FPS Russia has won TTAG’s Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day award more times than I’ve had hot dinners. The last time we gave the faux Russian the gong, he was shooting a polymer pistol at close range without eyes and ears. And then we kinda, well, lost interest. (Dan the man accused Kyle of sleepwalking through his schtick.) But then we wandered across this “Irresponsible Gun Owner” T-shirt offer. While it’s nice that little ole’ TTAG has pinged the YouTube sensation’s radar (23 million hits on the AA-12 video), it’s un-friggin’-believable that Kyle would fail to understand the damage this ironic T can do to gun owners in general and any idiot stupid enough to wear it. Let me spell it out . . .

Generally, gun rights advocates don’t want fence-straddlers to think that gun control advocates are talking sense when they tell firearms-averse or ignorant Americans that owning a gun is fundamentally irresponsible. You know: you’re more likely to have an “accident” with a gun than use it to defend your life. (Hunting never gets a look in in that discussion).

The thing to keep in mind: millions of Americans—including millions of members of the so-called “silent majority”—don’t have a sense of humor about guns. They view guns as a deadly serious business, and not in a good way. If they see someone walking down the street wearing this shirt they’re going to think that the gun owner IS irresponsible. Because it’s irresponsible to make a joke about firearms responsibility.

Now I know we do that. But no matter how lighthearted our IGOTDs seem, every one has a serious point: don’t be irresponsible with guns. Our message is clear: people who are irresponsible with firearms are either schmucks or, well, irresponsible. We, as responsible gun owners, acknowledge their presence. And then reject them.

On a personal level, what are you meshuggah? Anyone who wears a T shirt calling themselves an irresponsible gun owner is just begging to be treated like an irresponsible gun owner. By friends, family, associates, strangers and, lest we forget, the police. Imagine someone wearing that T-shirt for their mug shot. Now imagine a jury looking at same.

See? That’s funny. Only it stops being funny when it starts being you. But really, it should be FPS Russia wearing this garb. But it isn’t. I’m thinking that’s because A) it would be true and B) Kyle’s smarter than he looks. Nah. Couldn’t be that, could it?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

46 COMMENTS

  3. We gun owners automatically enlisted into the ‘Firearm Public Relations Department’ upon reciept of the weapon.Its so stark it may as well be printed on the 4473 :”Receiving this firearm constitutes acceptance of the fact that abuse of the right to keep and bear arms can result in serious injury,death,loss of personal and community reputation,and the advancement of statist & unconstitutional gun regulation.Terms subject to change without notice.”

  4. You have to remember who his core audience is — kids and gamers. Not exactly the pinnacles of maturity or rational behavior themselves.

    It’s only a matter of time before he Tex Grebners himself on video and winds up in the national media spotlight being hailed as an icon of “irresponsible gun ownership”. I’m surprised that he hasn’t been featured on CNN already…

    As long as people watch his videos, which in turn pays him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to make a compete fool out of himself, he’ll continue to do moronic things that further damage the image of gun owners in America. I don’t know who is a bigger idiot, FPS Russia or the millions of simpletons that applaud his sophomoric behavior.

    Being a gun owner that watches his videos and laughs is like being Jewish and clapping every time the Nazi’s kill another prisoner… staggering stupidity all around.

    • I’ll say this about Tex, he actually did accept full responsibility for shooting himself. He admitted he was an idiot and made a mistake. That’s more than Kyle’s ever done.

  6. that shirt might as well say “I’m a wealthy, incompetent, privileged pendejo” there is no way that that guy has access to, or owns these many of the weapons (and ammunition) shown in his video on his own clout alone, he has to be connected to somebody who has “got the hook up.” with class 3 stuff (Daddy perhaps)? how old do people think this guy is btw?

    • he buys all his guns or gets it from sponsors, he owns licenses for all the weapons he uses and gets all the guns himself, His dad has nothing to do with guns, and the fact that he isn’t Russian suprises people his real name is kyle and FPS Russia is the character he plays and in a lot of his videos he uses see through ear buds for protection so you can’t see them.

      • “he buys all his guns or gets it from sponsors, he owns licenses for all the weapons he uses and gets all the guns himself”

        References please.

    • I believe that the guy that supplied all the serious weapons was found shot dead in his business premises at the start of the year. Most likely why there has been little output from the channel this last while?

  8. Hats off to TTAG for making him such a hit, says I. You’ve brought the guy so much attention and more hits to his already massive following and the award of IGOTD so often that one would ask, “What other shirt would he wear?”

    I say congrats to him. What do you expect when you give voice and mockery to fools like him and MikeB? What else can one expect but a damaging generalization to a group when we are so often associated with these fools by the constant publishing of their foolishness on this site?

    • +1 – the editors of TTAG definitely brought this one on themselves. Given the guy’s personality, how did they NOT see this one coming?

