Thread Signatures

[Sam99]

Hello All,

I’ve been thinking about this for a while so here goes: I’m either setting myself up for derision and ridicule or a maybe a few people will agree. We’ll see.

We are living in a Nanny State – firearms, shotguns, air guns and knives are all getting bad publicity. All appear to be politically incorrect. We need to change the general public’s perception on our sport. We do not sit on our rocking chairs, stroking our favorite gun, called Elvira, whilst sipping moonshine. We know this, but the person on the street may not.
My point is this: Are we doing ourselves any favors with our witty comments and collections list’s on our signatures every time we post a comment?
The Collector’s page is open to all. Anyone and Everyone. It’s on the WWW for all to see. Maybe the undesirable element could use the information for their ill-use.
Do we really want to advertise our collections and comments to the Anti-shooting lobby?
I have a collection I’m proud of, most of us do. Nothing better than meeting fellow collectors and talking a load of old tosh ‘til the cows come home but lets leave it at that though – a verbal only statement of our interest‘s and collections .
I think we should re-consider our signature lists and comments and choose anonymity.

Well, there you go. Just my thoughts.

Regards,

Sam

[Gareth W-B]

Good point. I used to have a photobox slide-show signature of my air gun collection, but when one day surfing, I found copied pictures of my guns, taken in my conservatory, with my camera, and posted in my photobox signature on an Austrian www site, I removed said slide show immediately, and replaced it with something else equally as important (to me) from my past . Ha ha. Atb: G.

[Muskett]

Don't hide when there is nothing to hide. When everything is in the open then more questions can be answered as part of educating the uneducated.

Show the nanny system its naivety for what it is. Good on that school for putting its livestock into the food chain. What is odd is treating livestock as pets. I don't say you can't do it but it isn't the norm.

Thank heavens that boys can play with toy guns again.. It is a shame that the shoot'em up games are so graphically out right violent with so little respect to reality or morality. So what I'm trying to say is defend your shooting interests that are well and truly legally controlled and legitimate. We do it because it is enjoyable, and there are a whole lot of other things that the crusaders can target.

[Garvin]

I've also pondered this question. Most of the really big collectors I've met or spoken too are quite secretive and say very little about what they have online, which is their choice and fair enough. But there may be a positive consequence of being open, which is that by sharing your enthusiasm, pics and growing knowledge of your specialism, you can help bring others into the world of collecting. I know that reading about other collectors' stuff has often inspired me.

As for anti-gun types reading about our habits, they can get stuffed for all I care. While what we do is legal and harmless, it's no-one's business but ours. If they don't like reading about airguns they can go back to their www.whatshallwebannext.com forum and rant amongst themselves. The more we discuss our collections, hopefully in a way that interests and encourages others to join in, the more the anti-gun brigade will realise that we're not ashamed of what we do and are not (all ) a bunch of weirdo nutters who live in the shadows.

[Lakey]

I agree with Garvin, Interest in guns is seen as a minority sport due to the fact that there is a complete news blackout in all the media and on television. If we came out of the shadows people would (1) realise how popular it was (2) Realise that we are just normal people with an interest (3) realise that they have nothing to fear from us and that the 'Gun culture' is a gross exageration put about by the government, to justify their draconian, and unneccessary ever increasing gun laws.

I for one am proud of my interest !!!

Lakey

Time to stand up and be counted

[SpikeG]

I made a similar point on a specialist overclocking site many years ago. The thing that astounded me is often people would post "Going on holiday for 2 weeks in Spain/USA etc"
A lovely advert for the burglars especially when the pictures of their gear was hosted on their own domains and with a quick "whois" you could get the name and address of the registrant.

[harry mac]

As for anti-gun types reading about our habits, they can get stuffed for all I care. While what we do is legal and harmless, it's no-one's business but ours. If they don't like reading about airguns they can go back to their www.whatshallwebannext.com forum and rant amongst themselves.

Nanny linky no worky. Shocky