Selling a Gun and People's Regrets: Why?

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Offhand, the only gun I can think of that I regret selling was a High Standard Sentinel, .22 revolver. And my regret in selling that gun is only due to sentimental reasons - it was my first handgun, and I bought it though my folks' country store in 1967 or 1968, as best as I can remember. It was also the first handgun my wife ever shot - in 1971.:)
For a few minutes the other day, I thought I regretted selling the Ruger Blackhawk 4 5/8" 32 H&R I used to have. That's because I'm looking for another little 32 H&R, and everyone seems to be building 327 Federal Magnums nowadays. Yeah, I know - you can shoot 32 H&Rs in 327 Federal Magnums, but why? I don't need a 327 Federal Magnum when all I want to shoot in it is medium loaded 32 H&Rs.
Anyway, I quickly got over my regret for selling the 32 H&R I used to have when I remembered it was blued. I want stainless. I'll probably settle for a 327 Federal, but it will be stainless, not blued.;)
 
I've bought and sold guns often. Do I regret selling some of them? Sure, but nothing I dwell on.

Missed deals, that's what I think back on often. Man, that Luger P08 was within my grasp......
 
We don't have the money to impulse buy a gun. Every gun we buy is carefully thought out. Do we need it ? Will it serve a purpose? Will we use it. We buy all our guns from a LGS so we can handle & inspect them first. We do not sell any guns that we own. We have what we want. We're very lucky as there are many LGS within driving distance for us. Large selection to choose from.
 
I move guns from time to time. No regrets. My guns are tools and only a few of them have real sentimental value. If I move a gun it’s to fund something else. And I add to the pile with an eye to “upgrading” somehow. Usually equals value at the end of the day.
 
I have sold and traded away a whole bunch. Some I regret letting go, so I can weigh in on that front, and I also advocate for not selling until you are certain that you don’t want the gun anymore, so from that stance it seems like I’m in agreeance with the OP, but I also subscribe to the “it’s not eating anything” mentality so even if I have no purpose FOR something I see no reason to move it along unless there is a reason NOT TO have it.

On regrets...
I have on more than one occasion gotten a cheap gun to see if I liked that type of firearm. My first handgun actually served that purpose and was bought to see if I really wanted to get into hunting with a handgun. It was a Taurus 689 6” that I got from a pawn shop used. I loved the gun, so much so that I wanted other guns similar to it. Being a student still precluded me from having a full time job so money was tight and for me to upgrade or aquire others it ultimately led me to trade off that taurus for a gun I knew would be easier to sell and then I could buy a GP100 which I was assured by everyone was a far superior gun. The GP that I found was a 4” blued specimen new in box and I bought it. The barrel was trash. Returned to the shop with it and you could see visible chatter in the barrel. Gun shop swapped it for the other one they had which looked better but still not great. Gun wouldn’t shoot accurately enough for my taste and was a huge letdown. So here I was, having had a wonderful gun that I had shot a lot (and wore out) that could have been returned to Taurus to rebuild, and I was stuck with that gun gone and a little more money into what I considered an inferior product. I still regret ever getting rid of that 689. They aren’t super popular, and I haven’t stumbled across one when I had the spare cash. The chase of “better” is the biggest enemy of “good enough”.

So in that particular situation, had I had the money to go buy a “better” .357 double action revolver I would have done it. The gun I had was filling my needs quite well. I had no reason to get rid of it aside from wanting something better. With a little more cash I would have bought “better” and would still have the trusty old wheelgun, so now i advise folks not to sell a gun unless there is a legitimate reason to sell it. Don’t like it, need to pay bills... ok but not just to fund “better” when what you have is “good enough” and you like what you currently have.
 
Only regrets I've had were not picking up a few deals here and there that I just didn't have the cash for at the time.

Never have regretted selling a gun, never dump them until I'm sure I don't want them anymore
 
The only ones I really regret are the ones where financial necessity forced the sale, not a deliberate decision that x was better for me than y, or I can improve this by doing that.

I turned a Hardballer into a 03A3 with no regrets. I turned a Marlin 1895 into a Sistema, also no regrets.

