"ok, imagine a gun."
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That makes a bit more sense if true.
I don't easily picture 1920s gangsters wielding shotguns for a drive-by.wrote last edited by [email protected]The correct answer afaik is stagecoach, but tbf Clyde Barrow did use cut down Browning A5s in robberies. While I don't have any information on whether or not they were fired from a moving vehicle, it could have happened.
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arr
Pirate detected.
Hoist the flag high!
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Fun fact: Joseph Stalin first became known to Lenin when he organized the successful robbery of a bank stagecoach in Russia. The stagecoaches were heavily protected by armed men riding on the outside of the coach as well as riding horses alongside, but Stalin observed that they tended to relax their guard upon reaching a densely-populated city, on the assumption that revolutionaries would not be willing to injure or kill innocent bystanders.
This assumption was very wrong in Stalin's case. He had his people lob satchel bombs at the coach and riders after they reached the city, killing most of the guards as well as nearly 100 innocent bystanders in the vicinity. They made off with a huge amount of money, and Lenin congratulated Stalin although he had only planned the operation and not participated in it. The importance of delegation!
Bonus fun fact: part of the reason for their success might be that one of the local police informants was … Stalin.
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I thought it was a US police thing, because the passenger seat is where the shotgun is commonly holstered.
Every American police car I've seen has the gun rack in the trunk.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
That is purely an American thing.
Not saying my family had someone in the passenger seat with a shotgun to protect their batch of white lightning...also not saying they didn't.
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They're both staplers - one's just manual and the other isn't.
Spray bottles did not exist before guns, no.
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Bonus fun fact: part of the reason for their success might be that one of the local police informants was … Stalin.
I'm starting to think this Stalin guy has some red flags.
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That's like an amazing American showerthought, I never even considered it
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It's used in the UK too
Fortunately I can't say I've ever met anyone who uses it. I believe it though, I'm seeing American-isms creep in to regular speech more and more.
Can't say I like it.
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Years ago I read "shotgun wedding" and thought it was common to see a guy having to marry a girl he fucked while her father was there at the side with a rifle.
Capaz son asi andá a saber...
wrote last edited by [email protected]It means "quick marriage because the bride is pregnant" and that is 100% the origin of the phrase.
Particularly in poorer, rural parts of the USA having a child out of wedlock was incredibly shameful, and the financial burden of a single motherhood was intolerable. So the bride's family would ensure the man responsible married their daughter ... regardless of how he felt about it. Sometimes that meant having a shotgun at the wedding to ensure he didn't run off.
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Every American police car I've seen has the gun rack in the trunk.
. Modern cop cars may be different. -
They're both staplers - one's just manual and the other isn't.
Spray bottles did not exist before guns, no.
They both put staples into things but they aren't really interchangeable functionally. It makes sense to distinguish them depending on the context.
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Shotgun is an America thing, coming from the stagecoach era. The shotgun in question has a shortened barrel for reduced storage footprint.
The BMW R12 has a sidecar mounted with an MG 42 light machine gun. But no-one calls sidecar gunner
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La place du mort, c'est pas le siège du milieu a l'arrière ?
Ben j'ai toujours pensé que c'est la place du passager.
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While this is probably some bullshit from the horse drawn carriage era, what I'd like to say is that statistically speaking riding shotgun is the most dangerous seat in car crashes, so the saying still works
Isn't that because a driver will instinctively pull left (instinct to protect their own body) when facing a head on collision in many cases? Also the rate of being thrown from the vehicle, being pierced by objects from outside the vehicle, and the risk of unsecured things (including passengers not belted in - wear your goddamn seatbelt!) flying forward from the back all being higher?
Not sure how the saying still works if those types of things are the main causes for passengers riding shotgun being statistically higher to get fatally injured
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Ben j'ai toujours pensé que c'est la place du passager.
Ça dépend peut-être de la région.
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Yes, thats part of the why but it's still odd culturally from the perspective of the rest of the world especially since what you're describing occurred 100+ years ago and the terminology has likely only persisted because of the US' gun obsession.
only persisted because
That is a wild stretch of imagination. Loads of things we say, across all countries and languages, persist for centuries after losing their original meanings.
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only persisted because
That is a wild stretch of imagination. Loads of things we say, across all countries and languages, persist for centuries after losing their original meanings.
Sure but in this case there are numerous gun related phrases that have persisted in American culture because of this particular affinity.
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NL here. "Shotgun" is a concept, though mostly through Pop Culture Osmosis.
hi northernlion i love your videos
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The apocryphal story is actually kind of interesting.
Roads and right of way established during the pre-firearm era were that you'd ride on the left, with people going the opposite way on your right. This was so you could use your dominant hand (usually your right) to use a sword to defend yourself.
Roads after firearms were available often established right of way with riding on the right, with oncoming traffic on the left. This is because when you shoulder a firearm on your right shoulder it's easier to aim left.
Stagecoach drivers would sit in the left seat, with the extra person sitting on the right, holding a shotgun, hence the colloquial term for the front passenger seat.
I have no idea how true this is, but it makes for an interesting story.
In Europe it was because of Napoleon. In the US is was because of how wagons were made, according to this article:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/02/business/why-americans-drive-on-the-right-and-the-british-on-the-left
