Home » Blogs » You Might be a Gun Nut If . . .

You Might be a Gun Nut If . . .

Robert Farago - comments No comments

Microwave (courtesy The Truth About Guns)

If you microwave your coffee in pistol caliber increments, you . . .  might be a gun nut. Your turn!

Tags Gun Nation
Photo of author

Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “You Might be a Gun Nut If . . .”

      • When you find sad, hilarious irony in Texas Statue 30.06…

        If you grinned when your State’s failed Open Carry bill was called HB556 and your jaw dropped when the accompanying Senate Bill was called SB223…

        OC didn’t happen, but come on man, the names of the bills… Portent? Omen?

        Reply
    • I have a GSD puppy named Luger. We rescued him and that was his name. It was clearly destiny so we had to adopt him.

      Reply
      • Did you get him out of burning building? Or was he drowning? Or was he kidnapped and held hostage and you got him out?
        That must have been exciting way to get a dog.

        Reply
    • How about a cat named Glock? (not my cat but told my wife she could only get one that was black one and had to name it Glock, only way I’d allow it) lol
      Damn-it she did it……………..

      Reply
  1. If the first time you saw a sign for the ink refill store Cartridge World you thought “Excellent, a new place to buy ammo”.

    Reply
    • I haven’t had a microwave in 20 years. Hate the things. Messes with all my tin foil hats. If I have to heat something up, I use the stove top or oven. Saves a ton of room in the kitchen too.

      Reply
      • Twenty years ago ? Wow , That was old technology man . Today they make those things to fit on your wrist and all you have to do is think about your coffee being hot and ” bam ” , it is . You’ve obviously been out in the boonies to long . Come to the big city man and enjoy the great life , just leave those nasty guns behind . They take care of everybody in the city . No worries , no cares , no crime , no guns . It’s all good .

        Reply
  2. If, in reply to that inevitable question from your spousal unit, “Just how guns do you own?”, you stumble and hem and haw not because you want to hide the answer, but because you really don’t know the correct answer.

    or

    When you walk into your local gun store and all the sales staff and some of the regulars turn around and, like the scene in Cheers, call out your name.

    or

    When you walk into your LGS, the proprietor grabs something from the counter and waves you over, saying, “have I got something you might like to see.”

    or

    Your shooting buddies no longer ask, “do you want to go shooting?” but instead simply ask you, “when are we going?”

    or

    The range officer paints your name on a spot in the parking lot.

    Reply
    • “When you walk into your LGS, the proprietor grabs something from the counter and waves you over, saying, “have I got something you might like to see.”

      Had that happen.

      And yes, I bought it….

      Reply
      • Had something similar happen, but it was the LGS owner coming to our monthly poker game with something for each of us. He won the game that night, and also sold a Thompson Commando, A Kimber, and a Les Baer TRS!

        Reply
      • The only reason I know my actual count, is I have an Access database, with pictures, SN#’s, value and all other pertinent information. No my wife has no idea that a list such as this exists.

        Reply
  3. Keep, in my car, one fully charged magazine (or en bloc clip) for every rifle I own, all the time. Not sure why I do, I just do.

    Reply
  4. If you have The Truth About Guns bookmarked on your home and work computers and your phone.

    Reply
  5. If being around guns is as natural as breathing…
    If you feel uncomfortable when you don’t have your gun with you…you might be a gunnut.

    Reply
      • Speaking of leaving ammo in your pockets, this spring I had to go to a county courthouse and of course I knew to leave the gat in the car, but when I walked up to the metal detector I realized I had my pocket knife clipped to my back pocket. The guard said I could leave it with him, but made it clear that he was not responsible for lost items, and since it was just a $20 knife I left it with him. Walked through the metal detector and went upstairs where I realized I still had a speed strip with 6 rounds of .357 magnum hollow points in my pocket. Oops…

        Reply
  6. You’ve stitched 2 Remora holsters into the pocket of your golf bag. One for snubbies and one for small autos.

    Reply
  7. If you can identify the caliber of any Glock based on the model number without looking it up.

    Reply
  8. If your passwords contain calibers.
    If you begin to wonder if you have too many because you can’t keep them all clean.
    If you have more cases of .22LR ammunition than the gun store.

    Reply
  9. When you hear people talking about 38 and 40 you peak your head out to see who is looking about guns, and they are talking about pant sizes.

    Reply
  10. If you refer to a certain website as TTAG and no one knows what you are talking about.

    If you have a dozen sites bookmarked on your computers, but TTAG is the only one you visit daily.

    If your examples list TTAG so you can get freebies.

