Archetypes of the Gun Owner: Tactical Timmy

This will be the 4th entry in my series of gun-owing archetypes. If you want to read about the others, go here.

The term “Tactical Timmy” has been thrown around a lot in the online gun owning community. It was a well-known insult by the time I got into guns, so I can’t accurately date the timeline for this name, but I’d imagine it has been around since the early 2000’s. If I was a betting man, I’d say that it really gained popularity with the release of Magpul’s “Art of the Dynamic [gun]” series of DVDs and the subsequent adoption of the C-clamp by the training community. I wasn’t really in this scene at the time so I don’t know that for certain, though.

Who is Tactical Timmy?

So who actually is Tactical Timmy? He is a gun owner who trains a lot. Whether he is a cop or prior military or not, Timmy is driven by his need to be the best he possibly can be when it comes to all things tactical. Not really a need, but a borderline obsession.

Timmy has received hundreds of hours of professional instruction. He’s attended classes in over a dozen states, from just as many instructors, and has done so over the course of a decade or more.

In addition to the 8 entry-level and mid-level pistol & carbine classes, he’s also taken a ton of classes on stuff that doesn’t apply to him at all. He’s not an Army sniper, a SWAT cop, or even a reserve officer. None of that has stopped him from taking multiple long-range precision courses, hostage rescue courses, small-unit CQB courses, vehicle-CQB courses, and multiple active shooter courses.

Timmy’s guns are all top of the line. His bare-minimum cost for an AR is $1,200. Timmy also puts as much money into his optics as he does his guns. Timmy refuses to buy Chinese-made anything. He doesn’t care that his rifle will never see the inside of a helicopter, he needs the rifle to survive a fall from one. He also needs the $1,500 worth of lights, lasers, and optics to survive the fall as well.

Timmy also has a full plate carrier setup, and it isn’t AR500 plates. His plates are ceramic, multi-curve swimmer’s cut. Those plates ride in a top-of-the-line plate carrier that costs more than the plates do. His carrier has a line of mag pouches, a radio pouch, an admin/map pouch, a smoke grenade pouch, and an IFAK, plus a spare TQ on the back. That plate carrier setup is also entirely multicam. Timmy’s not bothered at all by the fact that he lives in a suburb, nothing local blends with multicam, and that he hasn’t found a place to source smoke grenades. He just puts his $170 AR-specific multi-tool in that grenade pouch. The multi-tool is also multicam. He loves his shot timer because it allows him to more fully quantify his capabilities. He also kind of hates using it, because “there are no timers in real life”.

The thing that drives Timmy is his obsession to be as highly skilled as possible, even in things that will never apply to him. He buys high quality gear because it doesn’t restrict him. He spends lost of money on formal instruction because it allows him to use his high quality gear at a higher level. It looks like he’s gear-focused, but he’s really skill-focused. In this regard, Timmy is remarkably similar to Gamer Gary, though what skills they focus on are slightly different.

Know Them by Their Phrases

“Go get training”

“‘Good Enough’ isn’t good enough”

“You get what you pay for”

“Buy once, cry once”

“Stop being poor”

unironically saying “…killed in the street”

Who is Not a Tactical Timmy?

Someone who trains for their actual life. If you’re taking a small-group-tactics class, and you actually are part of a SWAT team or active infantry, you’re good to go.

In the other direction, we have mall ninjas. A mall ninja is someone who hoards cheap, tactical-looking gear, but ha little to no skill with any of it. He thinks he’s Tactical Timmy, but he’s closer to Prepper Pete. Except Pete’s stuff is actually useful. Mall ninjas hoard zombie knives, airsoft-level LBE, aftermarket SKS stocks, and Walmart flashlights. A mall ninja thinks that the key to capability is stuff instead of skill. This difference means that they are completely different people, even thought hey seem similar from the outside.

The Problem with Tactical Timmy

In one word: Elitism.

Timmy has very high standard for himself and his gear. He is always looking to be better. He is willing to go to lengths that the rest of us are either incapable or unwilling to go to, in order to further his skill, even if it’s by very incremental degrees.

Tactical Timmy sees Sheepdog Shane, who has never taken a training course beyond what their state requires (where necessary) to carry in public, as an unskilled, untrained, unpredictable, bumbling idiot who is as likely to kill himself or an innocent bystander as actually stop any sort of lethal threat! …and that’s assuming his Ruger/Taurus/Canik/poor-person’s gun doesn’t jam after the first shot!

What We Can Learn

What we can learn is actually the easiest thing about Tactical Timmy: to be good at stuff! Tactical Timmy believes that he can always get better, at everything in life, and sets out to be better. …and that’s great! The reason that Tactical Timmy acts like he’s better than you is because he is! Drawing from concealment? Shooting bull’s eyes at 50? Rifle-to-pistol transitions? Timmy legitimately is better than you, and he can prove it. On demand. Cold. Tim’s a solid performer with lots of skill, and you have to respect that.

Tactical Timmy is also extremely generous with his knowledge. If you approach Tim with the mindset of ‘he knows stuff I don’t’, he’s all to willing to share. The only people that really get under Timmy’s skin are those who have no desire to improve. That apathy towards self-improvement is something to be avoided.

Conclusion

Tim is motivated to be better, though he lets that desire run amok a little. Tim is highly skilled, buys nice gear, seeks professional instruction, and doesn’t have time for people who wallow in mediocrity. When it comes to the realm of skill building and enjoying the work required to get better at something, Tactical Timmy is a pretty good role model.

Just don’t be an elitist, and don’t act like anyone is going to get ‘kilt in tha streetz!’ if they don’t have a Gucci Glock. And maybe stop calling people poor.

Keep improving, and stay humble. I’ll See you next Friday. -S_S