Well, all I can say is that these young punks think they can get a good gun by simply going to the "gun store". It is all meaningless and unimpressive unless your first gun was something you made with your own hands in your own shop. In my family, and countless thousands of others, if you wanted a gun, you got your butt out to the shop and made yourself one. And, in the process, you developed a lifetime of knowledge about the inner workings of a gun, how to maintain it, how to repair anything on it, etc. Where are those dang smiley things?
I have an amateur radio license and for Heaven's sake, you don't get taken seriously in that hobby unless your first radio was something you made yourself from spare parts from your grandfather's old television. If you actually BOUGHT the darn thing, wow, forget it. You're finished in that hobby! May as well sell your ham radio gear and buy a SW Model 19.