A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
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Notes -
Do you have any hot takes on the ammo shortage? I compete in pistol and I've definitely noticed the empty shelves for common rounds. I've not had any trouble getting match rounds, or to say any more trouble; I've always had to order it and wait.
Relatedly, do you thing home-reloading is viable for hobbyists? The range I practice at has a productive reload business so I've never needed to look into it. Good reliability too based on some stories I've heard.
Depends on the caliber(s) and how much you shoot. For 9mm, it'll take many thousands of rounds before your return on investment goes positive for those, and that combined with the time it takes (usually about 2 hours to make 1000 rounds, or 3 if you have to trim and measure cases) can often mean it's cheaper to buy. This is also true for any cartridge made on ancient Soviet tooling, so 7.62x39/7.62x54R/5.45 tend not to be worth it, and 5.56/.308 also take significant amounts of ammunition produced to break even (this is especially true if you're in the US).
Once you step away from those cartridges, or the factory loads of those cartridges, the equipment generally pays for itself within the first couple thousand rounds (assuming you're using a progressive press). .38 Special/.357 Magnum is perhaps the best possible use case for a press, since if you're practicing you're necessarily shooting a lot of them, their bills of materials are functionally identical to 9mm... yet they cost twice as much per round for factory ammunition and they're usually under-loaded to boot. Less common rifle cartridges don't tend to be under-loaded, they just cost way more- there's no real difference between, say, 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5 Japanese from a materials standpoint, but the latter costs 3 times more. And while that's not really something you should base kit choices around (choosing an Arisaka today as a hunting rifle just because you can make the ammunition the same price as modern stuff is not a good justification), it is valuable if you just like shooting old rifles relatively often. But then again, doing that is arguably more 'research/shits and giggles on a budget' than an actual measure of viability.
Also (for completeness' sake), if your head isn't on straight, you can quite easily make rounds that are actively dangerous to fire. 1900s-era pistol cartridges are the absolute worst for this; you can quite easily double or triple-charge the case because they really weren't designed with 2000s-era powder in mind if you don't pay sufficient attention when the press malfunctions. Rifle cartridges are way harder to do that with because you have to actively try to overload or use the wrong powder with them, but it can still be done. Quality control for reputable manufacturers is simply better than yours and they can sometimes be convinced to fix mistakes they make, but you're on the hook for gun, hand, and eye repairs as far as your reloads are concerned.
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