Sounds about right. I grew up in central Missouri, and while relatively few of my friends had guns, the one that did had a goddamn arsenal in his bedroom. Two shotguns, three rifles, and a “big” handgun that all stayed in a gun safe, and a .22 pistol he kept under the bed “for safety.” And that was just his room, as a high schooler… His brother and his mother both had other weapons of their own.
Even people who are just hobby shooters or hunters rather than 2A “mah guns” weirdos like said friend was tend to accumulate weapons over time. It’s like any other hobby in that regard.
Yeah, there are a lot of shades of gray for multiple gun owners.
Own a single handgun for self defense
Own a single rifle for hunting
Own both of the above
Own different rifles for hunting different animals
Own a Shotgun for hunting birds (plus some combination of the above)
Own an old/historic gun more as an art piece (but it’s functional if wanted)
Owns a fucking arsenal
Add in the fact that some people sort of end up collecting guns the way some people collect guitars…I wouldn’t be so quick to turn away from the original statistic.
It would be interesting to compare gun ownership to guitar ownership, because the analogy tracks pretty well.
Some people just wanted a guitar. They might play it often, or it might sit in a closet.
Some people have specialty guitars for different reasons. An acoustic for impromptu jam sessions, an electric for band practice, a fancy guitar to play on stage, different bodies for different sounds, etc.
And some people just like collecting guitars. They have a bunch that they have acquired over the years, some favorites, some are investments, some are projects.
I would bet the distribution curve of guns per owner tracks pretty closely with the curve of guitars per owner.
I’ll say that while I do know a couple of people that seem to be prepping for an apocalypse scenario where guitars are the most valuable currency, gun owners have a much larger spike at that end of the bell curve.
Other than that I think it’d be a pretty similar distribution, though.
I lived with a guy who had a kayak collection. Different boats for different rivers or different things he wanted to do. You can only be in one boat at a time, so how many can you need?
He once explained to me how he didn’t have too many kayaks, he actually had too few. He did not have the money for more boats.
Sounds about right. I grew up in central Missouri, and while relatively few of my friends had guns, the one that did had a goddamn arsenal in his bedroom. Two shotguns, three rifles, and a “big” handgun that all stayed in a gun safe, and a .22 pistol he kept under the bed “for safety.” And that was just his room, as a high schooler… His brother and his mother both had other weapons of their own.
Even people who are just hobby shooters or hunters rather than 2A “mah guns” weirdos like said friend was tend to accumulate weapons over time. It’s like any other hobby in that regard.
Yeah, there are a lot of shades of gray for multiple gun owners.
Add in the fact that some people sort of end up collecting guns the way some people collect guitars…I wouldn’t be so quick to turn away from the original statistic.
It would be interesting to compare gun ownership to guitar ownership, because the analogy tracks pretty well.
Some people just wanted a guitar. They might play it often, or it might sit in a closet.
Some people have specialty guitars for different reasons. An acoustic for impromptu jam sessions, an electric for band practice, a fancy guitar to play on stage, different bodies for different sounds, etc.
And some people just like collecting guitars. They have a bunch that they have acquired over the years, some favorites, some are investments, some are projects.
I would bet the distribution curve of guns per owner tracks pretty closely with the curve of guitars per owner.
I’ll say that while I do know a couple of people that seem to be prepping for an apocalypse scenario where guitars are the most valuable currency, gun owners have a much larger spike at that end of the bell curve.
Other than that I think it’d be a pretty similar distribution, though.
I lived with a guy who had a kayak collection. Different boats for different rivers or different things he wanted to do. You can only be in one boat at a time, so how many can you need?
He once explained to me how he didn’t have too many kayaks, he actually had too few. He did not have the money for more boats.