Selling my Inland M-1, the Garand, the M1A, and the lot to keep a roof over my head, those still hurt a bit.
 
My 20s were blessed with cheap SKSs, Makarovs, CZ-52s, Moisin-Nagants, Norincos, FEGs and other mil-surps even like German Sig P226s.

When wife got pregnant with our daughter, she made me sell guns that I didn't shoot within 6 months (which was essentially all of them as I was busy with work at that time) as she said I could buy them later (Yeah, right ... We lived in CA) and we migrated to Glocks and ARs while we also sold off dirt bikes and dune buggies so we could better focus on raising a family.

Now, I regret selling most of them particularly Norinco M1911A1 and NHM-91 as they shot very accurate for me.

And as our son and daughter grew up, we ended up buying quads and guns to replace what I sold off but I found the excitement of happy memories wasn't there.

So, if you have guns that shoot well for you and you like them, DO NOT sell them as you will regret selling them later - Believe me, you will thank me in 10-20 years.

Thankfully, my sister and BIL kept all of their guns and whenever we go shooting, happy memories of my 20s return as I blast away with their Makarovs and SKSs along with their CMP M1 Garands. BIL and I have good time cleaning and oiling all of them as we cherish our memories from decades past. And yes, they still shoot well.
 
I sold a Savage 99 in .250-3000 and a Colt Bisley .44-40 to pay for my last quarter at college. I would have been ahead to borrow the $500 from a loan shark at 50% interest. I sold several firearms when I gave up Cowboy Action shooting, don't miss those and don't regret passing them on.
 
I only sell if it's not a gun I shoot well. I have a pretty strict no sell policy. I have three boys, I lost an awesome collection through divorce and needing money because of it years ago. My boys love shooting, love learning about guns and the significance some older ones played in our history. I will pass them on to the kids.
 
There was less scrutiny on the buying and selling of guns privately and good gun shows were abundant in years past. There were times I'd owned half a dozen different guns throughout the course of a day or weekend that never made it to my vehicle. Sure, I have sentimental guns... Only really special ones have meaning to me, but the non-sentimental ones are still replaceable. Kinda like raising a calf for the freezer...don't give them names.
 
I sometimes fall into the “looking for the perfect gun” trap. If I sell one to buy a “better” one, then later I realize that It’s not better. Just a different set of tradeoffs. Just like girlfriends.
 
A few guns I regret selling, only now. Say the AR-180. Great one, but parts and accessories worried me. I didn't have second-gun money so I traded up to a FAL instead of keeping it and buying another. Now, really wish I had it, worth a lot, very few come up and none in that condition. But it is hard to come up with an alternative universe where I can keep it then.

A few others like that. Not used/needed, limited space, budget, etc. so I sell/trade. About half my guns I sold I would like to have now. The other half were awful, good-riddance.
 
I’m in the “don’t sell” camp, and up until recently (the last two years) I didn’t have kids so no real thoughts of anyone inheriting. I’ll give my take:

For my whole life, gun rights have been in a relentless nosedive. But that’s big picture. Locally it varies a lot and some places have even gotten better. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up in one of the “getting better” places. I grew up in California.

Between the time I became interested in guns, and was legally able to own them, the rules changed to ban many of the guns I was interested in. The ones I could buy became more expensive and had extra rules added. Every year, there was an active effort to limit what was available, make purchasing harder and more expensive, etc.. So for years I lived the reality that, the only guns I knew I’d be able to own tomorrow were the guns I owned today...sometimes not even those.

In that sort of environment, selling means telling yourself, “I don’t want this today, and I’m OK with never being able to buy anything like it again without moving to another state.” That’s a big decision and unless you are really desperate it almost never makes sense to sell.

Of course, I moved.

If you look only at the reality as it is right now, where I am now, my instinct to hold on to old guns isn’t really correct, especially when it comes to the generic plastic. I may not be able to buy exactly the same gun new but I can buy something close enough - probably something better. But when Texas becomes more like California I’ll be glad I didn’t sell anything.

