Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Not just for urban criminals and drug dealers anymore!

Although I'd started working in gun shops back in '93 or so, it wasn't until 2001 that I started doing any serious collecting. Soon I had sold off all the assorted effluvia I had bought over the years except for a handful of "working guns" and was focusing on collecting S&W revolvers and older military rifles. I was now no longer a "shooting hobbyist", I was a "gun collector" which is a different kettle of fish entirely.

While the shooting hobbyist may accumulate a couple of guns that interest them, for the most part the guns are utilized for shooting, not just for having. Rarely is there any particular level of obsession involved, either: They shoot and golf and tend vegetable gardens and have other hobbies. A serious collector, on the other hand, appears a little touched in the head to the outsider. The same gene that causes someone to fill their house with ceramic frogs, build a perfect O-gauge replica of the Topeka switchyards in their attic, or have a basement that looks like a Radio Shack delivery truck overturned in a broadcast studio is at work when grown adults quibble over the internet as to whether it's properly called the ".32 Single Action" or the "Model 1-1/2 Top Break".

Getting into collecting exposed me to a whole new kind of hobbyist. While my collection may seem large to those who do not collect, it isn't a patch on many I've seen. This is a hobby that is, due to its very nature, populated by folks with fairly serious levels of disposable income. Mostly older and mostly professionals, I have met doctors, lawyers, judges, and engineers, all equally enthusiastic about their particular niche of the hobby. Vintage Colts, old Winchesters, American martial arms; if it can be collected, there's someone out there collecting it.

It was pretty amusing, then, to be pointed at a Reuters piece that seemed to express surprise that normal people, not just "urban criminals and drug dealers", collected guns. Frankly, I can't see an "urban criminal" getting excited about finding the right bayonet to go with his Brazilian M1908/34 Mauser or a "drug dealer" painstakingly finding the proper Mark Twain book to serve as a prop in a photo of her newly-acquired 19th Century revolver (unless by "drug dealer" they meant "pharmacist"). Leave it to a reporter to get into a hand-wringing tizzy about harmless old duffers and their eccentric hobbies.

Thankfully, NRAhab saved me some trouble by giving the subtle hit piece the fisking it so richly deserves.

5 comments:

  1. And isn't an "arsenal" where they manufacture firearms, and an "armory" where they store firearms?

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  2. That S&W photo is so good, it should be in Wikipedia.

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  3. "shooting hobbyiest" not obsessed?

    One trip to a BR match will cure you of that notion.

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  4. Bear with me, here; it was necessary for the article to flow.

    Besides, benchrest guys aren't "shooting hobbyists", they're reloaders, which is another thing altogether. Reloaders make UFO fans look like casual hobbyists.

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  5. Yeah, I'm a little touched like you I guess. I've been collecting since about 1970. I had 6 huge safes full and got tired of buying new safes.

    I just reinforced my garage and had the garage door removed and walled up the opening. I have a bank vault door on the inside of the house to the garage and I just built some nice looking racks where I can see all my guns when I go in there.

    Very seldom will I buy a non-shooter though. Even though I don't shoot all my guns, I like for them to be in shooting condition. I have maybe 5 that are not.

    Right now I need to either buy a bigger house with a bigger garage or add another garage to the house I live in. I couldn't cram another toothpick in that room much less another gun.

    That does not stop me from collecting though. I have a father and 3 brothers that have plenty of safes and garage space.

    Molon Labe,
    Joe

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