Maxwell Horowitz
ERH 101
Mr. Hamilton
Recreational Shooters
People who go shooting for fun are a bunch of uneducated and dangerous rednecks, but what if this wasn’t the case. This stereotype of recreational shooters is one that is incorrect, but still many people believe it. If this was true then there would be no community of recreational shooters. This community has its own lexis acculturation, and publications that all show how the community is much more than a group of ignorant rednecks. If they were nothing more than a group of idiots like the stereotype would have you believe then a community of shooters would not exist.
While many people would have you believe that people in the community of recreational shooters are mostly a group of dangerous rednecks it can be seen from the values that they have as a community why they are more than just that. The community has a set of shared values through the community. Some of these being getting better at shooting and getting better groupings on a target. Another goal that many share is to keep the hobby safe from legislation that would ban certain things within it. One of the most important goals that the community as a whole shares is maintain safety while doing anything with shooting. Safety is an extremely important value to this community, because if proper safety measures are not taken people can get seriously injured which would be bad for the people involved and hurt the sport. People who chose to be unsafe are looked down upon in the community and those who are unaware are corrected. Articles about safety are often written in online communities. For example an article explaining what mistakes new shooters often make and why they are 1and how it affects others negatively was written on one website, but it also shows ways in which the shooters can stay safe.[1]
The discourse community of recreational shooters shares a large amount of common goals. Its goals revolve mostly about becoming better within the hobby and contributing to the hobby as a whole. Many people in the discourse community of recreational and sporting shooters as a common goal they have is to improve their marksmanship and get their shots on target to be closer together. Some of their other goals are to keep their firearms maintained and to make their collections larger. The reason people in the community want to have their targets have closer groupings is because while on the range and practicing it is fun for them to improve which opens up more opportunities to shoot farther or hit smaller targets. Another goal of the community is to make their collection of guns larger because it allows the shooters to have more options to enjoy their time at the shooting range and because many shooters have their own interest in different types of firearms and expand their collections based on their interests. One of the more important goals of the community is to improve marksmanship. This goal is important to the community and helps disprove the stereotype because it takes skill and practice to become proficient. Many articles are written on the fundamentals of shooting and how to improve [2]. Many online forums also post help on the fundamentals for beginners and more competent shooters alike.
The recreational shooting community has a large lexis of many words which may not be understood by someone outside of the community. There are many different words used by this community such as grouping, bubba, fudd, operator, tactical Timmy, mall ninja, Kentucky windage, and zeroing are all terms that are common in the lexis of the shooting community. The terms bubba, fudd, tactical Timmy, and mall ninja are derogatory terms used within the community to refer to certain types of people within the larger community. Fudd is usually used to describe people who only would use their guns to hunt or believe that any upgrade or alteration to a gun is pointless and only buy firearms that are made out of wood and are hunting rifles. Bubba is usually used to describe people who think they are gunsmiths or upgrade their guns in unusual or dumb ways. The term bubba also refers to a poorly done modification and is referred to as bubbaing a gun. These modifications are done cheaply and dangerously. The terms tactical Timmy, and mall ninja are used to refer to people who buy every useless thing that is marketed as tactical and are people who will fall for every ad they see. Some more practical terms like grouping, zeroing, and Kentucky windage are more often used and are a more commonly used set of words. Many of the terms within the firearms community can be found often on online forums and sometimes are used in publications. This lexis created by the community of recreational shooters is something that shows unity and a sense of common values. The stereotype that shooters are redneck hicks can be found to be incorrect often through the fact that the community has formed its own lexis and often pokes fun at those who are uneducated or would be considered to be rednecks or unsafe people. Many people in the community are often picky about what words are being used and if they are the correct term. People outside of the community and sometimes within often misuse words to describe things in the gun community, but are wrong on the use of these terms. For example an article written in Guns and Ammo makes a list of many of the terms and their incorrect uses. [3]
The community of recreational shooters has a large amount of online publications, online forums, and print publications as methods of communication and as a method of dissemination of information or ways of advertisement. The stereotype of shooters being uneducated or being dumb would make you believe that their community would not have anything like this and would make it seem as though they would just be a small community with a very limited reach. These methods of communication show otherwise. A popular method of communication are online forums such as ar15.com, thefiringline.com, akfiles.com, and many other forums. There are specific forums like the akfiles.com[4] that focus on certain types of firearms, but there are also more general forums. All of these are forms of discussion about aspects of the sport. Magazines like American rifleman, recoil, and guns and ammo often put out reviews and speak about upcoming products and spread political messages at time or try to rally the community. There are also online blogs such as the firearms blog, and the truth about guns which put out at times political articles and interesting things happening in the industry or just tips in general about shooting or maintaining guns. With this large amount of publications and media for the community there are many options for those in the community to find ways to meet their goals and be able to interact with others and have fun within their hobby.
The stereotype that the community of recreational shooters is mostly uneducated dangerous, and a group of what would be considered rednecks is simply wrong. It is easily disproven by many aspects of the community. The community’s ability to have its own lexis and terms specific to them demonstrates that there is a unity and some amount of thought put into what they are saying and their culture. They also have a set of values that is very important to many shooters and one of their most important values is safety. This shows how wrong the stereotype is because people who are rednecks are unsafe and people who are uneducated would not spend the time trying to learn how to become safe. The large amount of methods of communication within the community very easily demonstrate how the stereotype is wrong because of the wide amount of input from around the country put into these forums along with how much time is spent on putting these things together. While it would be easy to just accept the stereotype about people in this community it just is not true. If this stereotype was seen to be false by more people it would be easier for outsiders to view this community for what it is and be able to communicate with them more easily.
[1] http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/06/daniel-zimmerman/p320-entry-top-ten-shooting-range-pet-peeves/
[2] http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/gun-shots/2012/08/shooting-tips-8-mistakes-rob-rifle-accuracy
[3] http://www.gunsandammo.com/gun-culture/9-misused-gun-terms/
[4] http://www.akfiles.com/