I can quit any time I want....
Yeah, but who wants to??
The military did it for me. I never realized that targets over a hundred yards away were SO easy to hit with a rifle - even one you had never seen before and needed to be sighted in.
I guess the military whetted an appetite I'd had for quite a while and never pursued. And that's ironic in a way, because my position in the military was in a non-combatant role (Flight Nurse, USAF). Quick version is, we still had to qualify in training, and I scored expert in both rifle and handgun. During Desert Storm I was assigned as liaison to the base armory, responsible for checking self-defense revolvers in and out for medevac crew members. Got to know the base combat arms group pretty well, and went through several familiarization classes (M-16, M-9, M-2, M-60 and Mark 19) and even attended a Schutzensnur qualification course (missed by one point). Anyway, it opened my eyes to what I'd been missing over the years. My first purchase of a new handgun since I'd worked for DOC in the late '70s-early '80s was a G20 in 1992, the month they first went on sale and just a few months after I had returned from deployment. In the years since, I've had several dry spells and even a spell where I sold off a few guns, including a 4" M66-1 I had bought in 1979
(what the heck was I thinking????) After I recovered from that short spell of insanity
around 2005, I swore I'd never, ever, sell another firearm. Well, maybe one. I traded my G20, along with a little cash and bought a nice shotgun earlier this year. That trade required replacing a caliber I had come to love (10mm), but I had never really warmed to the Glock, so I found a 1911 in 10mm to go along with my .45 1911. My stepdad passed on to me his WWII issue gun, a Colt 1903 .32 hammerless in the late '90s, just before he died. Sometime around 2010, I bought a couple of Ruger pistols; a LC9 9mm and a RS40C compact .40S&W. It became my standard EDC after getting my concealed carry permit in 2010 and remains one of my favorite handguns to shoot. I had added a .45 1911 soon after, and then the 10mm came late last year; I enjoyed and came to love the 1911's so I decided to find a more compact model; Springfield had too soon pulled their .40S&W version of the EMP off the shelves, so I got one in 9mm. Then, somehow, I got in the grips of S&W revolvers (pardon the pun), I had a very nice M19-3 I bought in 2015 and decided it needed company. Well, since first of this year, I've bought four more S&W revolvers to keep it company. All this pistol and revolver expansion hasn't even addressed my shotgun and rifle madness, although it's been on a much milder scale. In the 10 years since 2010, I've collected four side by side shotguns to go along with a Mossberg pump I bought in the late '80s and a single barrel break-open my Dad had. I also purchased a Springfield M1A Loaded around 2012, as I'd always thought they were the coolest looking military rifle. I have built two AR15's since 2010; one as a M4 in 300BLK to use as a CQB rifle, and one as a long range rifle in 6.5 Grendel. And somewhere in all this confusion, I picked up a nice 91/30 Mosin-Nagant. And i almost forgot the two .22 rimfire rifles and one .22 rimfire pistol I have, as well as the Rossi .38 Spl revolver that was Dad's, and the little Taurus .38 Spl. snubbie that is really my wife's.
My safe runneth over.
My "interest" in handguns began with the various toy guns my brothers and me had to play with. Cap guns made by Mattel (always loved my Fanner 50s), Ideal Toys (The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo Gun)....
As you can probably tell my interest in handguns is wide and varied as my present collection nowadays consists of many more guns from different manufacturers while still encompassing a number of handguns of the old gunmakers I use to enjoy back in the good old days.
Remember the attache case with the hidden pistol? I had a neighbor friend when I was about 9 or 10, we'd play MFU and take turns who got to be Ilya Kuryakin (we both liked him better than Napoleon Solo)
Our interests in what we collect has a similar basis, if not exact items. Over the years I have retreated from having "latest and greatest" and have gone back to "old reliables". I only have two polymer framed pistols now, all the rest are either 1911's or revolvers.