      • +1 from me too. First I ever heard of this guy was on TTAG. Y’all like to tell the IGOTDs to wear their awards loud and proud. Someone was eventually bound to listen. Imagine how many hits you will get when someone wins your award while wearing his t-shirt.

  10. I’m gonna laugh when ole’ Kyle blows his foot off or gets an eye full of hot metal from an AD. It’s just a matter of time.

  11. Shouldn’t that be “безответственный владелец пистолета?”

    Just sayin’, comrade.

  12. I met him at Living Legends ( a huge yearly paintball game in Chicago). He claims he does wear hearing protection, but they are custom-fit plugs and mostly clear. Only when he’s firing the big stuff does he wear muffs over them to counter bone conduction, which just in-the-ear plugs don’t help against.

    He has another channel, MoreFPSRussia, where he does more explanation-based stuff. I suggested he put a safety video on the MoreFPSRussia channel so that people with little to no experience with firearms learn the four rules and don’t try to emulate him. He said it was a good idea, but that was nearly a year ago. Perhaps the armed intelligentsia should spam his Facebook page (where he takes video requests) with requests for the safety video?

    Maybe if he actually lists the rules, more people would become accustomed to them and call him on them.

    • Rules are boring dude.

      Lemme go fire my daddy’s machine guns over by the freeway. Responsibility is for grown ups!!!!

  13. If the guy wants to blow his ears, eyes, foot or more off, so be it. He’s an adult and can make his own decisions. What business is it of mine? Or yours? He never said he was a role model.

    • Um, no. Yes, he’s just one guy and no, I don’t care if he blows himself up, BUT…. In his videos he’s doing nothing except perpetuating this myth that gun owners in general cannot be trusted with their weapons. Do I blame him specifically for me not being able to get a CCW permit in the PR of NJ? Of course not, BUT, strict gun control laws get passed because of people like him and people who decide to follow in his footsteps. Those people and the politicians who exploit them are partially responsible for the nonsensical gun laws that us responsible gun owners have to obey.

      I live not too far from Paterson, NJ, one of the least safe cities in NJ. I once worked in a town bordering Paterson and every morning there’d be a cop parked in our parking lot, on the lookout for suspicious persons / vehicles. Every single day. Although I was not applying for a CCW permit at the time, I’m fairly certain that the cops in my town would reject my application due to “lack of justifiable need.” I mean, even the pet store owner who got kidnapped and managed to escape in NJ in the case of mistaken identity could not get a permit…

      EDIT: I guess I missed it before, but after several denials he was eventually granted a permit: (from NJ.com) “Judge David Ironson, sitting in Morristown, said the attack by three Missouri men demonstrated Jeffrey Muller faces a “special danger to his life” and has “an urgent need for self-protection” that justifies carrying a gun.

      So no CCW for you, until you’re “lucky” enough to get kidnapped in order to demonstrate that kind of, sort of, maybe you could use a gun for self defense.

      • In his videos he’s doing nothing except perpetuating this myth that gun owners in general cannot be trusted with their weapons.

        False. He’s perpetuating the notion that FPS Russia cannot be trusted with weapons. Just because you falsely equate one person out of 60+ million with “everyone” doesn’t make it true.

        • ok, perhaps my statement was a bit too general, as I don’t want to equate him with everyone else, hence my comment about politicians exploiting those who behave like him. I hope that never happens…

          If I wore that t-shirt here in NJ, I might as well have one that says “Arrest Me Now.” My state already hates guns, it does not need any more “help” from FPS Russia and his minions.

  14. How about this guy who shot his girlfriend because he thought she was a pig?

    Deputies said Steven Egan, 52, and his girlfriend Lisa Simmons were inside a tent when Egan saw a hog. He shot at the hog but wasn’t sure if he hit it.
    Egan then walked out of the tent to look for the hog. When he heard some rustling in the woods, he fired again.
    http://tinyurl.com/bq9g8so

    Or there’s Ted Nugent who just pled guilty to (at least) his second hunting violation.

    In a report in the Anchorage Daily News, the musician and reality star signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on April 14 and admitted to illegally shooting and transporting a black bear in Sukkwan Island, Alaska, two years ago.

    Altho, I guess Nugent might not qualify as he was being dumb with a bow, not dumb with a gun.

  15. You guys are a little slow on the up take aren’t ya. You criticism of FPS is a bit more hollow than biting. Collectively it took you months to figure out his accent was fake, and then you made a post about it as if other people couldn’t figure it out. You criticize him for using fake special effects to promote his site, and create buzz for his sponsors, when you guys can’t find enough sponsors to pay the bills on a WordPress blog, and then moan about it. This seems more like the jealous blogging of middle school children than a website who’s masthead advocates truth and ethics.

    I love how you use the second amendment to justify limiting the first amendment. Come’on, you can’t make jokes about firearms because that could damage the collective ability to have firearms….really,this is your argument? Or may be your argument is that is irresponsible to joke about being responsible because sarcasm is deadly.

