From one of the gun groups...
The internet gun nut lifestyle:
Visit gun forums 365 days per year. During a hospital stay, you can use a laptop. Make a photo studio in your basement for taking digital pics of your guns. When you visit other gun nuts, put guns in your vehicle to show them. While you are there, take pictures of their guns to put on the internet. Keep extra gun socks in your car. Another gun nut might suddenly be getting a divorce. This may be a crisis for him, but an opportunity for you.
Get street cred:
1) Go to the gun show every month and note the ask prices. That makes you an on line expert on gun values. Buy some beater guns and carry them to the car. Glad you brought those gun socks. 2) Go to the range at least once a year. Get chrono data vs what handloads. That is plenty of info for posting the rest of the year. Pics of the brass , guns, set up, and targets are important. Put the target on the copy machine and scan. Write a range report like a high school chemistry lab report. This will give that science twang to your use of gun culture folk lore accuracy rituals. 2) Go hunting once a year. Pay for out of state tags and drive 1500 miles to a place with so many deer you have to slow down or your car will hit a deer. Shoot a deer. Deer selection should not be for trophies, but for proximity to the vehicle. Shoot the deer you can drive to. Get a friend to gut the animal. Get someone to help lift it into your vehicle. Drive to the butcher. Get him to lift it out. By now you should have 50 pics of the hunting trip. Is that plenty for a year of posting? No. Get pics of other hunters that have packed out trophy bucks. If you are getting too old to hunt, consider buying photoshop.Get tooled up for lots of posting.
1) Topic; "Can one fire 38 special in a 357 mag?" Don't attempt to answer this question from scratch for the 10th time. Keep previous answers filed on your computer as drafts or templates. Then copy and paste each time you answer. No sense re inventing the wheel. 2) Keep range reports in the same place. One trip per year to the range ..and after a few years, you should have copy and pasted 100 posts based on each range trip.=20Make friends on line.
1) Friends do not have to be real. Create aliases. They can be allies in flame wars or alternately, use them to make soft ball questions to set up your greatest posts: ..a) K9sidekick's post: "Is today the anniversary of Stag Fury pioneering the duck tape method of picking up spilled spent primers?" ...b) STAG FURY's response post: "Heh, Heh, that is about me. A year ago the family foundation had just donated Grandma's Hover to the Smithsonian. I was picking up primers with tweezers when I was struck by white lightning from providence..." 2) You can have real on line gun nut friends. When they pass on you will grieve, but will probably not attend the funeral. You can visit the funeral home on line. But if you ARE geographically close enough, you might buy his guns from his widow. Take gun socks to the wake.Amateur gunsmith garage pics:
1) Move cars, boats, table saw, or any non gun stuff out of the way. 2) Get a big metal lathe, vertical mill, and TIG welder. These machines are too complicated to operate correctly, but you can take pics of starting projects by "making chips". 3) Find a real gunsmith to fix your mistakes. Combining your garage pics with pics of his finished work will tell the story of your gunsmithing project. While you are there, see if the gunsmith has any guns for sale. Glad y ou have extra gun socks in the car.Youtube, new technology for gun nuts You can work yourself to death making great youtube videos and never get many views. .a) If I were to spend 80 hours videoing and editing with lots of math and machining that shows how to make something, 1,000 views/year might result . .b) If I were to spend 10 minutes showing how to take down a take down shot gun, 1,000 views/ year might result. .c) f I were to spend 5 minutes making a video where a 20 year old girl in a swim suit shooting an AK47, 1,000,000 hits per year are possible. Minnesota Fats says, "Take the easy shots first." Since most internet gun nuts are not on speaking terms with any 20 year old girls in bikinis, it is optimum to spend 10 minutes showing how to take down a shotgun.. Alternatively, handle a semi auto handgun for 10 minutes while talking and call it a "review".
Decide what is important in your life and get rid of non gun stuff:
1) Stop going on vacations with your wife. 2) If you have to go on vacation with your wife, take along gun magazines a nd find somewhere to log on to make gun posts. It your vacation too, and do n't let her keep you from finding gun stores in those little towns. 3) Get rid of your job, so you have more time for guns. 4) If you have a job, use the work computer to visit gun forums. 5) If you still have a job, despite computer activity, take long lunch breaks to visit pawn shops. Those gun socks in the car may come in handy.Plan your future.
1) Each new cartridge in your life starts with the reloading dies, then get the gun and brass, etc. 2) How many years have you got left? Convert that to "How many new gun projects have you got left?" Have you got some Walnut blanks for making stocks? HA HA, like that is going to happen! You don't have THAT many years left, and you spend most of your time on the internet. Baby steps.. put a scope on a rifle. Reload some ammo. You did something! Post about it. Now you are realizing your life's goals.One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure
- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.
- Jeff Cooper