    🙂

    Reply
  11. You have these recurring dreams where you show up at work naked, but in your dream you’re still wearing your gun.

    Reply
    • if you…

      … pull things from the trash because they could be fun to shoot.
      … stop at a scenic viewpoint, and everyone else is admiring the scenery but you’re evaluating the backdrop.
      … want drain holes in the bottom of a barrel so you reach for your gun instead of a drill.
      … use empty brass for counters instead of poker chips.
      … pick a seat in a restaurant based on field of fire.
      … instead of thinking of recycling or scrap when an appliance wears out, you think, “Nice target”
      … have a set of empty brass to use for cutting round holes in leather.
      … play online games and name your planets after guns.
      … have more calibers of ammo in your garage than types of screws and nails.
      … think of firearms rather than hardware when someone says “bolt”.
      … think of firearms rather than tools when someone says “hardware”.
      … mentally compare open v scope when someone says, “What a sight!”
      … try to remember what firearms were in use when your total at the store comes up as a year.
      … build a sandcastle at the beach and lay it out with good fields of defense fire
      … build a sandcastle at the beach and imagine the results of shooting it with your different guns.
      … skip the whole sandcastle and beach thing because there’s a discount day at the range.
      … can’t understand why vacation resorts don’t have shooting ranges.
      … would rather camp at a shooting range than at a resort.
      … sometimes propel your canoe by shooting off the back instead of paddling.
      … know exactly how far each of your guns can reach from your front porch.
      … skip items on your grocery list because you saw .22 LR on the shelf.
      … roll out of your tent in the morning, think something’s missing, strap on your gun and feel fine, and only a minute later realize it’s all you’re wearing.
      . . . .

      Reply
      • “… can’t understand why vacation resorts don’t have shooting ranges.” Not exactly a resort, I saw an announcement recently that Williamsburg, VA will be building a rifle range for visitors to shoot the old blackpowder rifles.

        Reply
  12. You believe the definition of “gun control” means keeping it in the 9 ring.

    To your husband’s delight, you suggest a range date to celebrate your 20th anniversary.

    Your coworker comes to you to talk rifle-building… not your Marine coworker (with all respect to our Devil Dawgs 🙂 )

    No lie.

    Reply
  13. You have a drawer full of free Allen wrenches and torx wrenches from accessories but no matter what you’re working on you can never find the right one.

    Reply
  14. You loaded up a range bag, and it got so heavy you ripped the handles off. .45 doesn’t just kill the soul, it kill range bags, too!

    (Bonus note: that was a combo of .45 ACP, .454, .460, and .45-70. It’s all heavy.)

    Reply
  15. Your favorite HWY exit is #223 I94 even though you have never gotten off there. or any HWY mile marker that is a Caliber

    Reply
  16. You can recite the muzzle velocity, ft-lbs of energy, and drop in inches of most ammo like baseball fans can recite players batting averages

    Reply
  17. You re-connect with a buddy you haven’t talked to in over 10 years and the first topic of discussion is, “So, whatcha packin’ these days?” (true story, just happened)

    If your Dad taught you to shoot at an age that, if it happened today, would get him arrested. (also true)

    Reply
  18. Your children regard going to the range as a normal activity and their attendance is more frequent than most of the members.

    Reply
  19. You might be a gun nut if you have your digital clock in 24 hour sequence-at least one time during the day you will see your favorite handgun on your clock; 1911

    Reply
  20. If you buy a firearm for your wife because you think it looks pretty sharp in Muddy Girl camo.

    Reply
  21. When a anti-gunner calls you a ammo-sexual, you respond with ” You have no right to judge me, I was born this way and I will not have my rights a a ammo-sexual dictated by a ammo-phobe. Yes it happened.

    Reply
    • Hey congrats, the Supreme Court just upheld your right to get gun married.

      You know, like gay married. But gun, not gay.

      It’s funny.

      Reply
      • Hey if I marry a handgun I don’t need a carry permit then! And I’ll be able to bring “her” with me anywhere in the US. Any attempts at prosecution would spur a civil rights lawsuit. You can’t break us apart!

        Reply
      • I suspect most of us would be down with poly-gun-ous marriage, too.

        Guns don’t complain when you have another.

        Reply
  22. When the news reports an “Arsenal” of 5 guns or a “Stockpile” of 200 bullets, and you chuckle softly.

    Reply
  23. if you assume your neighbor and his kids are shooting .22 in their front yard and notice that you were not invited. A few minutes later, you realize they are popping the remaining firecrackers from earlier in the week…Happened barely two hours ago.

    Reply
  24. Your idea of spending time with your children involves sitting around a tub of ammo and having them load up your mags. And they like it!

