that is hardly a universal need list
Let's pretend a "universal need list" could possibly exist. How would it be established?
People
need many things, but according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which contains five distinct areas of need, people only
need a few
physical things (shelter, food, water, etc - each aptly placed in the Physiological category, the largest area of need). However, we can slightly expand that list of physical needs by looking to the second most important level of need, which is Safety.
Now, according to Maslow, the only thing within the Safety category is "security," which is stretched to include two more specific types. The first is safety of property, of body/family, and of resources - these are physical types of security, which we will discuss. The other is security of employment, of morality, and of health - which obviously can't be physically protected, so we won't go there.
Taking it to the next level now. We've established that humans have two distinct categories of physical need: Physiological (food, shelter, water, oxygen), and Safety (security of self/family, of resources, and of property). Guns, in and of themselves, are obviously not included in the hierarchy at all. But guns can be tools used to gather and hold onto at least some of the physical things on the list. Specifically, food (hunting), shelter (though not in practice in our society, because people don't just go and shoot their way into a home as a means of establishing shelter), and the entire physical area of Safety (self and third-party defense, and defense of one's property).
Now let's go to the next level. Since we're discussing
need, we need to at least look at what
most people's needs actually are, rather than a select group of people. Let's limit it to gun owners so that we at least have a chance of having a few extra guns, because if we include all the people who own no guns at all, I think it's plain to see that it would be difficult to argue that we really "need" any number of guns whatsoever. So among gun owners, which areas of need that we described above are actually common purposes people own guns to fulfill. Well, food was one need, and many countless number of people still hunt for food, so we'll call that a need area. How many guns do people really need for hunting (what do we need that, if without, we simply wouldn't be able to hunt)? Anyone reasonable would say a .30-caliber centerfire rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun, if not ideal in every scenario, would at least suffice for 99% of hunting applications in America. So for this role we are at two guns. A rifle and a shotgun.
What other area of physical need described above could be served by owning a gun? Clearly, the safety category. So again, looking at the average gun owner, what sort of gun/s do people have for the safety role? Well, a handgun, obviously, to serve as an EDC. Also, an increasing number of people now recognize the benefit of a long-gun for defense, particularly in the home, but also abroad. So we have two more guns. A handgun and another, smaller caliber rifle - possibly an AR15.
That about does it. How many guns are enough, if looking for a "universal need list?" Four guns, listed below.
1. A .30 caliber rifle, used primarily for hunting.
2. A 12 gauge shotgun, used primarily for hunting.
3. A handgun, used for mobile self-defense.
4. A smaller caliber rifle, used primarily for stationary defense, or HD.
This was fun, and dangerous.
