Running?

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shuvelrider

shuvelrider

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Just a humorous look at runnin. I can run on the road for fitness, or run down to the local store in my truck to get some groceries. When did it become vogue to run a gun, I must have missed something over the past few years in terminology. Just like everyone became an "operator" overnight, did everybody go through a quickie course put on by SOG.
Do some folks need to feel elevated by using special terms, for doing something that is straightforward like "shooting" a gun. Maybe to much mall ninja mentality or X-box games, just seems funny to me. Not trying to slam anyone, but with 21 years in the Army, it's not been my experience to hear or use those terms.
 
I ordered some gun stuff. The rep told me it "might be a few days " before it got shipped. Without thinking, I responded "thats OK, everything is running fine". My meaning was that I didn't critically need the stuff to keep shooting.

Mark
 
rduchateau2954 said:
Weapons systems is what gets me. An AR sure, but every firearm ever made is not a weapons system.
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The military procurement definition of weapons system can lead to a lot of things qualifying as weapons systems. For example: If them military buys, say, an M4 Carbine, that is procured as a weapon... but if the military procures and M4 Carbine with an optic and issues it only as such then it become a weapons system. The optic makes it a system.

A better, real example is the SR25 from KAC.

When the army procured it they procured it as a weapons system because they are paying for:

The Rifle
The Optic
The Suppressor
The Carrying Case

All of these items are standard issue for the SR25 in military service and without them it is not issued, hence weapons system.
 
I run everyday, and carry a gun when doing it, so maybe I am running a gun and didn't even know it.
 
When did it become vogue to run a gun
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I can buy a gun and be a gun owner. I can shoot a gun and be a shooter. "Running" a gun, to my uses, means having the practice time in with that gun, and the collection of accouterments assembled, to be able to operate that gun in practical situations/scenarios/stages at my personal optimum level or performance.

So really, it is a match or training (or deployment/duty) term. You're running that gun in your regular regimen of training, practice, and use.

(Some folks use the term "campaigning" in a similar way, as in, "In USPSA I shoot a Glock, an xD, and an M&P, but this season I'm campaigning the Glock.")

"Running" a gun doesn't apply to casual plinking, gun collecting, or (generally) hunting. Any more than a 3-gun competitor with an AR, a shotgun, and a Glock or two would claim to be a "gun collector."
 
You'll see the same locution on car forums, about how someone's car is set up ("he's running a..."). It has nothing to do with the military.
 
I can think back to saying something along the lines of... "My Ma Deuce isn't running...." or "I got the 249 running again" and "what's the voltage required to get that thing to run?"

I seem to only "get" it when applied to automatic weapon myself.
 
I completely agree with the OP! I have no idea how this term came to be, but with 17 years in the Army, I can say that this just came about in the last 2 or 3 years and it bugs the heck out of me. "I usually run my M4 platform slick, so the target can be terminated with minimal collateral damage..." What?? Is that cool-guy code speak for "I shoot my rifle like every other person in the world?" Do you also run your 5.11 pants or do you just put them on one leg at a time like everyone else? Good grief... the SOGification of suburban gun culture...
 
These AR magazine ads crack me up. Invariably there's some guy dressed in SWAT or military attire holding the rifle as if he's walking a road in Afghanistan. Come on.
 
I was going to add something to this but decided not to, just gonna leave it as a humorous look at the current verbage in the gun culture. Guess I'm just used to "adding" scopes to my guns rather then "runnin" a new scope. Carried an M16A2 with iron sights recently in Afghanistan for a year, probably means I can't qualify as an "operator cause it's not an M4 with an ACOG :D
 
Most times I've ran across "run" in association with a gun it's been in the context of "Yeah, this 1911 runs great." or something similar. I take that to mean that things are working well and nothing bad is happening.

To me it's just like saying "yeah, my car might be rusty but the engine runs great."

In both cases things are timed correctly and are functioning the way the designer intended.

Might just be me though.
 
A much better question is: why does it bother you what words other people are using? Does the word "run" hurt you? Does using "weapon system" remove your rights? Sheesh. How about a healthy does of live and let live. Some people say soda, some say pop. And in firearms, some say run. Who cares.

So what if military terms and gear is becoming more commonplace? Why are these firearms hipsters getting so upset? Is it just a "______ is popular now, so I must ridicule it" mindset? I'm leaving for my third deployment in less than a week, and I don't care in in slightest if non-mil gun owners use military terms and weapons.

