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Gryphonadmin
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Mar-22-17, 01:42 PM (EDT)
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"shooter kitsch"
 
   For those of you who may never have been to an American surplus-slash-gun shop, just to give you an idea of the kind of things other than actual guns that are to be had at such establishments, the last time I was at my semi-local one I bought this.

Yup. It's a bottle opener. Made out of a .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun cartridge.

OK, they also have all the usual junk you would expect to find in a military surplus store, given that actual military surplus is curiously rare in the United States nowadays. The US armed forces just don't seem sell off their old crap as often (or, possibly, overacquire quite so luxuriously in the first place), as they used to, and most of the WWII- and Korea-vintage stuff you could find in these stores as recently as when I was a kid has long since dried up. There's some foreign equipment (although most of the big '90s surge of that sort of thing was late Cold War and has now mostly dried up as well), but the great bulk of what they sell in surplus stores these days isn't actually surplus, it's new stuff made specifically to be sold to the civilian market in such stores.

This faux-surplus kit includes repro M65 field jackets, shirts and cargo pants made on the '80s Battle Dress Uniform pattern (in my 20s, I pretty much only owned black, dark blue, or OD green BDU pants, because at the time they were tough and hell of cheap), backpacks and other load-carrying equipment that are more-or-less like the current or previous US Army standards (MOLLE and ALICE, respectively), socks, hats, and the ever-popular Vietam-era Boot, Hot Weather, Type I, Black. About the only item of genuine military surplus you're likely to find amid all of these is Mickey Mouse boots, which are popular in these parts for obvious reasons and of which the Army seems still to have a near-limitless supply to get rid of. Me, I don't think I'd be comfortable (in any sense) wearing somebody else's boots, but YMMV. My grandfather used to swear by the things.

Also to be found in such shops: a wide range of T-shirts decorated with bullishly patriotic slogans (THESE COLORS DON'T RUN) and/or aggressive expressions of right-wing sentiment (YOU CAN HAVE MY [UNLICENSED REPRODUCTION OF POPULAR FIREARMS MANUFACTURER'S LOGO] WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HAND*); bumper stickers decorated with the color patterns of the campaign ribbons for various wars (I was baffled by these as a kid, because they often provide zero context for what they are about); chemical hand- and foot-warmer packs; camping equipment; hats with the acronyms of various federal agencies on them (why anyone would want to be taken for an ATF agent is frankly beyond me), and of course the ever-popular State of Maine terrorist hunting license (issued on September 11, 2001, expires never).

You may be detecting a certain political bent in these establishments, although at least this particular one doesn't sell the shooting range targets with photographs of prominent Democratic politicians on them. (That happens.) The people who work at this one seem pretty chill, possibly because it is a large and successful establishment that gets a lot of tourist traffic and, as such, its staffers are aware that outright alienating half of the public is bad for business.

In fact, all of the commercial shooting ranges I've been to have had pretty laid-back staff. One of the guys who worked at the place Zoner and I frequented out in California was a Vietnam vet and personally somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun (to borrow a phrase J. Michael Straczynski once used to describe the late Jerry Doyle), but he was a classy guy and never got fussed about people who weren't. I once saw him deal very diplomatically indeed with a range patron who turned out to be so monumentally incompetent that he was a distinct danger to himself and everyone around him (including me). Have I done an Elder Days Story Time about that? I feel like I must have at some point.

--G.
* Is it just me, or does this saying make no practical sense? I mean, I get what they're trying to imply, but seriously, is any Sinister Government Agent who is willing to kill a citizen in order to seize a firearm going to leave it until the corpse is cold and rigor has set in to collect said firearm? I think not.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
shooter kitsch [View All] Gryphonadmin Mar-22-17 TOP
   RE: shooter kitsch Peter Eng Mar-22-17 1
      EDST: The Range in California Gryphonadmin Mar-23-17 9
          RE: EDST: The Range in California MoonEyes Mar-23-17 10
          RE: EDST: The Range in California Terminus Est Mar-24-17 11
              RE: EDST: The Range in California Gryphonadmin Mar-24-17 12
              RE: EDST: The Range in California Wiregeek Mar-25-17 13
   RE: shooter kitsch Peter Eng Mar-22-17 2
      RE: shooter kitsch ebony14 Mar-22-17 6
          RE: shooter kitsch Pasha Mar-22-17 7
              RE: shooter kitsch Gryphonadmin Mar-22-17 8
   RE: shooter kitsch eriktown Mar-22-17 3
      RE: shooter kitsch Pasha Mar-22-17 4
          RE: shooter kitsch eriktown Mar-22-17 5


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