I have a few guns from my LE time, an AR and a 9mm.
Have three Benelli shotguns that I use for waterfowl hunting and pheasants
I shoot birds and clays with the Remington 1100 my Dad gave me about 44 years ago.
My Dad loved shotguns, from the heavy, Depression-era Winchester Model 37 single barrels, his old L.C. Smith side by side, and a collection of either Browning Auto 5's or Remingtons made on Browning's patent. When my Dad would talk guns, he would always mention if the Auto 5 he was holding was "a Belgian-made Browning" or not. I grew up only knowing that phrase from my Dad.
About six years ago, some buddies turned me on to the Turnpike Troubadours, a red dirt Oklahoma country/Americana band. We were at a bar and one of them played "The Bird Hunters" on the jukebox, and the line "with my hands around a Belgian-made Browning" just about knocked me down. The whole song connects with me on more than one level, including the near-miss of almost marrying the wrong girl, "if you'd married that girl, you'd have married her family. You dodged a bullet, my friend". They're an everyman band, great lyrics.
Took my oldest boy to CMP for the clays last year, I took the 1100 and he took an 84-year old Auto 5, so the average age of our guns was a bit over 60.