    Remember the four rules of sarcasm kids:
    1. Treat all metaphors as if the subject and object are loaded.
    2. Never point sarcasm at anything you don’t wish to ridicule.
    3. Don’t ridicule your target without the proper context.
    4. Always ridicule your target and everyone who supports it.

    Seriously the shirt is funny, and I fully plan to wear one to my next shooting adventure, I think the irony would almost be as funny as the guy from the biggest loser who got kicked off the show while wearing an Epic Mealtime shirt.

    FLAME DELETED

  16. Wow whats with all the hating on Kyle? I really don’t think the shirt is that big of a deal. I understand that guns are dangerous and we shouldn’t actually be irresponsible with them, but its just a joke. He is an entertainer, and he clearly does a pretty good job of it. I don’t think this shirt is irresponsible at all.

  17. Sorry to come to this one so late, but I have a great idea for a T-shirt that will surely appeal to the AI.

    THERE’S NO SUCH THING
    AS AN IRRESPONSIBLE GUN OWNER

  18. He may own some of those weapons, if they are pre-ban. But some of them can’t be sold to general population even with Tax Stamp as they are to new. Must be a military/law enforcement dealer might be letting him use them. If they are registered to a corp, the corp can allow affiliated individuals to basically sign them to temporary custody, for lack of better expression. Unless he has a special dealers license.. IDK. He’s got a entertaining show.

  21. i would have sex with fps russia if he offered he is very big in the vagina and i find that attractive in an octopus sooooo if u people want him gone you can suck my dick

  22. This man is a smart entrepreneur.
    He saw opportunity in making videos like this, and he is now making somewhere close to a quarter million dollars a year.
    A lot of the things he does are illegal in the US, so he is actually cooperating with several government agencies that are allowing him to film things like this.

    It shouldn’t be a problem to you – no one is being harmed.

  23. Deep down I think you guys might be more than a little jealous . . . The dude gets his hands on some serious hardware. And where does all the money come for ammo? Apparently his gun santa is nicer than you all got and that is sayin quite abit as the list of what was got at Christmas more than nice.

  24. This is why hate liberals and why Obama is the worst president ever this is bullshit. He owned all of the permits to use explosives and all liberals are the dumbest bastards ever. A fucking liberal is a half-assed, no logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jackrabbit.

  25. i happen to be one of those gamers, those annoying young and stupid ones(i just turned 18) who might generally watch his videos, so i’ll tell you my story how i got into firearms: Coming from a commie country civilian gun ownership is impossible, so for firearms enthusiasts like me youtube seemed to be the most convenient medium to learn , so one day i typed in “gun videos,people shooting guns,firearms,how guns are made” in the search results came up videos of FPS Russia and many others , i started to watch one by one hoping to be enlightened, but unlike in video games while watching FPS Russia’s videos i didn’t like then for i wanted to learn about the gun not how you can blow down trees in a forest with a .50 cal or him shooting a pound of plastic explosive and creating a blast (also a Russian riding an Striker seemed pretty suspicious 😛 ) so i moved on and was disappointed to find “fail ” videos like “recoil knocks chick over” or “hot girl in bikini shoots shotgun”(i do like girls in bikinis but not in a gun range with guns) but with great blessings i accidentally found a Nutnfancy video and since then i’m happy to be a part of the right crowd . hopefully i’ll own firearms responsibly one day ,be a firearms designer ans maybe TTAG will review one of my designs 🙂

  26. Its not the first time TTAG has flamed a gun blogger. Remember the ‘1911s are finnicky’ overreaction? Sometimes TTAG posts sensationalism rather than unbiased, intelligent posts. It happens! Journalists and oggers will ocassionally jump on something when there’s a slow-traffic day. Its more damaging to TTAG than it is to the likes of FPS Russia or ModernServiceWeapons. People remember…VUURWAPEN summarised it very well

  27. The shirt is in line with shirts that glorify drug use, drinking, reckless driving, irresponsible sex etc. is it stupid, sure, but it’s also free speech. Free expression comes with a caveat, and that is understanding a joke. The shirt is clearly for trolling and it does a great job at riling people on both sides of the gun debate up. Liberals might go ballistic over it but if someone wears a shirt about how a “hoe in every area code” liberals won’t say anything. Irresponsible breeding is way more damaging than irresponsible gun ownership.

  29. Your honestly calling the youtube channel fpsrussia the irresponsible gun owner of the day for not wearing personal eye/ear protection while shooting at close range in his own backyard miles away from anyone else? screw you, go get a real job! btw, I have never worn them either, but that does not make me an irresponsible gun owner! I claim you the irresponsible internet writer of the day.

  30. Bruh this comment section is a bunch of fudds. Not to mention Robert. I bet you don’t even eat ass, clown.

Comments are closed.