urbandictionary.com lists three definitions for the word “tacky.” First up, “in bad taste.” That’s a tough one. Like beauty, bad taste is in the eye (nose?) of the beholder. Someone might view the LV-wrapped Walther handgun above as the epitome of good taste. The same people, perhaps, who worship upmarket brands without wondering or worrying one whit about the quality of the products adorned with its identity. Would they care if the Machine Guns Vegas‘ custom gatt was adorned with “real” (i.e. company authorized) Louis Vuitton treated canvas or cheap knock-off plastic? Nope. So, basically, if logo ho’s get wood for this LV gun, chances are it’s in bad taste. But not necessarily . . .

Those of us who appreciate true quality in any product sometimes find ourselves overlapping with customers who buy blindly for status and status alone (e.g. the Ferrari 458 Italia). This is not a bad thing. There are more of them than us. Their money makes it possible for manufacturers to make the stuff we savor.

But man is it annoying when a wealthy know-nothing has what we covet. Not in this case, obviously. Congrats to Walther for making the break from Smith & Wesson to get their quality back up to where it was back in the day, when the PPK and its sibs were made in Germany and James Bond had a Scottish accent. We’ll wait.

Meanwhile, Machine Guns Vegas’ presser skirts and flirts with the “authenticity” of a carry gun with a treated canvas grip (setting aside its stunning lack of practicality in heat or rain or adhesion issues during sweaty-handed defensive gun use).

Machine Guns Vegas range master Ex-Navy Veteran Jacque Carrizosa, 22 years, trained Rhianna in weapons handling for her new movie Battleship.

Machine Guns Vegas has over US$1m worth of guns available to shoot with packages including the World War II package, Seal team, MOB, SAS and Femme Fatale.

All of the ‘gun girls’ have previous gun or military experience. “They’re the real deal,” says [Machine Guns Vegas Managing Partner Genghis yes Genghis] Cohen who was co-founder of Tabu at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

OK, urban dic definition number two: “gaudy, flamboyant, and flashy in apparel.” Yup. This gun is stealth-minded tacticool like Candice Boucher is butt ugly. ‘Nuff said?

Number three: “someone that [sic] is overdressed/overdone and is just a show off.” Applied to an inanimate object, we’re talking about a product that calls attention to itself for the sake of calling attention to itself. Or, more likely, screams for attention for no better reason than it wants attention.

Tacky guns are the firearms equivalent of Kim Kardashian. A Gold Desert Eagle springs immediately to mind. Any firearm with jewels on it. Any cheap gun with really expensive accessories. That said, again, there’s the awful nexus between real quality and attentiongrabbingnessosityitude (i.e. bling). Paris Hilton’s Mercedes SLR. A Wilson Combat Aristocrat [above]. Like that.

In the final analysis, yes Machine Guns Las Vegas’ Louis Vuitton edition Walther is a very tacky gun. The tackiest in the world? Close but no Padron. The aforementioned firearms are way worse. But none of them risk a lawsuit from a major luxury goods brand. And if this one doesn’t, if LV gave MGLV the green-light, well, I’ve got some fabulous luggage I’d like to sell.

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16 COMMENTS

  3. For the record, real Louis Vuitton monogram products are not leather. They are a treated canvas.

  4. Brightly colored clothes and big, flashy jewelry are sneered at now as ‘low brow’ because the power class wears more restrained ,conservative clothing. Not so in the past. In the eighteenth century, for example, the ordinary folk wore the plain clothes because they couldn’t afford color while the elites wore brilliantly colored silks and satins, fine linens, and heavy jewelry. Blue pigment was so valuable that specific quantities were stipulated in the contracts painters made with their clients. It was an easy distinction.

    In the nineteenth century modern manufacturing made brilliant color available to more and more ordinary folks and so the paradigm shifted. When the common folk gain access to territories previously exclusive to the elites, the elites simply find some other place in which to display their wealth.

    “Common folk” are guilty of the same maneuvering. I am always amused when I hear a shooter boast of his disdain for “pretty” guns, snobbily preferring the militantly plain Glock aesthetic (Bauhaus?) or some other design unsullied by considerations of beauty. Present company excluded, or course!

    My ideal “dress gun” would be a bobtail Colt Commander, blued with checkered rosewood grips in a brown leather OWB holster.

  5. You can’t beleive the chaos that print pattern causes to those that suffer dyslexia.
    “Lysdexics Untie!”

  6. You must be joking. Have you actually seen some of the pimped up, gold, jewel, silver and mirror encrusted monstrosities coming out of the drug cartels in Mexico? And those pieces are actually used for ‘work’.

  7. You guys have not seen tacky yet. Now that gun ownership is being embraced by increasingly demographic groups — that previously avoided guns — such as the socialist-type modern-era liberals (traditional liberals are fine and good) and the gender-raunch community of slat-walking women guns will be increasingly dressed up um weird.

  10. Tacky? You want tacky? Type “Guns of Mexican Drug Lords” into a search engine.

    Sort of re-defines “tacky”.

  11. I’ve had my hands on a gold plated Sterling L2A3 & will admit to liking it almost as much as the black one.
    Excessive engraving, “designer labels” & arty-farty colouring is a different matter.

  12. I have always wanted a duraluminum framed PPK to go with my Interarms PPK/s. I hope Walther reintroduces it…and yes, I know about the Bersa which is almost a clone (and a decent little gun according to everyone I have ever spoken to who uses it), but I would like the real thing.

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