all Confident Idiots.

It has to do with how the human mind works.

Pacific Standard Dec 2014, Confident Idiots – David Dunning
https://psmag.com/social-justice/confident-idiots-92793

Abstracts from the article:

An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge.

As the humorist Josh Billing once put it, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, its what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.”

It is humorous to find that the more incompetent the idiot, the more confident the idiot. And, who has not been the very confident idiot at some time in their life?

There is so much out there that we accept that we have not tested. Some Authority told us that this or that was true and we accept it. The Army Ordnance Department came up with a number of whoppers, one still a century old, to hide their incompetence and these are still accepted as gospel by the shooting community. Gunwriters are the leading authorities in the shooting community, what they preach we believe. The longer you live, the more you find out that these guys are shills for the industry, bred to repeat uncritically what they have been told by a Corporate Marketing Bureau. Many of the beliefs in the shooting community are based on these “facts” from advertisers. Advertisers brag and make promises which often are not true, but become part of the group think of the shooting community. I can remember reading many magazine articles on the “killing power” of Weatherby cartridges. Seems you don’t need marksmanship skills, all you have to do is hit the animal, somewhere, anywhere, the cartridge will do the rest.




This sort of nonsense becomes garbled over the years and decades. If you read enough vintage books and magazines you see how media created myths and legends twist and evolve over time, but they seldom go away. The belief systems in all consumer markets are fundamentally shaped by advertizing bureaus churning out vast quantities of pseudo science to generate sales.

And we love it.

Starter52 said:

Stchman wrote ".... he started calling magazines "clips" so I walked away."

So true! I stop listening to anyone who does this, and anyone who pronounces Leupold as "Lee-a-pold" or refers to rounds of ammunition as "bullets".

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Jeez. My grandfather was a vet and he said clips. Many I've talked with pronounce Leupold wrong. Along with Heckler and Koch, Kahles and Sako. I dont just "walk away". People get bothered by the dumbest things.

I'll respectfully disagree with grampajack, this isn't unique to guns. Computers have the Mac vs PC zealots and their irrational arguments. Phones have iPhone vs Android fanatics spewing the virtues of their favorite while the other is awful. Cars have more nonsense than I can imagine. The kid who worked for me in the the early 2000s telling me an air cleaner would add 25 hp to his 100 something import, and insisting his fart can caused "negative back pressure" and acted like a turbo. A basic lesson in math and physics wouldn't change his mind as his buddies were "experts" and us "old guys" with "slow" V8s were dinosaurs.

Religion is another example. Politics as we see brings out looneiness on both extremes.

Personally, I've learned to ignore a bunch of stuff, take most of it with a sea full of salt, and try to learn from reliable sources.

The hard part is finding them. Thankfully there are some great folks here to learn from.

Schwing said:

Now I could take my ball and go home over that totally wrong and misguided statement... Or we could just go get a beer

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I'd buy the first round. And would listen intently to why I was wrong and we could have that debate.

As to the "clips and mags" debate, if you're my age or younger, you'll probably get politely corrected. If you're close to qualifying for social security, there's no point being disrespectful to my elders.

1KPerDay said:

The clip vs mag nazi is a relatively recent phenomenon.

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If by "relatively recent" you mean "since the sixties" I would agree

grampajack said:

And let's be honest, a good portion of people writing for the old gun mags fall into this category.

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Caliber wars and the like are a good way to sell magazines, especially to younger shooters who are looking to buy their "first" of any kind of gun. Remember when you were a young shooter debating, and it WAS fun, the relative merits of this and that with your friends? The lists of "what should I" or "which is better" goes on forever and I say it is all good. I never get the least upset about a person's choices but their hubris can be annoying. Still, take it for what it is and realize that it is not personal.

And, of course, I HAD to add this, being an older shooter I have finally settled, through the great crucible of experience in the field, on the absolute best deer and self defense calibers available along with the gun models too!

Mn Fats said:

Jeez. My grandfather was a vet and he said clips. Many I've talked with pronounce Leupold wrong. Along with Heckler and Koch, Kahles and Sako. I don't just "walk away". People get bothered by the dumbest things.

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I don't walk away either. I just don't care enough any more to allow such things to bother me. Sako.... sounds like a salmon, but it used to say-ko for me). Clips vs magazines... Leupold.... been guilty of that one. I don't really know what the correct pronunciations of Kahles is (unless it's Kale's) and it doesn't bother me one bit. People from different parts of the country tend to accent words differently. I tend to be more anal about spelling, written sentence structure, and paragraph organization.

This is an excellent thread. People are full of opinions and that's okay with me. It keeps things interesting. The thread started out with the gun shop comments/opinions and moved to just about everything else. I try to form my own opinions, but sometimes I have to rely on others because I have no idea what is correct. I for example will not buy an Apple product simply because of the lunatic who started the company. I have no other reason for not choosing Apple stuff other than I don't care for proprietary software or as they say, the platform.

There is no way that I can test everything in the marketplace. On firearms, I rely on other people's opinions. For caliber choice.... I rely on opinions less. But the deer hunting comment by Sam stuck home and is a perfect example of opinion coloring choices or recommendations.

Added: There used to be a gun shop near where live where there was always a group of older clingon's there just about every time I visited. That kept me from visiting that particular shop often. It wasn't the opinions expressed as much as the service because of the clingons. That said, I purchased a NIB 2.5" Colt Diamondback 22LR there for WAY below market pricing there when I just happened to wander in to check on what was in the small shop for sale. I purchased other firearms there as well and all for pretty good prices. It's closed now. In hindsight, it was worth putting up with the clingons just to check what was for sale in that store.

grampajack said:

It's not so much that it bothers me, as much as it perplexes me. The gun world seems to be rather unique in this regard. I'm involved in quite a few other hobbies, and in general I find people pretty reasonable, in that they're at least somewhat objective and goal oriented.