And what does selling gain me? I don’t have any reason to sell my nice gun, and nobody is willing to pay me enough to make selling the gun I don’t like worth the trouble. The time I had a good gun that I personally didn’t want to keep, I sold it, but that was only after I had a better replacement in hand.
 
I've sold or traded a few, regret 2. Both cheap guns, one just not as cheap today, the other I plan on buying another. Had a wasr10/63 I bought for $350 and subsequently traded it a couple years later for a S&W M&P40. Then 2008 hit and I still regret getting rid of that one. Only lost a couple bucks on it, but that was chump change compared to what they seem to be selling for now.

Other regret was selling a NAA 22 mag. I thought I was over the novelty of the little thing, turns out I'm not. Will probably buy one the next time I'm in a gun shop that has one in the case.
I'm firmly in the "don't sell" camp now.
 
Just a little regret selling a S&W 469 and couple 10/22's , the bad part is having to sell being off work and medical bills
 
I’ve only sold two. They were both sold to fund other guns. I made money one one and lost a little on the other. I sometimes miss them , but not enough to go buy an exact replacement.
David
 
During the height of the auto-pistol hysteria (when law enforcement and the military were in the midst of the transition to "wonder-nines" and so forth), late '80s, early '90s...I went all in, and regrettably traded off (or sold outright) some otherwise spectacular S&W revolvers. What was I thinking? Bye-bye went some cherry P&R .357s (13s, 19s, 27s, mint Model 10s and 36s, a great 60-4, a superb 66-4 snub). At the time, thought I was "trading up." Live and learn. I've been trying to replace them all ever since.
 
I've both sold and traded a few.
Some I've regretted simply because I ended up not liking or using the one I traded it for as much. I wish I hadn't done it.
Some I don't miss at all.

If there was a gun that I rarely shot that held no sentimental value, I would not hesitate to sell it to fund another that I would enjoy more.

Of course there are family heirloom pieces that I would never sell, but I don't think that's what you're talking about here.
 
Was just perusing a thread (someone finally noticed it's no longer in production) about the Browning Hi-Power. Strangely, I don't totally regret selling the only one I've ever owned (a Mark III bought in 1991 or '92); the trigger wasn't great, the sights left a lot to be desired and I was just too used to the 1911 to appreciate the BHP.
 
Two I have sold that I regret would have a little sentimentally if I still had them, though they didn’t at the time. The thing to remember is just because a gun doesn’t have sentimentality now doesn’t mean it never will.

Another I regret was a kind of grail gun I saved up for and sold it during bad finical times, looking back I could have made it through without selling it and wish I had, admittedly that’s easy to say on this side of the hard times.

I see the “no reason to keep it” saying a good bit, apart from dire financial woes I can’t think of a reason to sell it, kind of better to have it and not need/want it, than to need/want it and not have it. Therefore I’m pretty well planted in the “I don’t sell my guns” category nowadays.
The exception being if it is very unreliable and I have been the only owner of it I personally know, then I may sell it.
 
Why do so many folks have regrets over selling a gun because you NEEDED the money during a hard time?

Or is it, because the gun did such a wonderful service for you, that you miss it?

If I needed to pay medical bills and had a gun to sell, I would sell it.m and be thankful I had something to pull me through.

This is turning into another example of how gun accumulation is a hoarding disease. There may be some hyperbole embedded into some of the statements here but what I am getting is that some folks, because of a previous regret from selling a firearm, will never do it again even if it means eternal hardship or not being able to feed your family.

I hope the folks who have regretted a past sale are now just in a better financial situation to be able to more comfortably make the statement “Never sell a gun” and they are not suffering from something else.
 
No regrets really just that I did a lot of wheeling and dealing on guns back in my earlier days and most of them were revolvers. Traded or sold many of them for semi-auto pistols and while I have enjoyed shooting and carrying them I still miss all of the Ruger Security Sixes, Colt Trooper Mk.III and MK.Vs, and S&Ws (most notably a Model 57 and a Model 58), I had.

Somehow through it all I have never seen the necessity to look for their replacements. Guess I moved on from one era of handguns into the next. I have to say though over the past few years I have acquired quite a few new wheel guns, mainly single actions, to possibly compensate for the buying and selling activities of my youth.
 
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