How do you pick a gun? Though sometimes frowned upon and often expensive, having a lot of firearms is not a bad thing. The question “how many do you have?” (which is the equivalent of asking a woman how much she weighs or how old she is) if it should so rudely be asked, should always be answered with the reply “not enough”. Every firearm has different abilities and functions. First you start with what you are hunting or what target you are shooting at and what type of gun and caliber that requires. Some of us have a “type” we are attracted to that we tend to stick with no matter what type of firearm we are using. There are so many combinations of wood stocks, synthetic stocks, camo stocks, stainless barrels, blued barrels and it just goes on and on. Everyone has their preferences and their reasons for choosing what guns get to come and live in their cabinets or which one gets to come out and play that day.

My favourite question, mainly posed by non gun lovers and often spouses (and my mother) is: “why do you need so many?” Well you just do! To help you relate-consider vehicles. I own multiple vehicles, so many I occasionally forget where I left them. They vary from a mega cab Ram, to a Mustang convertible to my newest addition- a big black limo. I like to drive the convertible down the highway and enjoy the sun, and in reality that’s about all it’s good for. Some days I need the limo to drive kids around and other days the limo is used for it’s gigantic back seat-the possibilities are just endless of what you can do with that. The abilities of multiple vehicles are similar to the abilities of a shotgun, a .22 and a big caliber rifle. Each are all essential but almost completely useless for the purpose of the other. 

My three “regular” vehicles have vastly different abilities but I also own so many similar camo trucks that they had to get names them to keep them straight. Essentially they are almost the same but some have plows, some have sanders and some have both, and they all have bad attitudes. I have Jimmy, Johnny, Jack, Jager and Jose because “take the 03 Chev…no not that one…no not that one either…” gets really old really fast. So even though we may have 4 different 12 gauges which are all the same caliber, one may be a turkey gun, one may be a short one for riding on the four wheeler and maybe two of them are sentimental and no longer go hunting. 

In the end I like to think picking a gun is like picking a man. Pick one that works, looks good, is a good fit and most importantly makes your heart skip a beat when you think about it. The great thing about owning multiple guns, you get to pick and choose which one you would like to take out that day and if you can’t choose-take more than one! And if you pick the wrong one and don’t like it you can always trade it in on a better model, and they’re a lot less expensive to trade in than men!