Some people dress up in boots and cowboy hats to shoot their revolvers. Some people travel across the country by the thousands to dress up like the Blue and the Grey to shoot their muskets. They eat hard tack, sleep in tents, and yes, even talk like they live in the 1860's. There's even WWII reenacting now, complete with Lucky Strike cigarettes. Are all of these people cowboys, or vets of the Civil War? Of course not. They're adults having fun, shooting the guns they like, wearing the clothes they like, using the terms they like. And now some people like to wear 5.11 gear and "run" their AR weapon system at the range, despite never being military. Get over it. Adults are allowed to have fun in the ways they want.


And to answer the question, Rawss squared the OP away in the second post. The word "run" can mean to operate a machine. A gun is a machine. There it is. Likewise, anything added to a weapon beyond the weapon itself would by definition make it a weapon system. System being a number of components operating in tandem with the weapon as the base. Even adding a sling could make it a weapon system. And an AR with after market stocks, slings, optics, lights, etc most certainly qualifies as a system.
 
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Like the OP said; "it's humorous". I think that is to say it is meant as a humorous discussion. It's also humorous to me to change gun or firearm to 'weapon system'. And to change shooting to 'running'. Why? This is also "humorous" to me.
 
I run a gun, I run into trouble, I run the gamut, I run things through my head, I run into old friends, I run into trouble, sometimes I get the runs, I run away, I run up against it, I run diagnostics, I run on a ladder (Ooops...), I run out of time... Sometimes, I even run on a treadmill.

That aside, I get what the OP is saying.

I shoot IDPA, so running through a string or running different guns is a common saying. Not common to think about it, just to say it.

Well... I ran out of run.
 
I'm running my butt off trying to find ammo. Now that the Marines have been ordered to conserve ammo, maybe we'll get some.

Not.
 
And to change shooting to 'running'. Why?
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Because there is a lot more to operating a gun competently, especially in IPSC/USPSA/IDPA/3-gun style settings, than simply shooting.

Shooting is the act of setting up the shot, pulling the trigger to discharge round(s), and follow-through. Clearing a malfunction and getting the gun going again is not shooting, strictly speaking. Speed-reloading is not shooting. And referring to knowing how to do the whole package as knowing how to run the gun is not a military usage; for all I know, it spread to the military from the competition-shooting world.

In the other sense of the word, meaning "what I am equipped with"---as in "I am running a J32A3 with a cold-air intake, Comp-Tech supercharger, cat-back exhaust and custom tune")---it is not synonymous with "shooting" either.
 
These are "cool" ways to say monadane things, that's all they are, like 100 rounds "down range" who cares where you shot them, uprange down range, but people pick up on what hey percieve as the coolest way to describe something, just like anything black is "Tactical" now, it will run it's course, like awsome, or fabulous, did for the masses. So let's use them all in a sentence. I am running this awsome tactical pistol with 500 rounds down range, for a fabulous price. Does that make you want one? it does nothing for me.
Words lose their meaning when used improperlly or overused,just as everything can't be awsome.
 
I can say that this just came about in the last 2 or 3 years...
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We definitively travel in different circles. I have heard (and used) the term "running the gun" as applied to competition shooting, IPSC/USPSA in particular, for a couple of decades. Sam 1911 and benEzra have done an admirable job of explaining the term. I'll add that to really run a gun, you need to perform without a whole lot of conscious thought while remaining totally aware of everything that is happening while completing the task.
 
Ankeny, you're right. I'm sure the term didn't come around in the last 2 or 3 years, it has probably been around for a long time. And I do think you might be right that the term might have crossed into the military through competition shooting. In fact, the first time I heard it used was by the civilian (retired military) instructors in an advanced shooting school the Army sent me to.

I wouldn't say even today that the term is ubiquitous in the military (at least in my circles) except for a few of the "gun nut" guys. It has bugged me in the past when I'll be talking someone who is carrying their M4 & they will tell me how they are running their M4 platform with such & such accessory. I'll look at them standing there holding their rifle and I look down at my rifle and think, "I don't feel like I'm running anything, I'm just standing here like an idiot, same as this guy and jawjacking while holding my rifle." Somehow I expect them to start some hidden miniature engine in the bolt carrier group and show me something fancy.

I hope this opinion is not insulting to anyone, it's just a quirk that bugs me. It also bugs me when I have to open a public restroom door by turning the knob after I just washed my hands, or when a female Soldier in a combat zone wears enough perfume to knock over a horse, or when people chew gum with their mouth open... I don't mean to offend anyone with my personal pet peeves... but I'm happy that I'm not the only that noticed the word "running" in terms of gun usage. Maybe I'm not crazy after all! :)
 
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