Revisiting the Question of Firearms

Question

Especially now that Firearms.SE is shutting down, I think this topic is worth looking at in a little more detail. In some respects this is revisiting What questions about firearms are on topic?, but I'm trying to drill down a little more now looking at the scope of what was being asked on Firearms.SE. Essentially, "what from them do we want."

There's a bit of a challenge here because the general rule seems to be that while firearm training should by all accounts be considered a martial art, it usually seems to involve a culturally distinct community from people who train in other martial arts. We do not want to become a "shooting SE," but there are also topics regarding guns that are immediately relevant in the martial arts world.

Personally, I feel that the following firearms-related questions are more likely or definitely on topic for us, or can be adapted without too much loss of specificity:

• Tueller Drills, both knife and gun side. Really, on that note, CQC in general that may involve guns since this may emphasize the "martial" side of the equation. Some of these are going to be clearer than others.
• Martial arts that employ guns in the their training and how they incorporate them.
• As mentioned elsewhere: disarms, etc which are commonly trained are certainly on-topic.

The following I am less certain about, or some may be on topic and some may not.

• General questions regarding training and drills specifically with firearms. I'd argue that How can I practice for a combat situation? should be on-topic here, but am less certain about a question such as What should be accuracy expectations and goals for the beginner pistol shooter?
• Weapon/Equipment Safety (in the theory that if weapon safety for a katana is on topic, I'd go with weapon safety for bullets works the same). There is a bit of a range here, running from Will rounds be set off if they are handled roughly? The distinction being that gun safety is a pretty massive topic in its own right, and while I am not sure we want all of it here there are some things we might want or that might be interesting for people here, e.g., When do you keep your finger out of trigger guard in tactical situations?

There are also some questions that I feel are almost entirely off topic:

• Specific equipment questions, e.g., Why is some ammunition coated?, What to look for in a scope?, and Left handed, semi-auto shotguns besides Benelli? Really any in-depth technical or equipment questions.
• Questions that focus on static shooting or hunting (too much of a culture gap and too little applicability to domain experts that we have here now), e.g., How do decoy and pass chokes compare with IC and M chokes for waterfowl hunting?

The long and short of it is that I feel that there's very little we are going to successfully draw from Firearms.SE directly or that we should migrate from there, but that we might consider keeping a broader topic scope around firearms than we might otherwise if Firearms.SE continued to exist.

Answer 1

I am a bit more traditional than some, so my answer leans in that direction. Personally I think questions:

• about disarming or facing someone who is using a gun
• using the gun in grappling as a weapon substitute (i.e. replacing a kubotan)

are within the scope of Martial Arts, while anything like:

• how to point a gun and shoot it
• maintaining or using the gun or its associated accessories

are off topic. While martial arts do evolve and some have incorporated the use of guns, I think using it directly as a weapon isn't martial in itself. In fact using a gun in its traditional way is almost anti martial arts.

Having said that, I don't know if there would have been too many questions on F.SE that would have dealt with disarming or using a gun as a grappling accessory.

Answer 2

The long and short of it is that I feel that there's very little we are going to successfully draw from Firearms.SE directly or that we should migrate from there, but that we might consider keeping a broader topic scope around firearms than we might otherwise if Firearms.SE continued to exist.

I agree with this sentiment for several concrete reasons. First, consider the site statistics:

Site Stats
346 questions 
710 answers 
98% answered 
513 users 
377 visitors/day

This is considered to be a non-audience for their topic.

Also, when I look at their front page, I see the following list of questions at the top:

Should a new handgun shooter start with .22LR or 9mm?

The firearms beta is being closed, what now?

Why does steel-cased ammunition not feed as well in semi-automatic firearms as brass does?

Custom materials used when casting bullets

Proper technique with a laser sight

Why is some ammunition coated?

Will rounds be set off if they are handled roughly?

You might be able to make a case that the questions under the "training" tag. I see seven of those right now.

If someone truly wanted to harvest people and material from the dying firearms site, I would suggest going through each of the vaguely applicable questions and flagging them for admin attention and suggesting migration to martial arts.