I see that a lot of the fun of gun ownership is choosing what you feel is the best of something (best shotgun, best .45, best hunting rifle, etc), and to a point, I enjoy that. However, I am a very utilitarian person, since I am low income and don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter, and so I'm not going out and buying expensive guns on a regular basis just for bragging rights. However, I will tell you with the utmost confidence that if I had the money to buy flashy "BBQ guns", I totally would.
My guns are purchased with the intent of getting the most gun I can out of my money. So I drive a Ford, and I carry an old used Sig that could really use to be reblued. It is the best of what I can afford, and it is reliable to a fault.
When you are poor like I am, flashiness or bragging rights aren't as important on the list as some other things. I wanted a good bolt action rifle, so I bought the absolute best Mosin Nagant M38 that I could find. It is the best of the cheapest. I made sure that it was the highest quality specimen I could find, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a $100 rifle.
I bought a CMMG AR-15. It is the best thing I could afford. It's no HK or LMT or Colt, but it is a very nice rifle that can easily take the maximum of 200 wolf rounds I can afford to put through it without a single hiccup.
So I think that the mindset is there in most people. Guys are attracted to guns in the same way that we are attracted to cars. It's a natural mechanical fascination, mixed with choices from best to worst, cheapest to most extravegant and so on. In any case, I think that we all like to buy the best things we can afford to buy, and you don't see people lining up around the corner to buy HiPoints (good guns, don't get me wrong, but they ain't pretty).
In most things I like to buy the best of the cheap. Kind of a healthy mix of taste and thriftiness. Double my income and I'll still be clawing up the ladder to the next best thing I can almost afford, lol.
