God and Guns

Your Monthly Vintage Arms Reader, Resource and Reference 

Devoted to Guns Made or Designed Before 1920 

 Black Powder Cartridge (BPCR/BPCRS) •Single Shot Rifles

•Antique-Classic-Historic-Vintage Firearms & Accessories 

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If Ranger has ever had a true, lifelong love affair, then it would be with all things antique firearms. 

The magazine for such an aficionado is the Single Shot Exchange.  Each month Ranger takes this publication from his mailbox as one would a love letter, with barely-veiled excitement and a solemn reverence. He adroitly folds it under his arm, or slides it into his coat pocket for later saveur.

So it was with great chagrin that he decided not to renew his annual membership this month to his beloved "SSE".  It is on principle's sake alone, for he can no longer abide by a magazine devoted to guns which quotes biblical scripture on the first page.  The relationship between God and Guns is beyond Ranger's powers of ratiocination; he subscribes to read about antique single shot rifles, not to praise the lord.   

Ranger rejected membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) on the same grounds ("Shooting From the Hip") because they have made an unholy linkage of gunniness and godliness, and called the shotgun marriage, "American values".  

This is absurd. The jungles of Vietnam, the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan are not godly places, and guns are merely an instrument of survival.  Forget the bible -- just give me another basic load for my single shot.

Another mainly sales publication dealing with things guns, the Blue Press, always fronts a babe in suggestive positions vis-a-vis her piece.  (Yes, even reloading magazines have cover girls.)  The March 2013 cover features a virginal Madonna, hand protecting her crotch, within grasp of a mighty 9 mm. 

What's not to love?

--Megachurch preacher, Joel Osteen
(this one's for you, Chris) 
 

But for Ranger, he says both the scriptural and the sexploitation approach ruin the enjoyment of what should be a simple pleasure, the love of shooting and the being a gun enthusiast.  If he wants god, he will go to church, synagogue, mosque or Joel Osteen.  If he wants sexploitation, there is the internet or pay-per-view.

All he wants is to read about guns and their collector value to an enthusiast without all the trips down phony and distracting side streets.

No, Mr. Lee Shaver (publisher and editor), Ranger will not be renewing his subscription this year.