Sandy Banks wants to know why you “love your guns.” This writer for the LA Times Blog wants your answer for this coming Saturday’s column. See http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/are-guns-evil-or-is-it-our-trigger-happy-culture.html
The Women's Outdoor News, aka The WON, features news, reviews and stories about women who are shooting, hunting, fishing and actively engaging in outdoor adventure. This publication is for women, by women. View all posts by The WON
Mike, Hey thanks for reading and commenting here at The WON. Yes, guns have history and some are, indeed, art. Sorry about the mess in Southern Cal. We moved from there 15 years ago to escape the impending problems you are seeing now. Glad we escaped, but you do live in a beautiful state.
I am a collector. Probably have about 45 antique guns. Earliest is an 1851 Sharps rifle like the one Tom Selleck had in Quigley down under. Favorite an 1871 Colt 44 pistol. Not interested in assault weapons but in (mostly) American made and hand crafted firearms. They are like antiques to me when you can look at them and realize the craftsmanship (checkering and machining) that went into their manufacture. It is a lost art. Now the laws in California prohibit me from buying most of these guns in California. One way they exclude their sales is that the manufacturers have to pay for and obtain a safety certificate for these guns which is costly and (due to the fact that they are no longer being manufactured) the gun manufacturers (if they are still in business) have little interest in doing. Other than at a firing range – I haven’t fired a gun for close to 45 years (Vietnam). I think the regulators (in California) have limited my collecting abililities. These firearms wouldn’t be the choice of gangsters and gangbangers who the laws were intended to curtail. Mike in So Cal.