Whoever coined the saying "beware the man who only owns one gun....he knows how to use it"........probably came from our neighborhood.......where 9 out of 10 homes probably had a gun........but only 5 of 10 had more than one. If only one, it was probably a .22 or .410 single shot. A well equipped home had a rifle, 22 and shotgun. As a kid, parents used to take us to card parties........rotated around among 10 to 15 homes. All of them had a gun cabinet in the living room. Few had more than 3 or 4 guns of any kind in them. To see a guy with even 10 guns was unheard of.
My dad was about as good with a rifle as anyone. He earned Army's top marksmanship award and one of his favorite stories was the time he entered a shooting match and won 1st place, with a prize being a case of beer, of which he only got one can and said he had to fight hard to get that. Rest of his unit snagged the rest. Yet he never owned a rifle of his own until he was at least 50. There was nothing to shoot with one. Once deer were reintroduced, he bought a 270, and that was our rifle for years. Used for coyotes, deer, coyotes and deer. I have shot two geese with it.....one sitting and one flying. But only one gun, as one gun was all you needed. Viewed as a tool......like a hammer, shovel or rake. You only needed one.
My grandfather on my dad's side died of a heart attack before I was born. He was a trap shooter, which for that part of the world was considered an extravagant waste of precious ammo. You only practiced to get good enough to shoot game. Even so, he only owned two guns. His trap gun and a double he used for ducks and geese. Other grandfather was a farmer, but never owned a gun.