    Reply
  25. If you proposed to your wife at the rifle range.. (The ring made up for it tho. lol)

    If you passwords are your guns SN’s.

    If you use the “tatical thumb guage” for measuring group size.

    Reply
  26. When the size of your girlfriends bust is the same caliber as your EDC and all you can think about is buying a 1911.

    Reply
  27. I had a license plate with “545” on it.

    Also, when I lived in the ghetto, I could ID the caliber of the round being used in the nightly gang shooting.

    Reply
  28. When you are bored at the office, and you see through the window something at some distance and think “I can shoot that with my rifle” from here…

    Reply
    • Or if you think how Jerry Miculek could hit that with a snub-nosed Smith held upside down pulling the trigger with his pinky.

      Reply
  29. First time this happened I was 14. A widow of a ww2 vet asked around for someone that knew about guns cause she had found something in her late husbands footlocker in the attic. Everybody she asked pointed her to me. People that were not related to me gave her my name. That one was a 1911.

    It’s happened a number of times since. Usually widows finding something their husbands had that they didn’t know about.

    It can be interesting. Once I found sweating dynamite in an old outbuilding. Back in WV a lot of the old timers had explosives of one type or another.

    Reply
  30. You stoop to pick up spent brass before you would change.

    You pick up brass in calibers you don’t shoot and have multiple tubs of them.

    You have over 15lb of various gun powders and over 10k of various types of primers.

    Buying ammo by the case is a normal purchase qty.

    Reply
    • Unless you are talking about a revolver and a fair quality one at that . Shoot your gun as soon as you get it home , don’t wait any more than a week . Never put a firearm in the hold unless you have fired it with the ammo it will be eating and know it likes it , no hiccups , no FTF , FTE problems , gasses all expelled correctly , and you have zeroed in the sights or scope and you know it is preforming like yours or some ones life depended on it . I wouldn’t want to place my life in the hands of Nancy on the Ruger assembly line . I have had my share of out of the box successes and also failures . Hello NSA .

      Reply
  31. LOL seriously I do all this! When I was a cashier at the local supermarket I’d get the total $7.62 and I’d say it “Seven Six Two” and pause for a second. One time the total was $30.06 and I said “Thirty aught Six” and the guy looked at me and said “You must be a hunter, its ok I do it sometimes” I just smiled and laughed a bit. I don’t hunt but I am a bonafide gun nut! I’ve said $5.56 like Five Five Six and people look at me like I have two heads lol.

    Reply
    • No, it’s not bad until you see the 7.62 and you read off “three oh eight.” Or vice versa. Similarly with 223 and 556.

      Similar things can happen with 10.76 and 10.06 (“ten aught six”)

      [Which…by the way, is technically bad grammar, it should be thirty (or ten) naught six. But that is ingrained so much I didn’t even realize it was wrong until recently. But I haven’t given up on getting people to pronounce “Lapua” correctly. (Hint, it’s not Lah-POO-ah.)]

      Reply
    • I had bought a couple hundred rounds of .50 AE hoping my wife would feel sorry for me and tell me to buy a gun to use it.
      It worked.

      Reply
    • I have a single live round of .35 Remington kicking around from when I cleaned out my grandfather’s house. Don’t expect that’ll be fired any time soon.

      Reply
  32. You know you’re a gun nut when you get up early to stand in line to buy a 500 rnd. box of .22lr ammo at your local gun store on thier ammo delivery day.

    Reply
  33. You start a new gun fund out of spare change and find yourself getting change for 20’s and 50’s to fill up the jar quicker.

    You justify a new gun purchase by saying “but if the zombies come this will really come in handy” and your wife agrees…

    Reply
    • You left out 10. And it looks like you plan to leave out 44. I’m going to assume you haven’t left out 357.

      25 was probably worth leaving out.

      Reply
  34. I had one of those little RSA dinguses that displayed a different random-seeming six digit number every minute (people love to play “poker” with those). One time I looked at it and it was displaying “308308” so I dropped what I was doing and bought a bolt action in that caliber (technically, I think it’s 7.62×51 but you get the idea). It is an extremely good gun, easily shooting under 1 MOA even in my hands with my crappy eyesight. I wonder what a truly competent rifleman could do with it.

    Reply
  35. IF YOU TOOK THE TIME TO READ EVERY REASON HERE . I THINK I MAY NEED A SHRINK . FLOOR 22 IN ROOM 762 IN THE MAGNUM BUILDING . HER NAME IS DR. RUGER AND HER ASSISTANT IS DR GLOCK .
    There , that feels better .

    Reply
  36. You know you’re a gun nut when…

    …your collection of spent brass is worth more than most people’s investments in gold and silver.

