A show called Top Shot has no business asking competitors to fight for supremacy by throwing Tomahawks, darts or fluffy pillows. At least a blowgun (last night’s elimination challenge) is a gun. Mind you, it’s not my idea of a “real” gun. That would be something that fires a projectile at more than 150 feet per second. If I were king of the forrrrrrest, I’d have the Top Shot aspirants shooting at each other with simunitions until someone screams like a little girl. Stock still marksmanship? Teamwork? Trick shots? Plates? Not to put too fine a point on it, fuck that shit. I want combat! Bruises! BLOOD! Hello? History channel? Where are the competitive recreations of famous gun battles, from Tombstone to Stalingrad to Afghanistan? What’s your take? What should these girly men be doing to claim the title of Top Shot—other than wearing sunglasses to avoid retinal damage from the host’s blindingly white teeth?

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20 COMMENTS

  1. I couldn’t agree more. I thought throwing knives was stupid last year and tomahawks is just as egregious this year. You have a bunch of competitors who are proficient in shooting one or more kinds of firearms and you ask them to throw an axe?

    To paraphrase an old saw, an ax is to a gun as a fish is to a bicycle.

  4. I like the fact that they test the contestants ability to adapt to different situations and weapons. I think the show is mostly hokey because of its “reality” components, but the variation in tools doesn’t bother me. My moto is “Any weapon, any time, anywhere.” I don’t have the time or the money to practice all of it, but that is my goal. Besides I would be kind of careful calling sniper, the marine, or the bronze star recipient who are competing “girly men,” not to mention the hunter/practical guy who leads the red team. He knows how to use all the weapons.

  5. “What’s your take? ”

    My take is I haven’t watched any of this season past the first 20 minutes of the first episode.

  6. I was impressed both the AF sniper and one of the competitive shooters said it was the most stressful event to that point, by far, in the competition. Throwing Tomahawks seems silly but it made for good drama.

  7. If thrown tomahawks make you a ‘top shot’, why not spears, slings, atlatls, boomerangs, and darts? In fact, why not the little triangular paper ‘footballs’ that we’d try to flick through each others’ upright thumbs (goal posts, anyone?) when the eighth-grade teacher wasn’t looking? Spitballs? Snowballs? Footballs? Enough already.

    I’m not saying that throwing a tomahawk is easy! I’ve tried it repeatedly and in fact it’s really difficult, but it’s immaterial to one’s qualifications as a marksman-of-all-trades.

  8. While I don’t really mind the tomahawk, it is a weapon after all, I do have a better idea. If they want a head to head with primitive weapons use flintlock muskets. Have them do a team post shoot. Everyone loads and shoots as fast as they can and the first team to cut through a post wins. That would incorporate strategy, teamwork, and marksmanship in one event. However, both the tomahawk and the blowgun do help show who is adaptable to any weapon.

  9. Marksmanship is skill with a projectile weapon, and if you throw the projectile yourself, then that just makes it more hardcore. I liked the tomahawks. Besides, the show would be boring if it was just 1911’s one week, Glock 17’s the next week, Beretta 92’s the week after that, etc. Variety is the spice of life.

  11. I want to see these guys shooting guns, not bows or throwing things or shooting spit balls out of a tube.

  13. You are dead on. The premise of this show is not general weapon mastery, its about being a dead-eye shot. More guns, less drama and no ancient tribal weapons and we’ll all be happier.

  14. i thought the episode when they shot arrows through those tubes was lame also. why not have a civil war rifle showdown or something that to make it challenging.

    oh and somebody on the blue team please smack jay already

  15. Top Shot… What does one shoot with? You loose an arrow. You throw a spear. You huck a rock. The whole premise of the show is messed when you put all these silly things in. Shooting is done with guns. Why not keep it to that? We watch a show about guns so we want to see shooting. Not every other episode, all of them. Any time we get these silly primitive shout-outs me and the wife pretty much just laugh or yawn the episode away as it plays in the other room while we put away dishes.

  16. Colby Donaldson, the host if this fine show, completely takes the cake for the most contrived, fake drawl talkin’, five o’ clock shadowed, reality host. I love the show but must force my t.v. into mute mode to get through it.

  17. This show is bringing a responsible use of firearms into the mainstream. This can be one of the biggest assets to our cause. I’m glad it doesn’t appeal to the pro-2a base, because it’s job is not to appease us. It’s job is to gain the interest of most people, and I think it has caused a lot of people to get into firearms because they see the show and think, “I’d like to try that.” Now stop complaining unless you want a majority to vote our rights away.

  18. Guns are cool and I shoot as often as I can, but I throw tomahawks and knives daily because it doesn’t entail driving to the range and let’s be honest, it takes a high level of skill to hit a target with a knife and I get more satisfaction out of it.
    Granted the name is Top Shots, but isn’t the premise of the show versatility with weapons that can be launched whether the launcher is your arm or gunpowder or another method?
    I am in agreement with Tony and would like to see a flintlock musket or pistol challenge of some sort.

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