Really Guilty Pleasure

A "reality" show on Discovery, Sons of Guns, focuses on a gun shop that specializes in machinegun work, though they dabble in flamethrowers, cannons, rockets, suppressors and whatever else will look good on camera. 


If you are gun nut, you'll like what you see. They got some heavy firepower.


The show is pretty bad, insofar as the reality aspect–nothing on it looks remotely spontaneous. When somebody just drops by the store, they are wired for sound, and it feels about as contrived as TV gets; however, it has two things going for it: These guys know the hardware like nobody's business, and Red Jacket Firearms is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The accents don't make me homesick, but they sure do sound familiar.


Yeehaw.


These are good ole boys–and one good ole girl who knows way more about guns than most men, including me–and the banter is typical, and hardly engaging for the intellectually elite. But every now and then, Will Hayden, the founder, pictured above, will drop a word or phrase into his dialog that gives him away. If you think this is just some beer-drinkin' redneck ex-Marine who likes to shoot and blow stuff up and who is as dumb as a post, you'd be making a mistake. Guy is smarter than he lets on.


I've always been amused at how fast people are to assume that southern corn pone accent equates to a low IQ. It's a useful tool to have ...