Korean Job Discussion Forums

[thurst]

so i'm in the local grocery store to pick up some pineapple juice and soju and i'm passing the aisle and this normal looking korean guy puts down a pistol on some boxes, grabs a few things and then picks the pistol back up and pays for his stuff and goes about his business. i didn't get a really good look at it, but it looked like it was .380...now my question is: WTF?! is that like normal for people to just be walking around packing heat like that? and on top of that to just be so nonchalantly wielding a piece like that in public with no one batting an eye?


ok as a sidenote, after leaving the store some guy started trying to talk to me and was trying to have dinner in my place and asked me if i "jam"? is that some type of english slang or something bcuz he seemed pretty sure that he was saying the right thing.

[blurgalurgalurga]

It was almost certainly a tear gas pistol.

[thurst]

a tear gas pistol? why would a person be carrying that around?

[GwangjuParents]

One of the security guards in my apartment complex carries a side arm.

I heard they're BB guns or something.

Also a worker at the post office carry's a some kind of side-arm.

[Joe666]

That guy should not have "whatever it was" out in the first place. Sounds like a moronic power play to me. There doesn't seem to be any serious firepower on the sreets of this country. The police that do carry fire arms are sporting low caliber revolvers. They look like .22's

[bluelake]

Yeah, it was probably one of the types others already mentioned. Gun ownership in Korea is quite tight; hunters can have them, but they are kept locked up at the police station out of season.

As a side, my Ph.D. dissertation is on firearms in Joseon dynasty Korea. It will cover the period from the introduction of black powder into Korea more than six centuries ago to the end of the dynasty in 1910. This summer, when I visit back to my folks' place in the States, I'll be doing a lot of "field work" (quite literally), as I have some black powder firearms, plus I have on order a matchlock smoothbore and a flintlock pistol (the last is not part of my research, as Korea never had flintlocks--it's just for fun). A lot of my research involves translating copious amounts of Korean works on the subject...

Anyone else here an enthusiast (especially black powder firearms)?

[kiknkorea]

You said you didn't get a good look at it, so maybe it was one of those toy pellet guns you can get anywhere here. They look real enough. I've seen some that could pass for Berettas or Walthers at first glance.

Or perhaps he was a police officer out of uniform or off-duty.

[Cohiba]

Did a lot of shooting in BC, Canada. Had a 12 gauge, Winchester 30-30,
Lee Enfield .303 But my favourite was a Ruger 10/22. I swapped out
the wood stock for a composite folding stock and put on a scope. The
best thing about it was it was CHEAP. The other guns cost an arm and
a leg to shoot. I could shoot the Ruger .22LR all day for next to nothing.

My boss had a black powder flintlock. Thing had a really hairy hair
trigger.

Funny things:

-my friend had a Norinco AK47. I convinced him to register it after
the new laws came in. Funny thing was he lost the receipt so the RCMP
confiscated it. He hated me for ages.

-I once shot a .22LR into a hardwood tree at about 10m. The bullet
bounced straight back and hit me square in the forehead. No damage.
Just a goose egg. I guess I'm pretty lucky.

-we used to shoot in the clear-cuts of BC. One day we decided to do
some practice drive-by shots at an old fridge. (we were drunk) We got
in my friends beater and rolled down a window. We drove by the
fridge and fired the 30-30. I don't think we ever checked if we hit the
fridge because almost instantaneously after firing we went completely
deaf with wild ringing ears. Firing inside the car had magnified the
sound waves. After 3 days of not being able to hear what our profs
were saying our hearing come back.

Now I miss my guns.

[bluelake]

[mcviking]

I have (back at home) 2 mossberg 500s, A mosen-naggant (fun as hell to shoot and only 99$, plus ammo is so cheap) and my lovely 1911. I miss going to the range but I don't miss feeling the need to carry.

[somethingawful]

[bassexpander]

What that guy had was a gas gun. They shoot tear gas, basically. You need a special permit to get that, too (like have a job as a security guard). For the same reason, the small spray cans of MACE that women can buy in the USA aren't allowed here. Only pump-spray (next to useless) types are allowed for regular people. Anything pressurized is considered a gas gun which requires a special permit.

Bluelake, my father built a few muzzleloaders from kits when I was a kid. He and his friends were into that. He built a pistol and a rifle. I've fired both. They used black powder, or if I remember the name correctly, Pyrodex.

My father never knew it, but when I was in grade school and junior high, my friends and I used to sneak some from his powder horn and build our own fireworks. Very dangerous. I'm amazed I didn't get killed.

[Cohiba]

[bluelake]

New thread over on the OT forum:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=155606

[blackjack]