Braxton Taylor
Many gun owners take pride in growing their firearm collections, but at what point does collecting become excessive? How many guns are too many? This article explores the balance between being a protector vs. a collector, emphasizing that firearm ownership should prioritize skill development and practical use over sheer quantity. Instead of constantly buying new guns, optimizing your collection by upgrading optics, suppressors, and accessories can be more beneficial. A structured approach, like the Primary vs. Secondary Strategy, helps gun owners focus on essential firearms for training and defense while keeping the rest as collectibles or recreational pieces. Ultimately, true confidence comes not from the number of guns owned but from mastering a select few.
Do You Own Too Many Guns? This question sounds like crazy talk to most of us. It reminds me of that country song: “Too Much Fun”, but just replace the world “fun” with “guns”…
I said “Officer, what have I done?”
He smiled and said, “Boy, you’re having too much fun”
Too much fun, what’s that mean?
It’s like too much money, there’s no such thing
It’s like a girl too pretty with too much class
Being too lucky, a car too fast
No matter what they say, I’ve done
But I ain’t never had too much fun
I personally know people with multiple safes filled to the brim. I have seen an entire dedicated vault room full of guns. As gun owners, we often hold images of slat walls filled with rifles, pistols and shotguns as aspirational goals. But lately I’ve been asking myself if that is really what I should be aspiring toward.
Let’s explore this topic deeper.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no ballistic monk, I have a safe full of guns. I won’t reveal the actual number (to keep some semblance of privacy), but let’s just say less than 100. (I track them on a spreadsheet. Ha! That’s the analytical side of me.)
My problem is that I was always looking for that “perfect” gun. The mythical “one gun” that I would own if I could only have one gun – but of course, I don’t just have one gun; I have so many that I can’t put them in a single safe. Sometimes I find myself longing for the days when I was starting out and just had one rifle and one pistol… ah, the simple times.
I remember it fondly… nearly 30 years ago now. My very first pistol was a Glock 17… Gen 2! My very first rifle was a Bushmaster XM15 16” with the carbine gas system, fixed front sight and short handguard. For the life of me I can’t remember if it was a flattop model or carry handle – I’m guessing it was a carry handle version.
I took those two guns, and eventually a very pricey Benelli M1 Super 90 shotgun, to a bunch of courses when I was just getting started. That was all I had, but I was very confident in my skills and equipment because of it.
Protector vs Collector
There is a quote or adage floating around that goes something like this: “Fear the man who has practiced one gun a thousand times, rather than the man who has practiced a thousand guns once.” (I think that is a take on the Bruce Lee quote about kicks. “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”)
Or similarly: Watch out for the man with one gun… because he probably knows how to use it!” which is an idea that comes up in Westerns a lot.
Or, the idea from John Lovell from Warrior Poet Society that we should strive to be “protectors”, not “collectors”.
This idea summarized by ChatGPT who says it better than me: “This quote emphasizes the mindset that firearms and training should be about protection—defending loved ones, the innocent, and oneself—rather than simply accumulating weapons as a hobby or status symbol. Lovell advocates for gun ownership with a purpose, focusing on skill, discipline, and the warrior mindset, rather than just amassing guns and gear. It aligns with his broader philosophy that a warrior poet is someone who is both skilled in combat and wise in spirit, seeking peace but prepared to defend it.”
To be honest with you, when I first heard John say that in one of his videos, I somewhat scoffed at it: “Why can’t I be both?”. I can own lots of guns but get good with a handful. I still believe that is true. For example, I won’t take my classic blued Smith & Wesson Model 29 44 Magnum to a training course. I just like to look at it and shoot it once in a blue moon.
Now things have changed for me. I’m at a point where I struggle with the idea of buying another gun. Crazy, I know. This was evident for me last month while I was walking around Shot Show. There are hundreds of booths of cool toys but I only stopped to pick up maybe a half dozen.
The new gun thrill was gone.
I’ll admit this is probably just a temporary ailment for me, but I think the main reason for my lack of interest is thinking about the current state of my overflowing gun safe.
How could I justify buying another gun when I’m not even getting out and using the ones I currently have?
“2 to 1” or “3 to 1” Rule
I saw that part of Trump’s effort to clean up our government waste and bureaucracy included a 10 to 1 Deregulation Initiative. If the federal agencies wanted to create a new regulation, they needed to remove 10. Makes perfect sense.
