Re: 0 Days Since Last Shooting: But the Second Amendment!
the only people that really had guns then were hunters.
I believe gun ownership statistics show that the number of people who own guns now, say as compared to 40 years ago, has dropped significantly. However, the number of guns owned by people who still have them has increased even more significantly.
That last number is not, at least to me, a surprise. There is no doubt that a portion of the gun owning population has increased the number of guns they own as a result of a misguided belief the government is going to stop the sale of them or some such thing. There is another pretty easy explanation for how it is that the number of guns owned by each gun owner, on average, has increased. Take my example.
40 years ago I think I owned three guns. One was a shotgun, one was a small caliber rifle I used for target practice, and the third was a rifle I used for deer hunting.
I probably own 10 guns now, and I don't for a minute believe that Obama or anyone else is coming to take them away.
I bought a second shotgun because I needed a much smaller and lighter gun for hunting upland game, as opposed to the ducks and geese that I hunted with my original shotgun. I later purchased a second rifle that operated with a bolt action because I was dissatisfied with the semi-automatic rifle that I owned.
In both cases I hung onto the original guns, partially out of sentimental value (one was the first gun that I'd ever owned, the other was a gift), and partially because I still occasionally used them.
Since then I've essentially "inherited" a number of guns. My father gave my brother and me a couple of his guns that had been owned by my grandfather. I received a couple from other family members who passed. The next thing you know I own about 10 guns.
When I needed a new gas grill, I gave my old gas grill away. Guns aren't a product like a gas grill where you get rid of the old one if you acquire a new one. Yeah, I could sell them. But they're also like the cedar chest I inherited from my grandmother when she passed. I don't really need it, but I've kept it out of sentimental reasons and I probably wouldn't get much for it if I did sell it.
I know there are posters here who like to believe that all gun owners just have an insatiable fetish for guns because, well, that fulfills the jerk off fantasy they have about gun owners. So long as those posters keep a closed mind on the subject, the interminable debate will continue.
