If You Have More Than 10 Guns, Does That Make You a Gun Nut?

The Atlantic ^ | October 3, 2015 | James Fallows and others

[Comment Not Approved]

My wife asked me one time why I needed so many firearms. I showed her my golf bag and explained that each club was for a specific purpose ... guns are the same.

Where I live, Montana, the average number of firearms per house that owns firearms is 27. And that is a 5 year old statistic. Lots of gun enthusiasts here. Firearms are a part of our culture and heritage. I’m below average, but I’m working on it.

I hear gunfire daily, from my range or my neighbors. It is the sound of freedom!

[Teacher317]

I’d say if you’re asking that question you’re definitely a nut. Why do you care what someone else owns?

Really, the question is just an announcement that they're about to vaguely redefine where a new PC line is to be drawn, so that they can smear the new term at their whim.

But for a rational response:
Zero guns is a bad idea
One gun is a bare minimum.
Four guns is the minimum for an appropriate starter collection. One handgun (carry), one rifle (distance and large game), one shotgun (birds and hall-sweeping), and one .22 for "plinking" (cheap target practice, or small game).
6-10 guns is a good collection for an amateur hobbyist who will grow the collection as his/her habit grows and his/her paycheck grows.
Anything above 20 firearms is probably where the line can be drawn between the starters and the true enthusiasts... as long as the term "nut" is playful and friendly, rather than the implied psychological issues that the Left is likely trying to apply.

(I wonder how many of the mass shooters legally owned more than 6 arms... I'm betting less than 4 percent. I'm also betting that no major media journalism major will ever look into that stat.)

[Teacher317]

Or, take another tack. At the time the 2nd Amendment was written, it was protecting (note, protecting not granting) our right to own exactly the same weapons as our military had at that point. So it could be construed as to protect our right to be armed equally as the military...

My favorite point to make, when a discussion goes down this path, is to remind everyone of the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 - Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The government, in its enumerated powers (not even the Bill of Rights), was granted permission to contract with privateers... people who owned their own BATTLESHIPS of the day! A Ship of the Line back then could easily be carrying over 300 cannon, and the Constitution acknowledged and accepted their existence in private hands of US citizens.

(They were mostly needed to combat the Barbary Coast Pirates, Muslims who were taking US and British ships and enslaving their crews around the Mediterranean. This is the reason for the lyric "to the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps Hymn. Tripoli, Libya. Muslim slavery. The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

[gspurlock]

It takes more than 10? Then it’s off to the next gun show for me.

[elcid1970]

Barbronies?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

16th Century poem THE GUN NUT.

I am an upright citizen.
I can not stand the smell of powder even.
Yet I own all kinds of weapons,
Bringing me but few laudations,
Since I know not how to use them,
Just to see that rust does not suffuse them.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I guess I better see how many I have! Can I borrow a John boat and a strong magnet?

[SgtHooper]

Edumacated by liberal doctrines in our public skewls.

[SgtHooper]

LMAO! Good one.

[Kickass Conservative]

I own exactly what I can afford to own, be it Houses, Boats, Guns, Cars or collectible Elvis Plates. The only thing I can't afford more than one of is Wives. One is more than enough, thank you. Last time I checked it was my Business, nobody Else's.

[Kickass Conservative]

Also, Freedom of Speech must only apply to the King’s English spoken at the time.

I don’t think the F word existed back then.

Oh yeah, no Porno either.

[ozzymandus]

How about a collector who owns 1,000 guns? And who cares if some pantywaist leftie calls you a nut?

[ozzymandus]

That is the same idiotic argument made by “conservative” George Will. I have despised him ever since he said that years ago.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

I have about 30 pens around the house and 80 rolls of toilet paper at any one time.

So what?

[Envisioning]

Is that more than 10 handguns or more than 10 long guns? Or is that the total of both? 😄

[gunsmithkat]

Well, I think my tagline says it all.

[litehaus]

“Can you believe some of these people??????”

Yepper, and I want newspapers to be sold on street corners by wayward poor waifs, No radio, No tv —Just like in the OLDEN DAYS ....funny how so called progressives seem RETRO when it suits their BS ideas...

[litehaus]

Yepper, and I want newspapers to be sold on street corners by wayward poor waifs, No radio, No tv —Just like in the OLDEN DAYS ....funny how so called progressives seem RETRO when it suits their BS ideas...

[grobdriver]

10?

That's how many I pick out to take to the range on any given outing...

[Mobilemitter]

The only gun nuts I know are holding scope mounts onto my quad rail. Get it? Got it? Good!