So, I started thinking about a new self-imposed gun-buying “rule”. How about a 2 to 1 rule that I have to sell two guns for every new one that I buy? Or I could be more aggressive and sell 3 or even 4 for every gun I buy. (I don’t think I could stomach a 10 to 1 rule though!)
I know, I know, there are some of you who never sell guns. That is your prerogative, but I’m no stranger to selling off some of my collection.
Even just a few years ago, in 2019, Danielle and I needed money (I was working at AmmoSquared full time, and it wasn’t quite providing us with a liveable paycheck). So, we did an NFL draft-type process for all of our guns.
We created a big list of all the guns we owned – on a spreadsheet, of course :). Then started pulling over one gun at a time to a “keep” list like a talent roster. We started with our “one gun” – that mythical gun that you would own if all the others disappeared… For each of us, it was a compact/mid-sized 9mm handgun – the perfect “do all” home defense and concealed carry firearm.
Incidentally, also one of the most popular “first guns” for people these days.
After that, we each picked out a solid “general purpose” AR15 in 5.56 NATO. Again usually the second gun new gun owners buy these days.
(Side Note: if you are a new gun owner and you just have those two guns, you are golden! Get really good with those two guns before moving on to anything else. That’s what I did, and I don’t regret it one bit.)
After that, I seem to recall our NFL-style gun draft went into specializations: a CCW handgun, a home defense shotgun, a long-range precision rifle, a hunting rifle, etc. At a certain point, we were hitting a lot of what I call my “meh” guns. These were guns I already filled a slot with and weren’t particularly nostalgic or sentimental for us. These were the guns I put on the “chopping block” and prepped to sell.
So between July 2019 and December 2020, we “purged” a bunch from our gun collection – getting us down to what we really wanted and cared about our core “go to” guns. It actually felt really good to clean house that way! It brought in some much-needed cash at that time and with the “scamdemic” boosting gun prices, it was also a good time to do it.
So lately, here I am again with a bunch of “meh” guns. I haven’t sold any yet but instead of buying more guns that I really don’t need, I’ve started looking at optimizing the ones I have and adding more useful accessories like better optics and suppressors, buying ammo (of course!), and taking training courses.
Primaries vs Secondaries
After pondering on this for a while, what I realized is that I can strike a balance between the “protector” and “collector” mindsets. I call it my “primary” vs “secondary” guns. Here is what I mean: I have a handful of guns that would be at the top of my NFL-type gun draft today and cover all of the categories I feel are important. These are my “primary” guns. Everything else is considered “secondary” to me.
For me, my primary or protector guns would look something like this: a full-sized handgun, a concealed carry optimized handgun, a carbine such as a 12.5” or 14.5” AR15, a shotgun, and a precision rifle. Those would cover all of my primary use cases. This is the group of guns I want to get really good at using and take to firearms courses or use in tactical competitions (like the Run and Guns Chris does).
Your primary gun battery might look different than mine because your skills, interests, and priorities are different. For example, you might consider one handgun to do double duty as a good general-purpose and conceal carry a gun. Or instead of a 5.56 carbine, you might go with something beefier like a 308 AR10 to cover more distance and then ditch the dedicated precision rifle.
The combinations are as varied as opinions… and you know what they say about opinions. 😉
Once you have your primary battery figured out, 80% of your focus should be on those guns. This means when you go to the range for serious practice, you take your primaries. When you take a course, you take your primaries. If you are thinking about doing upgrades with optics, suppressors, triggers, etc – all should be focused on your primary battery first.
This is your core. Everything else is secondary.
This strategy will help you stay focused on what matters most – protecting yourself, your family and your community. It doesn’t mean you have to be a monk, though. There is still room for what I would call “fun” guns or true collectibles. Those guns in your secondary battery can come and go, but they only deserve, at most, 20% of your attention.
Get really good with a small number of guns. Run them hard. As you train and put those guns through the paces, you’ll learn what works for you and what doesn’t. Stuff will break – that’s a good thing. As stuff breaks, you upgrade. Then you run it hard again… and again. You wear out a barrel, you replace it and keep going.
In taking a thoughtful, strategic approach to gun ownership, you won’t just be awash in guns you don’t know how to use. Instead, you’ll build confidence and muscle memory with a handful of guns, which may save your bacon in a life-or-death encounter. Ultimately, that is why we own guns – to defend our life or the life of a loved one, not to ogle and show off to our friends.
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