He is 100% a jackass but in this particular point he is right. Please learn and practice with your rifle. Untrained gun owners are a huge danger to themselves and others and they usually don't realize it. And owning a gun doesn't do you any good if it gets taken out of your hands in the first 5 seconds of an altercation.
For your safety and others this is actually legitimately good advice.
I bought it so it can sit in the rear window of my truck and make me look tough, obviously. get stolen out of my truck and used in a crime that is then traced back to me
You dunce I don't own a truck, I drive a fucking Subaru, and the rifle is in a locked closet with the bolt removed and stored with the ammunition separately until I can afford a safe.
You are continuing to part of the reason I was hesitant to purchase it in the first place, so sincerely, go fuck yourself.
Storing like that is wise, but instead of wasting your time waiting for purchasing an expensive safe, just buy a very good Pelican case for it and a high quality padlock and keep itin a closet so you can simply toss it into your Subi when you inevitably hit a local range.
What brand rifle and caliber did you end up purchasing?
It's a Remington 510 p single shot .22 from the early 60's. It's hardly for defense, mostly for practice and getting comfortable with firearms. It was actually my grandfather's and "purchase" was a simpler way of saying inherited somewhat unwillingly.
Next is a Ruger 10/22 my recently late father in law left me along with a Winchester 20g single
That's actually a really great collection. Rim fire is extremely fun to plink targets with and the ammo is cheap, which is all that really matters at this point.
Given the attitude on display here I'm not convinced that was a bad thing. People are in here trying to give you legitimate life saving advice and you're telling them all to go fuck themselves. Gun ownership is not for everyone. Hell I'd argue it's not for most people. That's why I don't own one, but I know how to use them and I'm very up to speed on firearm safety.
First guy was being an asshole but had one good point about training, because the majority of gun owners have a rifle or a pistol locked in a closet and they've never fired a round out of it. That is a recipe for disaster in one of several ways.
It's not my place to insist that you shouldn't have a firearm, and I'm not going to do so. I will say that your attitude surrounding the subject has been very poor and alarming. A simple "I know what I'm doing, thanks" would have sufficed but instead when faced with well meaning advice your response is to immediately start calling everyone names and telling them to go fuck themselves. If someone in my community had a firearm and this attitude alongside it I would feel extremely unsafe around them.
I also admit that when responded to in such a manner I also became a bit of a jackass and you have my apology for that. I shouldn't have taken the bait. But this whole exchange has not been a good look for you. I'm not going to press this any further though.