Shot my first gun at 18 months old, it was a MAK-90, and owned my first knife at 4 I think. I've been raised around guns and knives all of my life, and have never had an accident with a gun, but have slipped many times with a knife.
I bought cheap knives all my life until I was 17. One day I went to Nevada and bought a cheap butterfly knife. After playing with it for hours and hours, I broke it, the handle just snapped in half. So I looked into buying a quality one, and the name "Benchmade" came up. I thought, "I'm not going to spend $100+ on a knife that I can't even carry where I live," since butterflies are a felony to carry here in CA. So I read up on all of the quality knife companies for months, and bought many cheap Kershaws.
Then, for Christmas that year my parents were pissed that I had a Christmas list that consisted of 60+ items, 50 of them being expensive knives. So for Christmas I got a Benchmade 551, Kershaw Blur, and a Cold Steel Spartan. I was happy and I was hooked. 10 months later, I have spent a lot of money (for an unemployed student) on knives that I probably should have spent on a car. Before this though, I was spending my chore money on guns that I would purchase in my parent's name, since they would let me. For Christmas when I was 12 my Dad surprised me with a Mossberg 500, and from then on out I got a gun or two every year. Before I could even legally own a gun, I "owned" around 14 different rifles and handguns. So I basically went from one addiction to another.
My most recent choice was to either buy a Glock 19, Remington 870 Tactical, or a ZT 0301, I went with the ZT, pocketed the extra cash, and am currently awaiting it's arrival.
