Firearm survey shows our rich, diverse heritage

Jim Matthews
06/02/2006

In March this year, I asked regular readers of this column to participate in a little survey about what different firearms you owned. I was bragging about have some esoteric wildcat-stoked rifles I was shooting, and wanted to see what more normal people shot for fun and games, and hunting.

So here's the list: .17 Hornady Rimfire Magnum, .22 Long Rifle, .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, 5mm air rifle, .204 Ruger, .218 Mashburn Bee, .223 Remington, .22-250, .243 Winchester, .257 Weatherby, .270 Winchester, 7mm Remington Magnum, 7x57 Mauser, .308, .30-06, .30-30, .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 Weatherby Magnum, .338 Winchester Magnum, .338-284, .358 Winchester, and .45-70.

And that was from just the first person who e-mailed me back, and those were just the rifles he owned, sometimes several in any given caliber. He called his collection pretty feeble and lamented the fact that he didn't have more guns and that he'd let other guns slip away over the years.

"Please, please don't use my name,'' he wrote. "My wife thinks the only gun safe I have is the one in the garage with 20 or so guns in it. She doesn't know about the one at my brother's house and the two at the shop.''

He told me about just 50 or so of his favorites guns. So did everyone else who wrote, not that everyone had that many guns (some had a lot more!). I'm thinking of publishing all your letters in book form. There were some great comments, insights, and laments.

Most of what your letters reflected were sensibilities. A lot of you are All-American, Apple Pie hunters who own a .22, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a .30-06 rifle. Reading your comments adds credence to the old "beware of one-gun hunters'' saying.

Just about everyone seems to collect the "common stuff,'' but with time, these guns become anything but common. A lot of us own and treasure inherited guns that hold special places in our hearts. Dad's gun. Granddad's gun. The gun Uncle Zeke used to shoot the biggest whitetail ever shot in Boone County.

You don't see that kind of attachment and heritage much with baseball gloves, cars, or lawn mowers. We don't save grandpa's false teeth, the barbecue, or the ax in the barn, but guns are heirlooms. Even inexpensive J.C. Higgins (Sears) single shot .22s or .410 shotguns
get a patina with age and are worth far more than the price one owned by someone else might carry on the used gun list. A lot of them end up with names and legends attached to them.

"All my guns have nicknames,'' wrote Jordan Towne. "The pattern has been to used old lady names because those were women you typically did not mess with, you showed them respect... or else.''

Frank Schmidt said the "only gun I have with a nickname is a J. Stevens `Little Scout' .22, Model 14“. My Dad nicknamed it `Lil' Pepper.' He named it that because when he was about 10, he and a buddy of his were shooting sparrows in their orchard because the birds were eating the apricots. Dad's buddy wanted to know if that bird shot would hurt if they got shot with it. Dad said he didn't know, so his buddy backed off 20 or 30 yards and dad let him have it in the back.

"Dad said he could still hear his buddy screaming, even after 70 years. An early lesson in life, and one with a lucky ending. At the age of 12, I was shooting `Lil' Pepper in the same orchard for the same reason. But Grandpa was paying me five cents a bird. As a third generation Southern Californian, I'm proud of where I come from and proud to have an American heritage.''

The older I get, the more interest I have in military-style guns. I've found myself wanting an old .30 M1 Carbine like my dad carried throughout Europe in World War II, and a lot of shooters love the old military guns. Dave Halbrook wrote "My M1 Garand was built in November of 1942. My mom was born in November of 1942, so I call my M1 `mom.' "How much more can you love a gun than that?''

Gun ownership is an integral part of who we are in this country, and while your letters reflected our incredible diversity, they also showed we have a very common bond that is held together in a multitude of ways by the firearms we own.

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