Gun owners are putting their metal where their manhoods are in a bizarre trend that sees men courting danger to prove how well they can manage a gun.
Those participating in the meme do so by pointing their gun at their genitals with the safety off, placing their finger over the trigger, and posting a photo of it on social media. And voilà, just like that – proof they are very manly.
It was first assumed that the gun owners were embracing the risky pose as a way of trolling progressives. The author and storyteller Dylan Park, who originally reposted the images in a viral tweet, summed that theory up as follows: “To everyone asking why, I’m not 100% sure. But I think the thinking here is ‘Guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people so we’re going to point them at our dicks to prove how safe they are’ or something,” he said.
Now these MAGA dolts are pointing guns at their dicks with the safeties off and their fingers on the trigger to own the libs. I fucking hate it here. pic.twitter.com/O1vVUldLn5
— Dylan (@dyllyp) May 25, 2020
But, as detailed in an article by Vice, the trend started more than a year ago after fighting within the gun enthusiasts community, which eventually led to one faction trying to prove superior knowledge over the other. As the Facebook page Gun People Who Hate Gun People explained: “It’s actually to upset people who think trigger discipline is important.”
While it’s not unusual to see gun owners commending others for their gun-safety knowledge online – using the safety catch, not pointing the gun at anything they don’t want to shoot and not putting the finger on the trigger until they want to shoot – it appears that their vigilance has upset other hobbyists.
“The uninitiated zero in on dumb shit like [safety] because it’s their entire knowledge base. It’s the only thing they understand,” said the moderator of a Facebook group named Shit Gun Normos Say (normo being a word pejoratively applied to people who stick to rules or norms with fervor).
“Congratulating people for keeping their finger in the right place is like congratulating somebody for not wrapping their seatbelt around their neck, or for not shitting their pants in public,” the moderator added in a confounding explanation that simultaneously manages to make light of practicing safety precautions while joking about how stupid it would be to brag about not wearing a seatbelt.
By this logic, those who put themselves in the most dangerous position are the only ones who can really prove how brave they are. Just think about it like cycling through a red traffic light at an intersection with no handlebars, or setting your house on fire just to prove you can get out. It certainly is one way of looking at the world.
