So why do you own a gun?

[YorkNecromancer]

I'm from the UK. Over here, we have some of the most stringent gun laws in the world. Basically, if you want a gun in this country? You can't have one. Not ever. There are exceptions - shotguns with a magazine capacity of three bullets or less (shotguns have to be kept locked and bolted to a load bearing wall at all times, ammunition has to be kept in a locked safe in a separate room; I have farmer friends who tell me these things), or else black powder weapons like muskets. But that's it. Anything else is utterly illegal.

Do we have shootings? Sure. There are illegal guns all over the place. In the 90's, Manchester (a famous industrial city in the North of the country which is kind of the number two city in England after London) had so many, it was known as 'Gunchester'.

But overall, guns are just a thing we don't do. Even our police are generally unarmed. Yeah, there's SO19, the rapid response firearms unit (with a response time of 15 minutes anywhere in the country), and the number of Tasers on the street has gone up, but generally we don't like the idea of an armed constabulary and honestly? I can't see that ever changing.

In the UK, there is a distrust of firearms that borders on an article of faith. Yeah, we all love action films, and you always get some people clamouring to arm our police, but as a people? We kind of despise the idea of free access to guns. To put it into context, saying 'I own a gun' is roughly equivalent here to saying 'I own a large stockpile if IEDs'; it's a frightening, alien idea. The questions which immediately come to mind are: why? And also, why? In the same way as owning a large stockpile of IEDs is insane, well - that's kind of the British attitude towards guns. Like I say, this is only a generality, but it's got precedent in law here: if you carry something which might even looks like a gun (say a NERF wrapped in a plastic carrier bag) you could be sent away for a five year stretch. (Long story: guy held up banks with a tire iron, thought he wouldn't get the sentence for armed robbery because it wasn't a real gun - turned out he was wrong.)

Anyway: that's my nation's general position. We dislike guns.

So here's the thing. There's been lots of threads here that are pro-gun/anti-gun, etc... I'm not interested in that. Not at all. This is not the 'guns are bad/good' thread. This is the 'hey: here's my personal opinion here' thread.

If you own a gun, why? I'm not trolling, I'm not going to call you stupid or say you're wrong. I'm not going to demand you defend yourself. I'm genuinely, honestly curious. And every time I've asked in the past, the thread has collapsed into the usual unpleasantness. I'd like to avoid that. Why did you come to the beliefs you did? What shaped your opinions on firearms? Would you give them up? If yes, why? If no, why not? Is your life better for having weapons in it?

Not a discussion of the ethics, or the politics, or any of the 'big picture' issues. Just the purely personal, and in more depth than just 'I like 'em.' - just because you like fatty foods, doesn't mean you should eat them when you're 700 pounds overweight, you know? There's got to be more to it than 'I like 'em', surely?

Basically: why? I am honestly curious to know.

[Deadlift]

Back in the UK I had a shotgun licence (some years ago) as did my stepfather. Mostly clay pigeon but did a bit of pigeon and rabbits too. I lived in Devon so shooting in a rural area was plentiful with farmers permission. I sold my guns quite some time ago and didn't renew my licence. I did enjoy shooting but I decided I didn't want guns in the house, even in the required cabinet when the kids came along.
Hunting seems to be a big thing here in Canada, but not for me.

[Wolfshade]

A friend of mine has a single shot rifle that he uses to hunt deer.

[DWest]

Living in the Midwest of the USA, I can give a good, one-word explanation for why you would want to own a gun: Coyote. For those of you who aren't familiar with the animal, think a golden retriever crossed with a forum troll, then kept hungry enough to want to take a bite out of anything, even a weapon-bearing human 4x its size. They don't tend to show up within actual city limits (although we do get raccoons that I'm pretty sure could shrug off bolter fire, but that's another story), but my dad's house is less than 10 miles away, and he hears coyotes and sees tracks on a regular basis. So if I were to be living on a property like that, I would consider a decent gun to be a necessary purchase. However, a shotgun similar to what York described as legal for UK would be sufficient for that purpose.

But that's just the practical side of things. I personally was given a .270 rifle from my grandfather, and also would inherit 2 shotguns and 3 more working rifles from my father, and given the ability to keep them properly, I would probably keep most of them, but for reasons other than to shoot; one of the shotguns for example was made by my great-great uncle (as in, start with steel bar stock and a billet of wood, and make all the workings from scratch). The historical value of the items makes them worth keeping, above and beyond their status as a weapon.

[Anakzar]

The reason I own guns is simply, I Hunt. Mostly I carry a 30-30 in hand and a .22 pistol in my pack while following my 6 hounds. We hunt for bobcat, grey fox and mtn lion. Also put in for deer and elk tags every year as does my dad. Most years we get drawn for at least one elk and two deer. We rarely need to buy meat from the supermarket.

