A word of warning for my American readers: outside the boundaries of your country there a lot of different legislations about guns, gun uses and licensing. To my knowledge, no nation have reached perfection in this matter. For what I know, the biggest problem is about ignorance.
I was a gun owner. I will be a gun owner again in the next few months. The category “gun nut” is a bit undue in my regard, but for sure I consider myself an amateur hoplologist. In my country, Italy, we have to get a license to purchase a gun, with severe limitations for the number of guns owned and for the ammo you may buy. There are other strictly observed limits on the kind of guns available on the legal market (same for the ammo, of course).
Angelo Benuzzi 