Ed said:
While I was in the gun shop Saturday looking at the Smith 357's there was another customer (gun shop groupie, more likely) …. Fat Frank is still convinced he is right.
Now hold on justa second, there, fellas!
"Fat Frank" is
my guy! No, I didn't make him up, but it's my
story and I'm going to do my utmost to protect the integrity of the term as it seems to have entered into the lexicon a bit.
"Fat Frank" cannot be a customer… hell, it could be a renegade AOLer or gun-store commando or, as you noted, a gun shop groupie… but the original "Fat Frank" was one of the lead sales staff at Long Island's then-biggest firearms retailer/outdoors store. And that's why I developed such a fierce distaste for his type, a guy in a professional position who should know something about what he is telling people! It's a position of
freaking responsibility, for the love of Peter Pi! (With authority, comes responsibility, damnit!)
Any yahoo in a greasy CAT diesel cap can wander in off the street to hang out at gun store counters and utter any sort of inanities he likes, and other customers may or may not give his blather any weight, and may even take the trouble to challenge him on some of his more egregious pronouncements… more than likely they'll just ignore him and dismiss his information.
But if the guy is behind the counter, it's a different matter all together… he's a firearms professional who is perceived to have more current and authoritative information, and customers are much more likely to give credence to his utterances, if not exactly hang on his every word!
And that's why I'm hell on the "Fat Franks" of the world!
And while Charlie may not entirely agree, I think that's one of the greatest positive potentials of the Internet, the spread of a higher quality of information. And I think it's why Charlie and I and some others work so hard at getting the good information out, and are so unyielding in our criticism of the
Mw/aM* types who flit about from Forum to BB to Newsgroup disseminating questionable information posturing as "in the know."
So, pul-ease! Let us not corrupt the essence of "Fat Frank;" that's one I feel
v-e-r-y strongly about!
*. - "Moron with a Modem." No names, please… there's one such Internet gadfly on this Forum. but we've been working for years to rehabilitate him, and we think he's coming around.