I think people are susceptible to going through stages of maturity in handgunning where they start out working to overcome the most basic difficulties in gun manipulation to become safe and effective. As a beginner, they have to learn some level of competence in sight-alignment, sight picture, trigger control, grip, stance etc. Once they obtain some level of proficiency in those techniques, they can be tempted to increase the challenge they undertake by making things more difficult in order to advance their skills and to increase their capability. For example, they might downsize to a subcompact for concealed carry or they might step up to a "Magnum" for more firepower. Indeed if they reload, they might be tempted to load cartridges to maximum pressures or even higher. While they're self-aware of scaling up the chamberings they shoot and maxing out their reloads, they will downplay these things to other shooters in order to assume an identity where these choices are routine. In other words, they're "compensating."