Buying pistols and rifles is no different from buying anything else you have an interest in: sometimes you buy them, they don't live up to your expectations and you sell them right away. Sometimes when you purchase something it makes you want to have something a little different. Sometimes you become interested in the history of a particular kind of thing and then want as many examples of that thing as you can find. Occasionally you buy one and you want to buy another because it works so well. It could be that you have the discretionary money to spend and can buy two or three, or maybe you just have enough money to buy one and learn to use it well. Then there are other times that you buy one and find that there are so many other people interested in it that you develop more of an interest in it than you had at the beginning. There are also situations where you just buy one because you pick the perfect one and keep it in the safe and never use it for any reason.
A lot of times, you buy them because you have a very good reason to own one, as a part of your job, and because everyone should be able to protect themself.
And sometimes you just choose to do it for purely recreational purposes unrelated to any "serious" concern.
Maybe you are particularly adept with one kind of firearm and choose to write a very long and descriptive message on a forum demonstrating to everyone else in the world how to detail strip it safely, and you get some pleasure out of doing that, as well as the esteem of your peers because you helped them out. And then sometimes, you take what you see in front of you and come up with a neat idea for a new product.
Or something entirely different!
Who cares? Everyone's story is a little different. All these things happen *because* we choose to insist on the right to own them responsibly, and encourage others to do likewise. And I use those words carefully. And there's nothing wrong with it.
Each person decides which guns they buy -- according to their own judgment and limitations and criteria and philosophy, and yes, even their whim. It's a little like Bob Dylan's song: "Gotta Serve Somebody":
"You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody."
The good thing is that we get to decide which, and how many, guns we want to have or can afford to have. Nobody is in a race, here, as far as I can tell.
