Gamers - good or bad for gun owners?

[ZeSpectre]

I've run into two distinct types.

Type A -
Thinks COD (or whatever game) is "cooler", is dismayed by how heavy/dirty firearms actually are and further dismayed by the care and concentration required to actually hit anything. Usually surprised by the recoil (even on smaller firearms) and disappointed at the sound and the downrange results which are often not "cinematic" enough for them. Wants nothing to do with the hassles of reloading magazines, thinks you should have 20-30 pre-loaded mags for them, has absolutely no idea of the cost of ammo, and really wants nothing to do with cleanup after the range session. I'm not even going to go into the attitude when you stop them to instruct on basic safety.

Type B -
Starts with some of the same attributes as "type A" and then quickly makes the statement "wow, this is nothing like <game of choice>". Type B then tends to either say "this isn't for me" or else they do a sort of "mental reset" and will start to learn about real firearms.

In short it's like just about everything else. There are gamers out there who are the worst nightmare of those of us working to improve the general image of gun owners, and there are others out there who are our next generation of gun rights supporters.

 

[9-ball]

I encountered the same types as you explained ZeSpectre, I think this pretty much sums it up. Not all gamers aren't willing to learn, but a lot of them are.

 

[Kreyzhorse]

Gamers are just people who play games. I can't see that an interest in gaming is going to be bad for shooters long term.

 

[Mike40-11]

Ultimately good for gun owners, often annoying for gun forums until they get a little real experience

There you go. I'm not going to complain about anything that gets more folks involved with shooting. Some may not know much at first but hey, if this is what gets them interested, I'll take it.

Let's not run them off by demeaning their interest since they weren't born with the vast firearm knowledge and skill that we all were.

Now, if they refuse to learn and insist on treating the real thing like video toys, THEN you can demean them.

 

[Boomm]

I am 22 years old and love both guns and video games. I shot my first gun at age 3 and played my first video game at age 4. I saw a lot of assumptions and misconceptions being made in this thread and I hope this clears some of that up.

I believe that, for the most part, video games have been great for the gun industry. Men are made to fight. It may be on the battle field, in the business world, or in the lab; however, it is a fundamental truth of the masculine heart. In general, all men desire to pit themselves against other men, test their skills, and come out on top in one way or another.

In our modern American culture of emasculation, video games have provided a sort of "refuge" for the younger generation of men. It is a place to go where they can still fight battles and test their skills against other men. It may sound silly, but video games are the only exposure many sons of anti-gun families have to firearms. Nonetheless, these video games act as a spark. It peaks their interest in firearms and opens their minds to the idea.

So young men are now interested in shooting REAL guns because video games are a lot of fun. They are experts in the virtual world. They are riflemen, machine gunners, snipers, and special forces. Unless they have had exposure to real guns, everything they know is based off of video games and they are experts on the subject. This is not the boy's fault, they simply remain uneducated as to the reality of firearms. No one has taught them anything about firearms except for the gaming industry.

As was said before, these younger men believe they know a thing or two about guns, but have no actual experience and it is not their fault. Almost all of these men have had either a father who has fallen to passivity, a father who does not know the first thing about firearms, or no father at all. No one to teach them, or to educate them about the subject. However, the fact that they play video games shows a hunger within them. The gaming industry understands this and makes billions every year off of it.

My fellow men, this is where we come in. As educated gun owners, it is our responsibility to stand in the gap. I have dedicated a lot of time to take friends from work and school (when I was attending university) to the shooting range. I love teaching them, and they all love learning about it, whether this is expressed or not. It is important to establish ground rules and take the shooting range very seriously. Remember, we must EDUCATE them. Not tear them a new ass hole.

The biggest problem I have run into is not safety, most everybody has respect for the ground rules. It is emptying mags as quickly as possible. Are they going to want to send lead down the range as quickly as possible? Of course! What man doesn't have fun doing this? Gentle correction is the answer to this problem.Telling them to do something without a reason in next to useless. Make damn sure you give them a good reason for everything you tell them to do. Otherwise, they will feel like a stupid dumbass. This is not our goal because they simply do not know any better at this point and we do not want to turn them off.

This is a very rewarding experience that usually results in a gun owner and I encourage everyone to take this step.

