Get.
The.
Fuck.
Over.
Yourselves.
Disrespectful to the United States Marines? Fucking spare me. For all our war-borne manliness that makes panties drop at a level measured on the Richter scale, the USMC Infantry is the most pink-wearing, ass-smacking, sac-fondling mass of homoerotic man-love I've ever seen on the face of the earth, gods love them. Association with the LGBTQA movement is a badge of honor.
Disrespectful to the flag raising itself? Maybe one in ten of you clowns were griping when Underarmor pulled a commercialized version raising a basketball pole a few months ago. It was stupid to make an issue of then (especially to a company that's done a shitload for military and veteran's groups over the years) and it's stupid now.
But why stop there? Where were the complaints when the pose was parodied on The Simpsons? Robot Chicken? King of the Hill? Newsweek (which used the cast of Jersey Fucking shore. WAY more offensive), G.I. Joe, Doonesbury for fuck's sake. It's an iconic pose known through the decades.
Shit, the adult video association had pornstars doing that pose in an anti-censorship ad a while back, and I didn't hear shit from the pack of you back then.
Taking it from those who died on the island? Even if the U.S.'s sense of history ever gets that bad (which it never should), it's known as an iconic moment of victory following an intense, bloody struggle. Say hello to the LGBTQA movement, folks. The only iconic places they've got is a dive bar in Manhattan and some bloodstained fence pickets in Wyoming. It's as good a symbol as any for last week's SCOTUS movement. Let the fucking thing fly.

There is a trend throughout my profession that few know about. If I've mentioned it, it's only been in passing. And I don't think I've ever written how much it's disturbed me.

There's a trend, surprising as it may be, is a refusal to refer to weapons as weapons. Typically, this is a reaction to post-columbine academia, which shits its tweed trousers at the thought of weaponry on campus. Insisting on terms like "theatrical props" or "sports equipment," is a levee against the storm of bullshit for drama departments, fencing teams, and the like to take what refuge they can in.

(The fact that establishing schools as weapon-free zones has been a miserable, blood-soaked failure is another matter. Campus carry becomes a fact of life in more states every year, and progress in that arena continues. But it is only tangential to the matter at hand.)

I can understand the need to placate the huge bureaucracies that control your fate. I know that a humanities discipline can ill-afford to rock the already-shaky ivory tower. And no fencing team wants to share the sad off-campus fate of NSDU's team.

But in the long run (15 years since Columbine, as I write this), this irritating fiction does more harm than I think anyone realizes.

For one thing, it kills credibility. It is impossible to hold up a sword, with a straight face say, "it's a prop, not a weapon," and not look like a godsdamn tool to anyone who's been remotely near a scrum. Worse if it comes from the lips of an instructor. Because now not only have they been stupid enough to say it, they're someone in authority with enough stupidity to say so. Even if an operator is willing to give benefit of doubt (and most will throw said individual right into the mental "fuck this idiot" pile), they'll be distracted for the rest of the session. Their attention will be split between following the lesson and watching the instructor like a hawk, ready for the next asinine thing to come out of their mouth.

For another, it shows a lack of respect for the weapon. Refusing to call a spade a spade encourages one to treat it like something else. In a world where a news commentator throws an axe, misses his target and hits a drummer, we need MORE respect for a weapon, not less.

Yes, weapons inspire fear in those unfamiliar. Familiarity should transform that fear into respect, not unthinking complacency. Such thinking is exactly what leads to "justs." It was "just" a bread knife that went 4 inches into an actor's torso in Tuscon, AZ. It was "just" a throwing axe that fortunately didn't seriously injure a West Point drummer.

On yet another level, it's just dishonest. When I began selling knives, I've been asked why I didn't use this payment service or that retail service, and my answer would take them aback. "They don't allow weapons dealers to use them," I'd say. To which they would be dumbfounded, saying, "But you just make training/prop/theatrical knives."

As if that makes them any less knives. This fundamental dishonesty rankles me.

(I'd like to point out now to all my gentle readers, the ridiculously easy segue into American weapon politics this could lead to. I'm not gonna go there, 'cause it's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. But I easily could go there.

Be grateful for that, motherfuckers.)

Lastly, it lets us hide from the nature of our stories. Drawing a "theatrical prop" with a dramatic flair and all thoughts on spectacle ignores the fact that thousands died on the point of that "prop." In doing so we do no justice to our stories, nor those whose lives they were based on.

Am I saying that every story told with these weapons should be as grim as a drill instructor at a funeral? No. Not at all. And the fact that we're somehow conditioned to expect that is part of the problem. Taking up arms does not confine or relieve someone of the human condition. On the contrary, it brings that condition into a new level of vivid detail. One lost if those extensions of their bodies and will, their weapons, become just another prop to put on the table and have ready.