• rockstarmode@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      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.

        • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          That makes a bit more sense if true. I don’t easily picture 1920s gangsters wielding shotguns for a drive-by.

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            0·
            2 months ago

            The correct answer afaik is stagecoach, but tbf Clyde Barrow did use cut down Browning A5s in their robberies. While I don’t have any information on whether or not they were fired from a moving vehicle, it could have happened.

  • brisk@aussie.zone
    0·
    2 months ago

    In Australia: yes and it’s commonplace. But like 70% of our media is American so unsurprising.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    2 months ago

    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

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    That’s like an amazing American showerthought, I never even considered it

  • Geodad@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    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 did.

  • S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    2 months ago

    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…

    • oatscoop@midwest.social
      0·
      2 months ago

      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.

  • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Well, for my world it’s interesting because the passenger seat is just that. But before the evolution of tech and everything else heavily affected travel, the front passenger seat held importance in that the one who sits there can assist in reading a map, adjusting the passenger wing mirror, monitoring the side directly while parking or other tight manoeuvres, emotional support for police stops, handling a drink so the driver can hydrate without endangering anyone, an extra pair of eyes on the less vital areas etc… Now these benefits of a primary passenger are almost nonexistent, as better driver-side controls, digital maps, GPS and TTS, and stricter road safety laws (banning consumption while driving) reduce the need for an assistant driver.

    • vivendi@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      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

      • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        The shotgun Georg, who uses a small motorbike to jump inside 80,000 cars on highway and bites whoever is in the shotgun seat anually; is an outlier and their victims should be excluded from this survey.

  • redwattlebird @lemmings.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    This phrase has confused me so much when I heard it in one of Taylor Swift’s songs.

    Then my Texan cousins explained it to me on a visit one day. I was still confused. Now I’ve found out it’s a stage coach thing. Interesting.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Not many countries had to arm the person next to the coach driver to fight off natives defending their country against foreign invaders.

    • uienia@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      There was once a theory that the reason for the difference in which side a vehicle is driving on the road today, stems from whether a country had many stretches of untamed wilderness with lots of bandits. So if there was a high likelihood that whoever you met on the road was a danger, the horsecart driver preferred passing them on the side of their sword arm (right hand as default), while if you did not have to take that into account, you would pass them on the left hand side.

      The theory has now largely been abandonded as spurious, but it does remain a fact that there were dangerous stretches of roads in older times in Europe as well.

    • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’m the times coaches like that became common it wasn’t really safe to travel in most parts of the world.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
        0·
        2 months ago

        Weren’t these coaches a thing in the 19th century US, from which time the term comes? From what i could find quickly, Highway robbery became less of a thing in the UK and mainland Europe by the end of the 18th century.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        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!

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          2 months ago

          Huh, who knew that violent bank robbers who indiscriminately kill bystanders would do a bunch of genocide after their violent takeover complete with secret police and gulags I mean create the best goverbmont in history, praise USSR or something.

            • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              0·
              2 months ago

              Word? Lemme get your bank’s address and the times you go, so I can rob it and shoot you in the fucking face in the process, y’know since killing innocent people in bank robberies is “cool” to you it should be pretty sweet for all involved. Put your money (or in this case, life) where your mouth is.

              • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                0·
                2 months ago

                money where your mouth is

                I’m actually unbanked!

                innocent

                Totally. Killing innocent people isnt morally sound.

                at a bank

                So you mean coerced into complicity?

                absolutely morally uncomplicated and good to simple binary morality

                That is what cool means, yes. Learn to cope with complexity before getting pissy. If you’re going to get precious about innocent dead, maybe talk more about cops and oligarchs.

                • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  Lol I’m not usually one to wish death on people but I hope you get killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time by someone doing something “cool.” You like it so much it just seems like it’s wishing you well, even if that means death in your case.

    • Wilco@lemmy.zip
      0·
      2 months ago

      That’s not what it was for. They fired a shotgun before turning onto a road. If two wagons came head to head on a crappy old western road it could cause hours of delay because the horses would have to be hitched to the back of one of the wagons a pull it all the way back to the crossroad.

      • bier@feddit.nl
        0·
        2 months ago

        No, no, no, this is all wrong. When we discuss immigration and the current situation in the US all Americans are European immigrants.

        When we talk about the genocide of the natives Americans, it was done by Americans, Europeans had nothing to do with it.

        ;-)

      • REDACTED@infosec.pubEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Let’s not pretend colonial europe is a thing (in 21st century) or that EU is ran by catholic church. For whatever reason, lemmy really loves shitting on countries based on what happened centuries ago. It’s pretty much irrelevant and if that is your argument against EU in 21st century, then I genuinely see you as someone who simply wants to hate, but fails to find good enough reasons to do so. Same thing about US, South America and Middle East. Oh, let’s not forget bloody (literally) Asia.