 

[rigby06]

I was shooting real firearms since I was a teenager, I am now 43. I was shooting pistols and rifles long before the games became popular. I like playing most first person shooting games. I like to see when a game has it correct for what it takes to shoot, how to aim, what a real sight picture looks like, how a weapon need to be reloaded, and how long an average reload takes. I am well aware of what a bullet can do in damage, so I always keep safety in mind first.

I took a big gaming colleague shooting several times over the last year or so. Like others indicated he could shoot better than I could on average ; but I show him how to shoot; how to hold the weapon; how to reload it. His first shots were wow this is different than the game, but still interesting. since that first day he has shot a variety of weapons, to include M4, several .45 ACP; H&K P7; Benelli M1; a 12 gauge pump a 870 clone; a .270 rifle at 300 yards; Several 9MM or .40 cal weapons. My friend has turned into a solid shooter.

I sold this same friend my Glock 22 with 4 mags and 3 boxes of ammo. This was his first hand gun. So I have turned a avid gamer into a genuine shooter; who is not looking to getting his carry concealed permit.

 

[Spartan745]

As a gamer, who also has many friends as gamers, it ultimately comes down to the person's overall lifestyle and behavior. I'm a huge nerd, I love video games, anime (japanese cartoons for those who don't know), tabletop rpgs (aka dungeons and dragons), etc, etc. But I also have a "normal" side to my life, I work, work out, I occasionally volunteer (normally trying to get the number of the cute girl working at the soup kitchen), I read books (and not just sci-fi/fantasy), etc. So for me I'd say if and whenever I handle actual firearms, I give it the respect that it deserves, because I know if I goof off with it, it easily could bite me in the ass.

However, there are gamers (and unfortunately I know a few) that are absolute trolls and think that because they're good at CoD or some other shooter, that they're a badass. Come to find out, when it's time to step up and hold a real gun, they'll complain about how much heavier it is than how they anticipated it to be. Or they'll shoot it and say, "(Insert Game Title) is way better." Which does infuriate me a lot. My normal response to those type of people are, "Well no ****, sherlock. In games it's just point and shoot. No possibility of jamming, no consequences if you miss, etc. If you mess up with a real gun, even a bb gun, it can easily lead to someone's death. And it won't be the bad guy's life at stake."

 

[austinjking]

I like to take a few friends out shooting when I'm home, most of the time they're the gamer friends. They love the GSG-5 and the WASR, and they chip in for the ammo. They've always let 'er rip for a mag or two, then get weary of not really hitting anything and having to load that dang mag up again so soon. At mag number 4, they've slowed down their rate of fire, load half the magazine so they don't have it shouldered forever, and take a few seconds to aim.
My older brother however, is an enigma. He likes the tactical guns I hand him sure, but doesn't find them especially amazing. Hes a gamer too. Now hand him a S&W 686 rented from the range and he'll blow through three boxes of ammo before you can say 'magnum.' You can't pick up the thing after he's had ten minutes with it.

 

[DnPRK]

If gaming helps create new shooters, then I'm all for it.

Otherwise, shooting becomes an old man's activity that ends when the last gray-hair dies.

 

[Webleymkv]

I think it has a whole lot more to do with the individual, games are just another form of media that initially exposes people to firearms. We've all seen the Call of Duty fan that just wants to blaze away without hitting anything, but it wasn't all that long ago that he replaced the the guy fanning away with a single action revolver, also not hitting anything, because that's what Clint Eastwood did in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Sure, games give people unrealistic expectations about firearms, but so do movies, TV, Comics, and books.

I'm on the younger end of the age spectrum for firearm enthusiasts (I'm 24) so several of the people I know are also gamers. In my experience, the ones who don't bring a positive attitude to firearms are the ones who usually try shooting once or twice, but then simply go back to their XBox. This group usually winds up liking the guns because of the games. The other group, however, are the ones who take instruction well and seek out the knowledge of the 'gun guys' once they discover who they are. This group usually winds up liking the games because of the guns.

Basically, I don't think we should automatically look down our noses at gamers. Thinking that the HK Mk. 23 SOCOM is cool because of Solid Snake isn't really all that different than thinking that the Colt SAA is cool because of John Wayne.

 

[TXGunNut]

I'm not a gamer but noticed many years ago that all the outstanding new comp shooters were gamers and quite good at it, I believe. It may just be a coincidence but I thought these games helped improve concentration skills. I guess if Zombies ever tried to interfere at a pistol match they'd be making a huge mistake.

