Good thread for a wintery Saturday, Nik. Let's see, guns, saws, and I guess we can throw dogs in there now. For sure, dogs easily fall into the personality profile of an average chainsaw nut. May I call you all nuts? Yes, I thought so.
I enjoy my guns, and i would fight any law designed to remove them, but at the end of the day, I'd give them up way before my chainsaws. I just have a LOT more fun with my chainsaws. I will admit that my desire to have guns increased tenfold the one day that I looked up while cutting, realized that I was h#ll-and-gone from ANYWHERE and that I should REALLY take better precautions. From then on I took a sidearm anytime I traveled into the National Forest and I have a nice little relationship with a couple of select firearms that I think are just right for me.
Never been a hunter, don't need to kill anything (although I've considered ridding the world of some of these damnable crows.. they are incredible pests around here), I just think guns (rifles and handguns both) are cool and I cherish and reserve the right to deploy them in a desperate situation.
Now dogs are an interesting situation. I am not nuts about every dog I see. If I didn't have a dog, it wouldn't be terribly hard for me to not get one. I've periodically waited a long time for the dog to come around that floats my boat. My problem is that once I have one it becomes everything to me that a child might be to someone else. I have no kids and probably won't ever have them, but there's no denying that i have a strong paternal instinct. I actually threatened to quit a good job because my employer was considering reversing their decision on whether dogs were allowed in company housing. If I didn't have a pooch at the time I might not have raised such a stink, but my attitude was no different than if someone told a parent that they'd have to give up their child. My dog wasn't going ANYWHERE, for ANY reason. And, yes, if i had to choose between my pooch and my chainsaws and guns the pooch would have won, hands down.
I'm sure glad it hasn't though!