A few of my toys

A few of my favorite "toys"...

Before going any further it should be noted for the record that I do NOT consider firearms toys. True there is endless diversion that can be had with the proper and safe usage of firearms but by no means are they toys. They are tools, they are weapons, they are, in some instances, collectible relics, however they are not toys.

Nothing that can put a 4 inch hole on the other side of a human being can be consider a toy, no matter how benign its original intention.

Also note, that I do not have children and therefore, until my dogs grow thumbs and sufficient arm strength to work the action of one of my collection, I am putting no one, save myself, in any danger.

I also don't keep them loaded, the ammunition is within reach should I need it, however.



Having said all that... let's begin, shall we?

I have had a fascination with firearms since I was a child. And I don't mean the standard "playing guns" that most male members of American society have from watching television, I mean a deeper desire to understand them and have a deeper connection to this, the single most important invention in human development. You disagree? Ok... let's look at some of them.

Fire... we didn't invent that, we discovered it. Lightning hit something and we saw it and said "Ugh..." or something equally eloquent in our struggle to master a dialect. Terribly useful, but not our invention. We discovered how to recreate the effect, but we did not, in fact, invent it.

Movable type... Ok, that's a good one. It brought religion to the masses, it brought understanding and literature to all mankind. No doubt important.

Automobiles, a good one, but that one's lead to more harm than good in the grander scheme of things. Now, I'm not going to start walking to work, I love my Truck, but without cars there would be a tighter family unit, more community involvement and not so damn much of this beautiful world covered with black asphalt.

The firearm. Well now, let's look at this one, shall we? With its advent and continued use for, I'll approximate, 500 years it has allowed humans to hunt on a more efficient scale, it has driven off enemies, it has, in fact, changed the course of human history in more than one occasion.
Don't believe me? Arch Duke Ferdinand would disagree, he was assassinated by a single shot to the head by a lone gun man and this was the turning point which started World War I.
Not good enough? Alright, Harper's Ferry, the "shot hear 'round the world" which started the American Revolution, if memory serves me correctly. Then there was Lincoln's mournful and horrid killing at the Ford's Theatre, which took away a brilliant mind as well as a good man. Two Kennedy's were killed the same way, both good men.

Are these good examples, do these paint a rosy picture of the firearm as a great invention, no. However, does this macabre list at least begin to point out how the world has changed, if only using these examples and no others at all? I believe it does... But again, this is my opinion, if you don't agree... I'm just going to have to be a peace with that.

Now there are several types of fire arms in the world, by definition.
Rifles, Carbine Rifles, Sporting Rifles, Assault Rifles, Infantry Rifles, Machine Guns, Sub-machine guns, machine pistols, pistols (both revolver and semi-automatic)... so on and so forth.

I will not bore you with a litany of their descriptions and differences. But, let me say this, they all have one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to inflict wounding/mortal damage on another living entity.

I believe that once people more closely align their perceptions to that fact, then there will be less trouble out there because some 12 year old is playing with one and accidentally shoots himself or his friends. A tragedy in every sense of the word.

Alright, now that I have all my disclosures and opinions out of the way, I just want to brag on one more thing...my wife. Why? Well, she's the one who said I could have them in the house.
One of the many reasons she's a great woman.

I have decided that this post have become a little cumbersome and would require much to long to read in its entirety without getting extremely bored.

So, from here on, there will be one post per weapon... I think that will make things flow a little better.