Archetypes of the Gun Owner: Introduction

This idea came to me when I was listening to a podcast by friend & fellow blogger Matt over at the Everyday Marksman.

Here are my archetypes of the gun owner:

I believe that these different characters exist within all gun owners, to some degree or another. Most everyone who reads this blog will identify with one or two of these ‘memes’ at least a little if we’re being totally honest. These archetypes are inspired by the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Moore & Gillette. Their book is a work of Jungian psychology, and deals in the archetypes of man. The book KWML helps a person to understand the different aspects of themselves, and how they are or are not fully realizing these individual aspects. [click here to read more about the book on the Art of Manliness blog]

Whether or not I totally buy the argument for archetypes espoused by the book I mentioned above, I do believe that everyone does have different aspects to their personalities. These different facets can often times be at odds with one another, though they may also be brought into harmony and allowed to compliment each other. This is what I plan to write about in the following weeks, how to recognize the aspects of these gun-owner archetypes, what to avoid about them, and how to leverage their strengths for your overall benefit.

I will definitely be using the idea of complimenting duality I’ve written about before, though I’m hardly the first person to come up with the idea. The idea of Yin & Yang, or dichotomies, is a pretty universal subject of philosophical thought. There are good sides and bad sides to everything, and things taken too far can be just as detrimental when something isn’t taken far enough. Our job as humans is to sift through the mess, learning from the good and learning to avoid the bad. That is how we progress as gun-owners, shooters, and as humans in general.

Even though these characters are generally used derogatorily against other gun owners, I feel that they deserve a little spotlight. Everyone knows to learn from their own mistakes and the mistakes of others. It’s common practice to find the people that we admire and learn from their mistakes, but I’m taking a different path here: What can we learn to mimic about those we disagree with? Just as every person’s idol has areas of their lives where they have fallen short of deserving the pedestal we place them on, do the people we despise not also have their own areas of excellence? That’s what I’m going to explore in this series, what we can learn from those we look down upon.

I believe that there is something to be learned from Tactical Timmy’s, from those cringe-worthy Sheepdogs, and yes, even from Fudds. We may have to look veerrrrry close to see it, but I believe there is something to be gleaned from all four. I don’t believe that this will be the end-all, be-all work on this subject, so I am always open to hearing your thoughts on it.

Stay open minded, and I’ll see you next week. -S_S

*I list the fourth as “Prepper Pete” whereas Matt lists “Boogaloo Bob”, but his description in the podcast doesn’t quite line up with the ‘boogaloo’ stereotype I see on social media. His character does line up strongly with the ‘prepper’ stereotype that was all the rage in the mid-to-late 2000’s though, hence the name change. We’ll be talking about the same character, just with a different name.