We’re gun nuts. We like to fiddle with our guns, we read about them, we think about them when we’re not shooting. We want a gun we can be proud to own. Hot rodders, model train guys, trekkies are all cut from the same bolt of cloth as us.
Most guys that owned guns in the past didn’t think about them any more then a hammer or a cooking pot.
There were gun nuts back then, but like today it was a minority.
I THINK that if you ‘aged’ a CVA Mountain rifle, and stuck it in a grouping of 1840-60 unsigned plains guns no one would pick it out. Same thing with an Italian or Japanese, or(gasp) Loyalist arms bess, aged it and throw it in with some originals no one, or very few would pick out the imposter.
We play in history, but when we go to an event we don’t represent a random slice of the public, we represent a gatherings of elites and ‘specials’