Are We Seriously At The Point Where We Are Judging Skill Based On How Worn Is Our Equipment?

This weekend, I saw a post at The Truth About Guns under the title, "Brand New Flat Dark Earth Gear: Everyday Carry Pocket Dump of the Day." It was a comment about a post by someone at Every Day Carry who described himself as a flat dark earth (FDE) fan. And his firearm and other equipment showed it, as they were all variants of FDE or Coyote Brown or whatever it is called this month. It seemed to me to be a pretty nice looking set of kit, and a generally useful selection to boot.

     But that is not what the TTAG author thought. Instead, he wrote:

      Look at that.  No holster wear on his GLOCK 26.  No pocket wear on his Streamlight single-AA flashlight.  Zero wear on that Leatherman multi-tool.   In fact, the whole thing, right down to those C-notes look brand new and never carried.  What’s the point of having that stuff if you don’t carry it?

      Yeah, some might say, “well, he takes care of his stuff.”  I say the real world isn’t like that.  You’ll get holster wear from carrying your piece and practicing with it.  Just like you’ll wear off anodizing from your flashlights, and get scuffs, nicks and character on your multi-tool unless you keep it in a velvet-lined carried never to be used.

      And unless Mr. Nordstrom lives in one of the 16 (or is it 18 now?) constitutional carry states, he needs a license to carry.  I don’t see any wallets there.  Or a holster for that matter.  But hey, when all your gear is unused in your gun safe, you don’t need a holster.

      Sorry for being a little harsh, but I like these EDC things to see what works for real people in the real world, not hypotheticals.

So, I get the impression that the TTAG author must think that the only legitimate EDC items are those that look like they've been dropped and kicked around on pavement, had all the finish worn off by being stuffed in cheap kydex holsters, and otherwise abused like an Army rifle that has been kicking around in the Middle-East for the better of two decades. No one is allowed to replace anything old, or show off something new. Pray tell, what is the appropriate amount of wear and tear to be tacticool?

    I'm not the only one that has noticed this attitude. Herschel at The Captain's Journal noted a snarky post from Tamara Keel where she contends that "A carry gun without a reasonable amount of wear on it should be a source of shame, not pride." Herschel's thinking is in line with mine, although he expresses it much better:

So rather than be a fashion Nazi and assume that the appearance of your firearms says something about your soul, I prefer to let you decide how clean, scratch-free and pristine you keep your firearms.  If you do better than I do, then more power to you.  The better you take care of your machines, the better they take care of you.  I hate machines that don’t work, almost as much as I hate it when people abuse machines.  We are in a continual fight against the second law of thermodynamics, whether with your automobile, your HVAC or your firearms.  I don’t consider it an article of shame to take care of yours.  Entropy always increases.  Why help it along?  Why not slow it down when we can?

Besides, firearms manufacturers have gone to a lot of trouble to come up with coatings that resist wear and scratches.

      Yeah, I have EDC gear that is worn along the edges, but that is because of carrying these items in a cheap kydex holster or in the same pocket as my keys. A different holster or more protected place of carry and they would probably look nearly new. Case in point is a Gerber Multitool that I've had since when they first came out back in the 1990's. Although I have carried it almost daily over that period, it has hardly been worn on my belt: it generally rides in its carry pouch inside the pocket of a book bag or day pack. I don't use it as an everyday tool because I actually own pliers and screwdrivers, but it has been used in pinch. Nevertheless, because of the off-body carry, it pretty much looks like it did when I first bought it some 20+ years ago.