It is a rather human reflex to blame a failure on the equipment. It hurts the pride less when we are not to blame for unsatisfactory outcomes. How many foot races were lost to poorly tied or ill-fitting shoes? How many games of golf tanked because the club had something wrong with it or the ball was not ball-y enough? This copout is perhaps most prevalent along the bays and benches of shooting ranges.
In these hallowed sanctums, one gets to see quite easily how they compare to other shooters, and, in the dreadful case of a lesser performance than the neighbor to the left or the right, the guns almost always take the blame. The Ego of the shooter is often quite sensitive.
Add the presence of a lady among the shooters and it will get worse. Some males will go as far as to loudly curse their innocent gun, attracting the negative attention of the said lady who, otherwise, could not care less (and would have paid no attention to the offending grouping nor to the presence of the frustrated male). Sorry guys: you’ll have to impress the lady by being courteous and respectful and leaving her alone.
Except for the shooter who enjoys casually sending lead downrange or just making noise, most of the people practicing at the range seek not only the gauging of their performance but its improvement. Most likely, any accuracy issue is operator induced and can thus be corrected, but blaming the gun will not help. Let’s be honest: in this day and age of incredible manufacturing technology and infinitesimal tolerances, most guns but the cheapest or from the most dubious origins will outshoot the shooter. Let’s start with us, and we should see improvement.