Not many countries had to arm the person next to the coach driver to fight off natives defending their country against foreign invaders.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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No, but many needed to protect those passengers from bandits and other assorted outlaws.
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!
Bonus fun fact: part of the reason for their success might be that one of the local police informants was … Stalin.
I'm starting to think this Stalin guy has some red flags.
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.
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I'm the times coaches like that became common it wasn't really safe to travel in most parts of the world.
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.
This obe didn't either. Staying home was usually an option.
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Now I'd like to know why in France it's la place du Mort, the seat of the dead...
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
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.
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Because they didn't have a shotgun.
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My kids say "Chewbacca!"
NL here. "Shotgun" is a concept, though mostly through Pop Culture Osmosis.
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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...
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.
After thw wedding is done the father goes "And kid you'd be no smoking anymore get me? I don't wanna hear you went to buy a pack or whatever..."
It's still relevant. I always hand my passengers a pistol before disembarking.
In Australia: yes and it's commonplace. But like 70% of our media is American so unsurprising.
You're basically americans with going outside instead of corn.
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
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 didn't.
Nope. Canada had stagecoach and shotguns too. So did Mexico. The Sundance Kid owned a bar in Calgary at one point, and worked out at the Bar U ranch near Calgary before that.
n't.
That's like an amazing American showerthought, I never even considered it
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.
wait, it's illegal to drink anything while driving in places? when did that happen?
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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.
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