I am not into the shooting for the sake of shooting and don't target practice. The ammo is too expensive... and frankly I have never had a problem hitting what I aim at. Took a cow elk at just under 100 yards this year and a nice buck white-tailed at 200 yards those two guns will likely sit in the gun case until next year's elk and deer season.

[lobster-overlord]

My wife's Father and Step father (yes, that means I technically have two Mothers-in-Law as well....) both have guns. One is a gun nut, and the other a nut with a gun. The step dad is a retired police officer, and he collects guns. He has a hand made Viet cong shotgun, several police weapons and a hand full of others, along with enough ammo to survive well into the Zombie Apoc. But he likes guns, and collects different styles and calibres. Do I under stand it? no. Now, the father, the nut with a gun, does go hunting and so he has a couple of rifles, but he's also the magistrate for the county where he lives in rural Tennessee. Does he need the handguns? no, but he has some.

One has offered me weapons, to which I have refused, as I don't hunt, I don't believe in the idea of a zombie apoc, and I don't feel as a family, we need to shoot the animals on our property (yet). Plus my kids are so highstrung, they wouldn't be able to keep hands off.

Personally, I am a huge fan of the UK gun laws and wish we had more things like that. Our 2nd amendment was created as a direct response to the British Empire's occupation of the colonies and our need to get out from under your thumb. Now, I do feel that both of these guys have the intent at heart behind why they have them... guns for protection of their family, friends and freedom. Is there a threat? No. DO we need a "well regulated Militia"? No, we have a top notch volunteer army. Could we ever do away with personal possession and ownership of arms in the US. Not in a million years. It wasn't a well thought out plan on the part of our constitution I think.

Owning them for hunting, and the like it certainly the only reason why I see that people should need to have them. But you will always have illegals and you will always have the nuts with guns.

[DarkLink]

Shooting is a ton fun. They're mostly like sports cars, you can dislike people who drive them for the low gas mileage all you want, but when it's you behind the wheel you can't help but admit it's pretty awesome.

When I was in high school, my friends and I would periodically go trap shooting at the range, so my parents got me a Remington 870 for that. Still go occasionally, in fact when one of us got married last summer the first order of business in the bachelor party was to drive up to some BLM land and shoot little clay pigeons out of the sky. It's hard to describe how fun trap shooting is unless you've done it before.

I own a Springfield XD, unfortunately not a nicer XDm due to California's draconian gun laws, but it's still fun to shoot. Handguns are a lot of fun, and until you've fired one you simply can't appreciate how much skill it takes to shoot well with one.

My dad gave me an old Ruger 10/22 he had basically lying around, which is great for just plinking. Only problem is ammo is in huge demand right now, and it's basically impossible to find .22LR. It's also not exactly the most accurate of rifles, at best it'll shoot maybe an 8" group at 100 yards. I wouldn't mind getting a higher quality .22 or maybe a .17HMR for precision shooting at shorter ranges.

I would love to get an AR-15, but California's gun laws mean it has to have some stupid modifications. It would be like a guy who loves cars buying a Lamborgini that had an engine swap with a Prius. Kinda defeats the point. If I ever got into hunting I would get a bolt action of some sort as well, probably, though large caliber rifles like the AR-10 are becoming more common in that regard. The AR-15/10 platform is as accurate as any bolt action rifle. Not the biggest fan of the AR-15's control group, though. Nothing's ambidextrous, the charging handle couldn't be placed more awkwardly, etc, so I would probably look at some of the alternatives to the AR-15 as well.

[DarkLink]

Oh, I also got to pull the whole cleaning the shotgun bit when my little sister's boyfriend picked her up for prom.

Not a discussion of the ethics, or the politics, or any of the 'big picture' issues. Just the purely personal, and in more depth than just 'I like 'em.' - just because you like fatty foods, doesn't mean you should eat them when you're 700 pounds overweight, you know?

You say you're trying to avoid any unpleasant political discussion, but then you end with the implied accusation that there's something wrong with owning firearms and that it's irresponsible and unhealthy. That kinda defeats the point, right?


Edit: also, the idea that fatty foods are unhealthy is outdated. Anything that isn't a transfat is perfectly healthy, especially when standard practice for making foods "low fat" is to replace the fat with sugar. Fatty foods like red meats have been stigmatized by either bad or incomplete science, when more recent developments have shown that saturated fats are not the devil people thought they used to be. Though, if your idea of red meat is a big mac, then I guess you're still correct, even if it's not really the fat in the big mac per se that makes it so unhealthy.

[eldargal]

For shooting and consuming the flesh of birds.


And sometimes other things, shot a boar in Spain once. Sometimes rabbits though we don't see many around here for some reason. Maybe because we killed and ate most of them.

[Wolfshade]

Oh and my mother-in-law owns a hand gun of some description as she lives in south africa and something to do with in case her husband uses the bathroom at night...