More Guns!

I originally told the crew I work with that I was getting my license to carry and, after all the idiotic fallout from that decision (must remember: friends@work /= friends), I just assumed that any discussion of my enjoyment of shooting was off-limits at work. Let me just sum up the situation: in my state, owning a gun means that I’m either a murderer-in-waiting, a shooting spree about-to-happen, or a moronic thug. Few of my coworkers are willing to see beyond this idiotic stereotype. Of course, in my opinion, the vocal gun owners don’t help things much by insisting that anyone who questions gun ownership is a flaming liberal with no brains. It’s all part of that simple evil that so many groups like to push: hype differences and encourage segregation.

Oddly enough, after all the hubbub subsided (this included my manager going to HR to warn them I was a gun owner, the VP of my group drafting new sections of the employee manual to ban keeping ammunition on my person in the office as it was a “dangerous substance” and multiple comments from my manager worrying that I was going to “shoot the place up”), people started giving me guns.

Yeah…go figure.

I’ve already mentioned the Mauser rifle I picked up from a buddy at work, but just recently I came into possession of three handguns from another coworker. Actually, only two handguns as one of them is a strange little cap or starter pistol (a Rohm RG2). A coworker’s father recently passed away unexpectedly, and his mother discovered the guns stored in their attic. She didn’t know he had them and didn’t want them, so she handed them to her son and told him to do with them as he saw fit. He came to me, knowing that I was involved in the shooting sports, and asked me to help him decide what to do.

I convinced him not to bring them to the police for destruction and instead informed him of our state laws regarding inheritance and safe storage. He then brought the guns to me so I could safely store them for him as well as research their value, as he was interested in possibly selling them. The handguns are: an Iver Johnson hammerless .32 revolver manufactured between 1906 and 1908 and a Colt .25 hammerless semi-automatic manufactured in 1917. Both are in good shape and I cleaned them both up a bit. After some research, I determined that they could probably bring in $500 all told.

Well, the coworker could care less about $500 (must be nice, eh?). He told me I could keep them. Woohoo! So I’ve got a couple new handguns to play around with. The Iver Johnson is black powder only, so that won’t get fired anytime soon, but I’m going to bring the Colt into my local firearms shop and have them perform a safety check for me. The gun is a perfect pocket pistol and will be easily concealed in any clothing.

I’m sure that thought does nothing to ease the concerns of the paranoid out there. Wheeee!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 at 11:57pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.