 

[patrickmn]

Shooting and video games both require hand-eye coordination. A quick google search showed some studies have found that video games may improve hand-eye coordination.

 

[Sefner]

I think a lot of the "gamers and guns" boils down to psychology, like the posters directly above me have been alluding to.

The psychology of the gamers that actually get into firearms, such as myself, is very peculiar. We are extremely detail oriented. We tend to jump headlong into something and learn it completely. For example I became an NRA Instructor. In the gamer world we learn every detail about the game. One of my buddies who is a gamer and gun owner knows everything there to know about the Elder Scrolls franchise. In other words, we are kind of obsessive. We need to know the details, the inner workings of things. I think this is the attraction to firearms for this type of people. They like to learn how they work, the options available, all the different types, styles, actions, etc. They also have extremely strong preferences. For instance I really like the guns that I like and am pretty indifferent about the rest. I have a buddy that is all about milsurp and another that really loves the newest of the new technology. In video games we are very peculiar as well. I hate CoD for various reasons (not becauase of the community, but for the same reasons people who really like films don't like Michael Bay movies) but I love playing the Battlefield and Left 4 Dead series.

The other people, the gamers who don't end up getting into guns, are like those already mentioned previously... they don't like the effort, the minutia, of guns. But those are the things that draw many gamers to guns. Many gamers like to acquire news skills. They love novelty, customization, and learning things. But some gamers (I wouldn't call these people gamers, but that's a different forum) are just there for the cheap thrills and the here-and-now.

 

[Jericho9mm]

Yeah for sure I think gaming helps in coordination and reflex. The games, to a certain extent, act as a simulator much like flight or other decision/critical thinking based sims. But I think they can only get you so far. At some point hands on training and instruction is required. That's where the difference can be found, gamers who do not receive proper training or instruction can be just as ignorant as someone who has only played with flight simulators and then is handed a fighter jet.

 

[Master Blaster 2]

As long as one into gaming comes to reality when he finally handles a gun. In my time the TV westerns was not full of blood spatter and body parts like in the games. In my youth (pre teen) we played Army with other groups of kids with plastic toy guns. Re lived show of Combat or Rat Patrol. I had a battery powered Browning Machine gun. On one week end there were over 20 of us playing....now days they would call out SWAT

 

[Dwight55]

I wound up playing a segment of Call of Duty 4 some time back, . . . and was really surprized to see their version of a scope sighted M14 in the assortment of weapons available.

I used it in the game, . . . and can see where gaming and shooting would both appeal to the same type of person, . . . and I say that as a good thing.

May God bless,
Dwight

 

[Maus]

I think it depends on the type of gamer. I play FPS games because I still live at home and my parents are anti-gun, so I can't keep a gun at home. But I develop my in-game and real life preferences differently. The closest to owning a gun I've come is when my mom said I could try skeet shooting and maybe buy a gun if I enjoyed it and practiced it. Unfortunately we "don't have time." But when I play a video game there aren't those restrictions. You also don't generally get to shoot off tank guns in real life.
However, many of my friends are of the type that, if they went to a gun shop, they would buy the "coolest" gun that had a bunch of attachments, probably one out of CoD. Luckily, I don't think they are stupid enough to try and stick rifle suppressors on their shotguns.

 

[TheNocturnus]

LOL. I am an avid gamer and have been since 1983. I own guns for one reason: Defense. I do not feel that guns are toys and are in no way close to guns in video games. Sure you look down sights and reload in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield but when you kill an enemy in those games they respawn.

I guess that my generation, I'm 31 BTW, is the Video Game generation that is full of the people this thread is about. I cannot speak for every gamer, only myself. Guns are tools and as such have a purpose. Firearms can be used recreationally, competitively or to preserve or take life. I choose to use mine for the preservation of life and possibly to take life if mine is threatened.

Now I must get back to playing some Battlefield, I've got some fools to kill.

 

[Chris_B]

People are individuals. Some people "don't get it". Video games have nothing to do with that

 

[chasep255]

When I was 8 I played my first shooting game on PS1. I have continued playing shooting games ever since. I think it is actually what originally got me interested. After that I went from toy guns, to airsoft guns, to real guns (not until I was 15). I think that video games help to create interest for shooting in my generation which is important for the future of the RTKBA.