I was raised to take care of everything. The oldest truck on the farm, with its rust and dents, was not to be purposely abused or we would be in trouble with the old man. Same way with firearms. There are no beater trucks, and there are no beater firearms. If an item has a purpose, a use, then it needs to be kept working to fulfill that use. The old truck on the farm hauled the rolls of barbed wire, not the shiny new truck, but it was the old truck, not the beater truck, if that makes sense.
With that said, there are some firearms that we don't use in the same conditions as others. There are special firearms in the family that were gifts, or were "Granddad's", things like that, and we are careful with those items.
If letting a firearm bounce around inside a truck is considered okay, then I don't do that either. Casual attitudes around firearms is not acceptable either.
My S&W has been hauled all over the country. It has some slight indications of its days on my hip, or in the glove box. So, I guess, in the mildest terms it has been a beater. My BHP's are for home defense, they are in their "place" and they look brand new. The CZ is the range gun of choice, it looks brand new too.