I should have made it clear in my article that I was thinking about people who buy guns to defend themselves against (real or imagined) human adversaries, and how that affects their psychology subsequently. Of course, as you and other people have pointed out, there are other, overlapping categories of gun owners, whose psychologies are different. The main ones are (1) hunters, (2) target shooters, and (3) collectors of various types of guns. The focus of your acquaintance on deer hunting, almost amounting to an obsession as you describe it, is an interesting one, but in many ways not much different from photographing wild life — just more violent.

We all have our passions. Do we ask ourselves why we have chosen our particular ones and continue to devote ourselves to them?