Snapshots: Not What Wilbur and Orville Had In Mind … And Bacon

We have a winner … or two for "Not Legal for Sale in California." From AmericanRifleman.org we have, "Did he fire 42 shots or only 41? Well to tell you the truth Punk, I kind of lost track myself …" submitted by Michael Bodner, and from Facebook we have Joshua James: "I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking 'did he fire 48 shots or only 47?' Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is an Enouy, the most absurd handgun in the world, you've gotta ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?'"

Hmm. Seeing as we have only one coaster, we award this week's prize to Joshua for best use of an adjective (although we actually may have photos of more absurd guns) in a caption contest but will find an alternate runner-up prize for Michael.

When you have magazines dating back to 1885, you end up flipping through pages and chuckling at times over what you find. Although American Rifleman is the world's oldest and largest firearms authority, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun. And we’re willing to share that fun with our readers. Thus continues the American Rifleman’s weekly photo caption contest.

On Nov. 12, 1912, George W. “Birdman” Beatty and Charles Lee Calder took to the air over Staten Island, N.Y., “Having tested the full joys of ‘the shoot’ on the Old Mother Earth, the twentieth century marksman has finally taken his modern firearm into the heavens, on the wings of the torpedo boat of the clouds, there to battle in more glorious conquests.” What was the “glorious conquest?” Zooming around the skies of New York shooting balloons. Calder’s opponent whiffed on all five of his balloons, “Though his aviator worked skillfully in jockeying.” Calder, the clear winner of this Wright Flyer-based version of pre-sporting clays, nailed three, and said “[T]here is no diversion to compare with ‘gunning in the clouds’ for pure enjoyment, and predicts for it a permanent place among American sports.” Yeah, not so much.

The original caption was “A Shotgun Shooting Contest in the Air,” but we think you can do better.

Keep it clean. Bloomberg probably pays an intern minimum wage to read this blog. Entries will be subjectively judged by staff editors between takes of the TV show, testing guns and making authors seem literate. The winner we deem worthy will be printed here. All judgments final. No returns. Winner will receive a random item from a box under Mark Keefe's desk the manufacturer did not want back, yet was marginally valuable enough to not throw away. This week’s special guest judge is American Hunter's own Shawn Skipper, who contributed the most satisfying prize to date. As if just being bacon were not enough-Mmm, bacon-we have an actual can of CMMG’s Tactical Bacon. That’s right, 9-ozs. of bacon, perhaps combat-ready bacon, delivered to your door if you have the best caption for Birdman Beatty and his A-5 toting friend. The instruction on the can are very clear “Open can” followed by step two, which is “receive bacon.” Actually we have no idea what is actually in this can. It is probably bacon, but it could be cling peaches from the Eisenhower Administration. We don’t really know.

Official Snapshots Rules:

• Caption submissions must be made in the comments section of this blog, or on the corresponding Facebook post.

• One winner will be chosen, selected by Mark Keefe or a randomly selected guest judge.

• Keep it clean, folks.