    …instead of Kirk/Picard, you’re involved in debates of Kalashnikov/Stoner.

    …you feel disgusted that the previous joke didn’t mention Browning instead.

    …you hear about turmoil in Ukraine and your immediate reaction is to wonder what small arms the Russians are using these days.

    …you have no need to wonder about Russian small arms, because you’ve already memorized the calibers, firing rates, and ballistic properties of all small arms in common use by major militaries.

    …you spend your time commenting on gun blogs about what makes someone a gun nut.

    Reply
    • No worries here, wife has her own M&P, AR, Ruger revolver, etc. That is part of what keeps us together. Does that sound like gun nuts? We answer to that proudly. 20th anniversary was a day at the rifle range(her idea) then nice dinner that night. Gunsmoke and Italian go good together. Back to reading about real gun nuts(enthusiasts).

      Reply
  37. The bags you use in your small trash cans are from Cabelas from your ammo & powder purchases. And you never seem to run out of bags.

    Reply
  38. I going to compile all the data here and see which caliber gets mentioned the most and then compile the data from favorite gun comments and see if the calibers match and presto , we’ll end up with a consensus favorite all around gun in America choice . I think it is going to be something in 30.06 and probably a browning . I do love my BAR . OXOXOXOX

    Reply
    • Dude! You really like this thread! You think I could get a copy of that printout after you’ve highlighted it? I don’t have a printer because I opted to buy ammo instead, and my boss won’t let me print stuff from the TTAG website at work since that time I “accidentally” used a whole ream of paper while printing favorite TTAG articles. (He just doesn’t get it.)

      Reply
      • Before I compile all the data , what’s you guess on favorite gun and caliber ? If I worked for me I’d fire me on the spot , but then again I wouldn’t be at the office 15 hours a day either . I not going to take the time to calculate this stuff if I don’t get at least 250 comments and so far twenty of these are my own . Come on people , I need more input . More material . Got to make this book fresh .

        Reply
        • I love to shoot my .45 cal 1911, but my EDC is a 9mm for maximum number of rounds to weight carried ratio (is that a thing?). I also have a couple of 300 BLK which sound Awsome with a can, but I have a couple of 556 ARs because when the Apocalypse strikes I need to be able to scavenge ammo for a popular rifle caliber!

          Reply
  39. …your watching the Braves and when you sit down on the Lazy Boy, your outside waist band holster hits the remote control and tuns the channel to Judge Mablean. True story!

    Reply
    • Every year , it’s a tradition . Fun as , well almost as , you know . Sorry to hear about the rotator . My wife has this problem and it makes her moan more at night than I do .

      Reply
  40. This forum…

    I clicked to make a comment. It took 19 seconds until the page stopped jumping around and I could type. When I finished, I clicked “Post Comment” — and my comment disappeared.

    So I find it halfway up the page, behind my response to “One of the Good Guys”!

    I decided to delete and put it down where I meant it to be. So I clicked “Delete”, and confirmed . . . and the page froze/locked.

    Reply
    • It sometimes takes us here at NSA headquarters in Utah to override the data breach digital com stock on file 4739009451H2322 . Sorry for the inconvenience . Your comment will appear momentarily . Have a nice day .

      Reply
  41. This just happened to me at work looking at a list of phone extensions,223,226,229 etc,I laughed at my self

    Reply
  42. If you’re sleepy and you can’t sleep , just count your pistols instead of sheep , and you’ll fall asleep , counting your pistols . If your bankroll is getting small , just think of when you had no pistols at all . WORKS .

    Reply
  43. Old habits die hard: Your new girlfriend can’t understand why her contact in my phone is named “Norma Magnum”

    Reply
  44. You actually like the smell of cosmoline and don’t mind cleaning Mosins and Yugo Mausers. Maybe you’re a gun nut if you own more than 5 of each- yes guilty.

    Reply
  45. Your wife is angry because you’re not paying attention as you’re walking into the restaurant, but in fact you ARE paying attention … to where all the exits are … to your spare mag … to your daughter sitting in the seat you wanted so your back is against the wall … to the nearest locations for concealment and cover … to the creepy guy at the bar watching your wife as she walks by …

    Reply
  46. When I work out I count each exercise as $100 however many sets I do on each machine/bench equals my total. Then I go fantasy purchase however many guns I got in my workout. For instance I do 6 sets bench, incline, power clean, I can then go and pretend buy 3 guns for $600. Silly I know, but a good motivator.

    Reply
  47. When you can only remember your license plate cuz it’s made up of a combination of US military small arms model numbers.

    Reply

Leave a Comment