- Jan 12, 2012
- 27,286
- 113
While I had always had an interest in handguns, as a child, my grandpa would talk about them a little, I would see one with extreme rarity, and never fire one. As it were, my interest was sorting itself out into something serious at about 12 years old and as it so happened, every week when helping my mom with the grocery shopping (or in my case cart pushing/grocery carrying) I would walk past the magazine rack displaying among other products, the then-current Guns & Ammo annual which so happened to feature the then-new Smith & Wesson 645 on its cover. Every week, I walked slowly and salivated as I passed. OH GOODNESS DID I WANT ONE OF THOSE!
Fast forward to 21, that S&W was out of production, I really didn't care for the replacement, and I was becoming a believer in the 1911 and a disciple of the sainted John Moses Browning--and had a professor who was also a gun dealer (and aware I was on the prowl for a 1911) offer me one he had bought for a friend who decided it recoiled too hard (!) and traded it back for a .38. As a result, I became the proud owner of my first handgun. Quite a few have come and gone in the mean time, but that one will be here when I die. One principle which has set in to my buying is that I generally won't buy a gun without a present or projected purpose for it and have parted with some after the purpose or likelihood of a purpose had passed.
Fast forward again to 38. I was a relatively new INGO member and within a week or so (I know this is hard for you to believe) had made at least 50 of what qualify as quality posts, and another member listed for sale *drumroll* a Smith & Wesson 645 for which I had no particular need, and no reason for buying other than the nostalgia of all that salivating as a kid, making it the most frivolous purchase I have yet made.
So then, does anyone else have a frivolous handgun purchase story?
Fast forward to 21, that S&W was out of production, I really didn't care for the replacement, and I was becoming a believer in the 1911 and a disciple of the sainted John Moses Browning--and had a professor who was also a gun dealer (and aware I was on the prowl for a 1911) offer me one he had bought for a friend who decided it recoiled too hard (!) and traded it back for a .38. As a result, I became the proud owner of my first handgun. Quite a few have come and gone in the mean time, but that one will be here when I die. One principle which has set in to my buying is that I generally won't buy a gun without a present or projected purpose for it and have parted with some after the purpose or likelihood of a purpose had passed.
Fast forward again to 38. I was a relatively new INGO member and within a week or so (I know this is hard for you to believe) had made at least 50 of what qualify as quality posts, and another member listed for sale *drumroll* a Smith & Wesson 645 for which I had no particular need, and no reason for buying other than the nostalgia of all that salivating as a kid, making it the most frivolous purchase I have yet made.
So then, does anyone else have a frivolous handgun purchase story?