No, guns are different. People form different emotional connections with them than they do other objects, and it mystifies me. People choose guns with a similar mindset to how they choose music, art, books, and movies. There most often is no rationale behind it. It amazes me, though, how they can take something that is so purely utilitarian and objective, something where there are right and wrong answers, and put it terms that should really only apply to subjective things like art. You can like a certain piece of art, you can love a book or movie, or likewise hate them, and no further rationale is needed.

But if you have a hard opinion about a gun, by jove you better have actual reasons for that opinion, especially if you're using the gun for something besides decorating your safe.

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I see your problem you're a hobbyist, they tend to be more information consuming than just a gun user.

I'm old enough to have my firearm influences not formed by anonymous opinions posted on the web but by personal contacts and experience, when that information comes from a close relationship you tend to accept what you're being told.

The stories about the 1911 and the prowess of .45acp have been around since the first war, whether it's exaggerated or not I believe the stories were based on firsthand observations.

If one had success with a particular gun/caliber while hunting then They established(at least in their mind) proof and naturally some my try to share that information. If one doesn't have that experience but know someone who did they may pass that info on as firsthand.

I don't see any of this as a big deal and if anything it's just a continuation of the oral tradition Hunters/gun owners have participated in long before talk forums came into being.

I think a lot of assertions and doctrines among the gun crowd are rooted in a grain of truth from way back when, and then became chiseled in stone and were adhered to without admitting time and technological improvement changed things.

For example, the whole ARs are unreliable thing: If I remember correctly, there were some reliability issues with early ARs (M-16s) under the conditions of the Vietnam War. The platform has been tweaked and improved greatly in the decades since, but the sentiment is hardwired.

The .223 is inhumane for deer hunting is another example. This was probably true when the only .223 available was military surplus FMJ and light frangible varmint bullets. Now we have bonded bullets, partitioned bullets, and copper dealies like Barned that make the round capable of way more than it was back in nineteen-clickety-two. Still, the original truth is ingrained in the collective consciousness.

No matter what your level of experience or education, there will always be someone more knowledgeable in a given field. Talking with people is one of the ways we learn. To disregard someone's opinion because they use terminology you don't agree with if foolish.

Not just guns, but most things in life. If we have differing opinions and can articulate them, we can exchange information and ideas. If either party has no clue, it's just noise.

Hokkmike said:

Caliber wars and the like are a good way to sell magazines

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Did you mean caliber wars are a good way to sell clips?
Or did you mean caliber wars are a good way to sell gun rags?
Just kidding around Hokkmike. I agree with you. Your post just struck me funny because a while back I saw a post asking opinions on what is the best "gun rag." And a couple of the first people to reply to the post thought the poster was actually asking about the best type of gun cloth for wiping down (cleaning) guns. He wasn't, he was asking for opinions about the best gun magazine. Or maybe it was the best clip? Now I'm confused! I'm going to go downstairs and reload some bullets for my shotty.

1911 guy said:

Not just guns, but most things in life. If we have differing opinions and can articulate them, we can exchange information and ideas. If either party has no clue, it's just noise.

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I wish I could have clicked "double like" for that post, 1911 guy.

.308 Norma said:

Did you mean caliber wars are a good way to sell clips?
Or did you mean caliber wars are a good way to sell gun rags?
Just kidding around Hokkmike. I agree with you. Your post just struck me funny because a while back I saw a post asking opinions on what is the best "gun rag." And a couple of the first people to reply to the post thought the poster was actually asking about the best type of gun cloth for wiping down (cleaning) guns. He wasn't, he was asking for opinions about the best gun magazine. Or maybe it was the best clip? Now I'm confused! I'm going to go downstairs and reload some bullets for my shotty.

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Well to confuse things, one can cut clips from magazines and clean articles out of their magazines with rags. I guess it depends on what caliber a person you might be.

grampajack said:

I'm talking about people who are die hard gun guys, who've been shooting their entire lives. Casual shooters and noobies could be forgiven, but when you've been a gun nut your entire life and can't back up anything you say, to me, that's a serious personality flaw. Almost pathological really.

For example, how many times have we heard this conversation play out...

New Customer: "Let me take a look at that Glock 19; I hear they get really good reviews."

Old Gun Salesman: "You don't want a 9mm." (said in his most demeaning, authoritative voice)

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Anytime a salesperson tells me what I want or don't want,( even if I agree with them,) it ends badly.
I say that as it's highly offensive when someone tells me what I want or don't want. How can they know. And if Ive just asked about a product, I have some interest in it even if I may not be buying it. Worse, if the conversation is like you describe, it's even more insulting as I've done some research and I'm testing them to see what they know, what they'll do, how they'll treat me, and many small things.

Many of us know it on some level, but don't think about it, but we make buying decisions on how we connect with the salesperson as much as we do about the price and product. Especially as the price and importance of the item purchase increases. If a salesperson is helpful, kind, and someone we connect with, we're more likely to buy from them than if we don't like them and don't trust them. Homes, Cars and appliances are examples where this really play out. It may be less of a factor with things like guns that are moderately expensive, but it still is a factor.

I just don`t listen to people who talk in absolutes that they have not thought through.
I would call them Parrot People. If I stay engaged in the conversation long enough
I quiz them as to why they think like that. I ask for proof !

SSN Vet said:

inarticulated

no offense, but this sounds like one of GWB's made up words.

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I believe the correct word is inarticulate, but the meaning was clear.

Good enough for me!