It's kind of interesting... I was talking to my fiance about this the other day. My dad has a massive collection of firearms and is, well, getting up there in age, strange as it is to me to think of my dad as an old man. In my eyes he is and always be in his 40's, but the fact is he's in his upper 60's, has had heart surgery already, etc. He's no spring chicken anymore, as they say.
I'm actually getting a bit upset talking about it now, heh.
Anyways - as I said, he has a huge collection of firearms. Guns, shooting, the military, these things practically define my father. Many of my fondest (and earliest - I started just about as soon as I could hold a gun!) childhood memories are at the range, dad leaning over me, corrected my grip, reminding me of my breathing, hammering the fundamentals into me.
We still do it to this day, at least every few weekends, and I look forward to it every time.
But anyways - While discussing this with another older friend of mine, he asked what would happen to all those guns when he passed. I don't know. I'd never thought about it. He's remarried to a woman I like a lot who is a decent bit younger than he, but she and I aren't bonded in any way, really. I'd like to think they'd be passed to me, and I honestly don't think anything in this world would mean more to me than to have the guns my father owned, but I don't know. Certainly a lot of their shared income is tied up in many of those. She'd certainly have a valid argument to keeping or selling them.
Logistically, though, there's just no way, no way in this world I could store and maintain all those firearms if they did go to me, and if his wife wouldn't want them all, either. Some would invariably be sold. But which ones?
I've got no idea how to approach my dad about this. My thought is that I'd like him to kind of "cherry pick" some guns he wants me to have. And of course, there are some of my childhood favorites that I'd want to be passed down to me that he may not realize have sentimental value to me.
I guess what I'm getting at, for you older guys on the board, is do you have any ideas how to broach this subject without seeming like I'm trying to profit when he passes? He's never really mentioned it, and I don't know how to approach the topic.
I actually had to get up and walk away twice writing that, because I started to get really upset, so hopefully it's not too rambling and incoherent.
