In Bloom
Generation X didn’t invent the concept of tattoos, piercings or dyeing one’s hair eye-watering colors only found on poisonous Amazonian frogs…but we did make it mainstream. We were the first generation to look at ourselves in the mirror and think, This would be better with iridium. We then took that concept and translated it to our guns. Let’s paint a flaming heart on this rifle; let’s festoon it with accessories. As Coupland summarized in Generation X, We Are Not a Target Market, so if we want something to be different and unique to us—and we do—we’re ready to do it ourselves. These days, particularly with those modern sporting rifles we mentioned in the paragraph above, those customization options are much easier and cheaper for the consumer. That’s because, eventually, the industry noticed that people enjoy being able to customize things…although that might have had something to do with Generation Xers finally getting into the industry themselves. (After a minimum of a decade working McJobs elsewhere, natch.) You’re welcome.

Nevermind
Before anybody knew us as Generation X, we were known as the Latchkey Generation. That’s because we were the first generation in which it was normal, even expected, for both parents to work outside the home. That meant that when we came home from school, we let ourselves in with a key we kept on our persons and more or less looked after ourselves until Mom and Dad got home. From a very young age, we expected to be responsible for our own safety (if only for a few hours at a time). It’s probably not a coincidence that the year the oldest of Generation Xers hit legal age to purchase a handgun was pretty much the same year that the national wave of shall-issue concealed-carry laws began passing in the states (1987, Florida). You would have thought that the Angel Gabriel had blown his horn and announced the advent of the Apocalypse from the mainstream media’s reaction to Florida’s passage…but, shortly thereafter, crime dropped. And then it kept dropping. (Guess who wasn’t surprised? Us.) Over the next three decades, state after state has passed shall-issue concealed-carry laws, some even passing Constitutional carry laws that don’t require a permit to carry concealed. You’re welcome.

Do we expect a trophy and a ticker-tape parade? Not at all. We’ll leave that to some other generation. At this point, being recognized for anything other than being snarky and passive-aggressive would probably just scare us into a heart attack. But, you know, you’re welcome.