I find this shocking. I fully expected you or a family member (over in Italy) to own a finely crafted and well carved/engraved shotgun from Benelli, Beretta, Guerini, etc that is a family heirloom.
Funny story...back in Sicily, before WWII my grandfather owned such a finely crafted shotgun that he kept hanging on the wall behind the front house door as a deterrent (to be noted, the front door was always open, except at night, as nowadays the first thing to be gone would have been the shotgun). The message being, if I need a gun I know where to find one and will use. It was ever only used for hunting ,back then the only source of protein (imagine the remote countryside in the poorest region of a rather poor country in the 1920s-30s)... nothing fancy like the long line of aristocratic loins that gave us
@rick81721, just to be clear...following the Allied invasion of Sicily, all guns were confiscated by the invading Armies (a smart move that should have been implemented in later, less effective campaigns if you ask me), so my grandfather was given a 'valid for a shotgun' receipt and promised he would get his prized heirloom back at the end of the war...long story short, that shotgun is now probably stored in some U.S. or British safe and what my grandfather got in return was a shitty piece of garbage that he didn't even consider worth using for hunting nor as a form of intimidation, hence was thrown in a closed and forgotten all about...fast forward to the '90s, and several iterations of very strict gun control laws, as you would expect in a semi-socialist country, the shitty shotgun was found in the same closet (where it sat undisturbed for about 50 years) when the house was about to be demolished to make room for a new one. My aunt, then in possession of the house, enquired with the local Carabinieri station (a military police force that most males in my family, me included, at some point or another belonged to) what she was supposed to do in order to legally retain the gun once begrudgingly owned by her father...the requirements were such that after a quick round of consultation with the potentially interested family members (again, me included) the weapon was happily released in the hands of the local Carabinieri in order to be disposed of (which possibly never happened, as shitty as it was it was still about 100 years old at that point, possibly worth something).
I am that much of a gun person. I'd rather talk about bikes...
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