Where have all the great gun writers gone?
So it is that the days of the great gun writers are gone. There will never be another Cooper, Keith, O’Connor, Aagaard, Sitton, Skelton or Jordon. The world of communication has changed.
Well, it’s simple. They went to the internet. The trouble with the internet is that there are also a lot of bad gun writers. But there are also some great ones. You just have to find them. Signal to noise ratio being what it is, it’s kind of hard. But this is a good thing. Now, anybody can write about guns. Back in the day, there were only a few industry people who could do so and earn a living at it. The media of convenience was magazines. And those magazines made their money selling ad space for products they were reviewing. The internet changed that revenue model. On the internet, not every gun is the best thing ever. Not every technique is the best thing ever.
Also, since the writers Richard mentioned, things have changed. Guns have changed. Shooting has changed. Technology has changed. Training has changed. The new writers are adapting to those changes. Almost nobody stands perpendicular to the target and extends their strong hand to shoot a pistol one handed any more. There are more choices in guns. People slap red dots on their rifles.
The great gun writers of the past contributed a great deal to the new crew. But things change.
There are good gun writers out there. One of the best is Tam. She doesn’t blog about guns much but when she does, I learn stuff.
March 12th, 2014 at 9:01 pm
“magazines made their money selling ad space for products they were reviewing. The internet changed that revenue model. On the internet, not every gun is the best thing ever. Not every technique is the best thing ever.”
Don’t tell the guys at the Firearm Blog that. Last time I swung by there, they were pimping themselves out for free cleaning kits and running positive reviews for Caracal and MPA. I’m sure the next time I drop by there, they’ll be plugging HiPoints.
March 12th, 2014 at 9:21 pm
“…the great gun writers are gone.” – News to Major Caudill, er, Marko, I’m sure. (And Tam and Joe and…)
March 12th, 2014 at 9:46 pm
Michael Harries – another good one.
March 13th, 2014 at 1:00 am
Duke Venturino? BP & WWII
Massad Ayoob? Social Work
Clint Smith? Skills
John Connor? Sheer Entertainment Value
John Taffin? Custom Sixguns
The ‘days’ are just as ‘good’ as they’ve ever been.
March 13th, 2014 at 8:54 am
Think about what passes for news these days.
That should answer all of your questions.
March 13th, 2014 at 9:43 am
Frankly I don’t see a loss. Without knowledge of who the “good guys” might have been, it’s pretty safe to assume that anything printed on glossy in the last umpteen years was some shill-tastic review of an advertiser.
So we miss Cooper. But now I got Masaad Ayoob (among many others).
Today I got a ton of good reviewers online who did not get sent a gift-wrapped kit with a check attached. In most cases, they shelled out their own lucre and then told me what they think. Sometimes they try real hard to find goodness in the thing they spent money on. Sometimes they are disappointed. But I can read 20 reviews on the latest shooting thing and average the difference.
Then we got YouTube. Little of it is highbrow art, but anyone here ever spend time with Hickok45 and not pick up some little factoid about a gun you are thinking of buying?
The author laments that the sheer volume of people out there writing about guns “pollutes the water”. That the problem is we can find voices that will justify our own reasoning.
And that’s bad…why?
If you want to join the Glock herd – then do it. Same with any flavor of Kool-Aid. Hell, the 1911 would be a C&R relic if it weren’t for the legions of internet sycophants of “God’s Gun”; the M&P would be the upstart Glock and the AR-15 would be for militia members and “sovereign citizens”.
See what I did there?
I posted an opinion online. You probably won’t like it. Suck it and find another one. It’s easy to do that today. But you couldn’t do that when your only resources were the few anointed authors who graced pages at the hunting checkstand.
I don’t think the thousands of voices out there are a bad thing. I happen to like them, even when I don’t agree with them. It’s better to have more voices than fewer. It’s great to look back with reverence. At the same time, it’s fair to look forward to even more.
March 13th, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Its like any nostalgia, we tend to forget all the hack gun writers there used to be too. There were a lot and they cluttered up the magazines as much as the bad ones clutter up the internet.
March 13th, 2014 at 4:22 pm
Of course, teh author overlooks teh fact that there were a huge percentage of crappy writer’s back when gun mags were the only source of reviews.
Quotes found in probably 90% of 1980’s and 1990’s gun reviews:
“Accepatble combat accuracy”
“If you do your part, it will do its”
Or, roughly half the articles in gun mags of the 1980’s and 1990’s that weren’t short columns:
“9mm vs. .45 – which is best?”
“Wheelgun vs. auto – which is best?”
“Point shooting vs. aimed fire – which is best?”
“Make mine a Nine”
“[Insert Cz75 variant or clone here] – a revolutionary new design!”
March 13th, 2014 at 6:29 pm
This list it’s most appreciated. I will add to Uncle, Tam, Sean.