Despite What You See on Social Media, Not Everything Sucks

While we freely lampoon and excoriate the demon that is socialist media, the reality is that’s where a large percentage of gun people get their information today. You could likely count the number of dead tree gun mags that are left on one hand. The NRA was one of the few remaining holdouts and they recently cut their print magazine publications by fifty percent. Few retailers carry printed firearms-related magazines and most adults simply don’t buy them anymore. Therefore, like it or not, socialist media is where we tend to go…in addition, of course, to fantastic audio programs such as Student of the Gun.

The problem with socialist media is that, unlike print magazines which had some type of vetting process and editors to at least fact check what was produced, that doesn’t exist for the vast majority of online content. The content producers are free to spew all manner of falsehoods, half-truths, half-baked opinions and nonsense. Sadly, the natural condition of humans to believe what they see remains. We used to blindly accept what network news anchors said, rationalizing that if it was said on TV, it must be true. 

Now, we tend to believe that which appears on Instagram or YouTube. Minus a solid understanding of history or realistic personal experience, many viewers look to the popularity of an online influencer as some sort of proof that what they’re saying is the gospel truth.

Not Everything Sucks 

Of the big issues with on-demand socialist media posts, one that I see regularly, is content that’s produced solely to disparage existing products. Yes, there are certainly products out there that could use some improvement. However, much of what I see tends to find problems where they don’t exist or to blow certain things out of proportion in order to get views or likes. Please allow me to offer a few examples of what I’ve recently encountered.  

Women Can’t Reach Old GLOCK Triggers?

This one was new to me. I watched a video clip where a woman who claimed to be a “firearms instructor” stated that she was pleased that the GLOCK Gen 6 has a redesigned flat trigger. She was happy with the new GLOCK trigger because she stated that many of her female students “could not reach the trigger” on the original GLOCK pistols. 

I had to rewind and listen to that twice to be sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. My first thought was, what is this lady talking about? Having trained hundreds of female shooters, a majority of whom were active-duty military and required to use the Beretta M9, it never occurred to me that a GLOCK trigger was unreachable.  

Now, I must admit that I don’t know how many students the aforementioned instructor taught had some form of dwarfism. Nonetheless, I can’t imagine a situation where the striker-fired trigger of the GLOCK pistol was unreachable for more than a miniscule percentage of female shooters. Such a statement seemed to be true hyperbole.     

The Beretta M9 is Unreliable?

Within a day or two of seeing that GLOCK video, I came across another short clip where a gentleman was rattling off various makes and models of handguns. During the video, this man made the blanket statement that the Beretta M9 pistol was “unreliable.” 

Regardless of whether you like or dislike the Beretta Model 92/M9, no honest person can state that their dislike stemmed from the gun being unreliable. They’re are large. They tend to have rather heavy double-action triggers for the first shot. Many folks don’t like the slide mounted de-cock/safety lever or the M9’s open slide design. That’s fair. The M9 isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. 

Regardless, in no realistic consideration of the Model 92 or the M9 can the term unreliable be thrown around. First, the Joint Service Small Arms Program, the one responsible for testing and evaluating the handgun that replaced the M1911A1, required that none of the submitted pistols have more than eight malfunctions (stoppages) in 5000 rounds. The XM9 Beretta pistol easily passed that qualification.

From a personal standpoint, I spent three years, full-time, teaching military personnel to run M4 carbines and M9 pistols. The only issues that the M9 had was high round count and lack of preventive maintenance by the military armorers who never replaced recoil springs or locking-blocks until something actually broke.

As to the wanna-be influencer who tossed out the blanket statement that Beretta M9s are unreliable, I’m sure that he thought that most of his audience was sufficiently ignorant that they wouldn’t know that he was full of crap. Also, it’s cool to crap on big companies online. 

The American AK ‘Experiment’ is Over?

I like to be well versed in the operation of all manner of firearms, particularly those purpose-built as fighting tools. As a United States Marine infantryman, my first love was the M16A2, but I’ve expanded my horizons. It’s been well over thirty years since I purchased my first AK platform rifle. an Egyptian Maadi. Over the last three decades or so, I’ve expanded my level of experience with the Kalashnikov rifle both in 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm.

A friend recently shared a video from someone who desperately wants to be a relevant YouTube personality in which the host stated that the American AK “experiment’ is over. That was certainly news to me.

The YouTuber attempted to support his statement about the American AKs based upon current sales. The first thing to know is that, as I write this, the entirety of the United States firearms industry is in a real sales slump and has been for a couple of years. A person could look at NICS numbers and conclude, based upon sales declines that lots of guns are “over.” 

What this YouTuber failed to understand is that thirty or so years ago, the number of dedicated United States manufacturers of Kalashnikov platform rifles was essentially zero. AK rifles “built” in the USA were made with parts kits imported from overseas. There were no “100% Made in the USA” AKs back then.

Today, there are several companies making 100% US-made Kalashnikov-style rifles. The OCCAM Defense ODS-1775 Kalashnikov rifle is not only made in the USA, but is arguably the most accurate AK rifle in 7.62x39mm you can buy.

During the Cold War, thanks to good old American propaganda, the AK was viewed as both the weapon of the enemy and as “mass produced junk that you can’t hit anything with.” This isn’t the 1980s anymore. Members of today’s American gun culture have come to realize that AKs aren’t junk and no one cares if the Soviets used them. Most Americans under 40 don’t even remember the Soviet Union. 

If you were to support the AK being “over” argument by comparing AK sales to AR sales, that would be like saying the American FN pistol experiment if over because GLOCK out sells them four to one. The fact remains that there are exponentially more AK-style rifles owned by Americans today than before the 1994 AWB went into effect. Numbers aside, you don’t have to be the most popular to be relevant. Sales of the Ruger Mini-14 have dropped dramatically over the decades compared to the AR-15, but many folks still consider the Mini-14 to be relevant. 

Creating Problems      

The need to constantly create content and the desire to be heard amid all the noise on the internet has led many of these folks to either create problems where none exist or to take a small issue and blow it up in order to have something to talk about. 

That isn’t surprising. We constantly encounter products and gadgets that are easily described as an answer looking for a question. Case in point, American AR owners have been convinced that the stock trigger in their rifle isn’t good enough or  accurate enough, whatever that means. Blessed by ignorance, United States Marines were never told that they couldn’t hit a 500-yard target with a milspec M16 trigger. We just did it anyway.

The next time you encounter one of these videos or posts on socialist media, you might just take a deep breath, step back and think, “You know, not everything sucks.”  

  

Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.