Guns and Games
People visit Range Arts for various reasons — inheriting firearms, going hunting with family, prepping for armed security work, and more — but once in a while, someone says they got curious about guns because of video games. Being gamers ourselves, we do wonder to what extent the prevalence of guns in games might lead to curiosity about guns in real life.
And now we need to write some background…
Let’s dispel that semi-popular notion — that all gamers like guns. Cozy gamers can’t stand them! Let’s also dispel the notion that games, which are sometimes violent, create violence in real life. There’s no causal link that has been found by researchers. However, there has been research into exposing children to violent video games, and it does correlate with more dangerous behaviour — so definitely respect those content warnings and keep your firearms stored safely out of reach of prying little hands. Overall, what happens in fiction doesn’t translate directly to the real world. But it makes perfect sense to us that some people who enjoy shooting guns in games might one day wake up interested in learning how the real thing works and follow that curiosity down the path of firearms ownership — not at all unlike someone who loves fantasy games and decides to start collecting swords. Or someone who saw The Karate Kid way back when and took up Karate.
The question this leads us to is…
Could shooting guns in games be useful for shooting guns in real life? Or vice versa?
It’s kind of a ridiculous premise, but… is it so crazy to think that if you were learning MMA watching the UFC might be useful knowledge that could translate back into your training? Or would it be like learning wresting and playing Wrestlemania on NES in the late 80’s… or, surely Duck Hunt (remember that!?) wouldn’t make you better at hunting, but could these high fidelity hunting sims like The Hunter: Call of the Wild make you better at hunting? Maybe…
Not all games are equal, but some games take realism very seriously. Nothing prepares you for the feel of a real gun firing. It’s loud, there can be a strong kick, and you suddenly realize controlling this thing takes a lot of skill — and lots of responsibility. But games with pretty accurate gun mechanics can prepare you a bit for the challenges of handling. VR games like Gun Club VR or Pavlov, which simulate shooting ranges, can broadly teach you to load, unload, cycle the action, and fire various types of guns. They certainly will not replace real-world training, but they can help close the knowledge gap.
Not all games with guns are made equal. Manipulating firearms in most games, from CoD to Fortnite, is a matter of clicking a mouse, keyboard, or controller. That’s simply not building the same manual dexterity or muscle memory as handling a real gun. You might learn a little about parts or attachments, but very little about actually using them. Some first-person shooter games actually simulate ballistics quite well too. You can learn — to some degree — what effects range has on ballistics, how to operate a scope with magnification, how to lead moving targets, and the effects of some attachments that modify the firearm. But of course, this is all simulation and won’t match real-life training.
Also, guns can actually be more awkward to hold and manipulate than people think. They often have quite a bit of weight, and mechanisms are often stiff. Guns are also not one-size-fits-all. The ergonomics of the gun, your body’s frame, arm length, hand size, and strength all factor into how easy (or difficult) a firearm is to handle. Jamesan has been trying to make a magazine release on one of our deactivated training firearms easier to reach by 3D printing a release extender. We don’t have small hands and even we struggle to reach the darned thing… Video games simply won’t prepare you for this.
What could we gain from games?
It really depends on how you play. Games like Ready or Not, Escape from Tarkov, or Arma 3 fall in the broader genre of multiplayer competitive “tactical shooters.” They encourage you to be “tactical” and attempt to build in a high degree of realism for the sake of immersion. Consequently, if you’re roleplaying for realism, you’re probably unknowingly practicing some useful skills.
For example, there’s nothing teammates enjoy less than being shot accidentally. It’s not uncommon for players to need to build their situational awareness and learn to control the direction of their muzzle whenever possible. If you’ve ever been to a group shooting clinic, controlling your muzzle direction isn’t just the second step in ACTS — it’s how you keep everyone safe.
The next habit these multiplayer FPS games (especially those with friendly fire) train, to an extent, is trigger discipline. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re sure of your target, and control the direction of your muzzle — especially to avoid friendlies. Undeniably, gamers aren’t going to be as careful in-game as they would be in real life… but games like Ready or Not encourage being sure of your target and what’s around or behind it, moving slowly and deliberately, keeping teammates safe, and staying aware of your gun’s status (how much ammunition is left in your magazine, for example) through game mechanics which, if mastered, yield success in the game — and decently good habits in real life.
All in all, this is a cheeky little blog post inspired by our thinking about connections between our various interests. As much as games could possibly build some good habits, they could also build some really bad habits. And so we could flip the script and try to take our good habits of safe handling back into games… even if we’ll definitely lose all our matches!
