>sally as she was affectionately called by her former owner was a pristine, federal ordinance m14 her owner had shot her regularly and tightened up the accuracy to around .75MOA.

They would go out every Friday ,Saturday, to the local range and then he would return her to her safe where she would wait. Over the years she saw his family which consisted of her owner his wife and their single daughter, time passed the daughter grew up and moved out and the wife passed away and her owner got old an couldn't shoot her any longer although he would still take her out and polish her and maintain her. Until one day the safe didn't open.

A few long months went by, with no one opening the safe, as she sat she had a good idea of what had happened, although she was sad that her owner had most likely past away she was happy as she knew she was willed to the mans daughter who would surely cherish her as a memory of her late father. then one day she heard a voice outside the safe "so mam this is the safe you need opened right"

"yes I think it contains some family photos and maybe some valuables".
Sally could not contain her excitement at the thought of being held again by a human particularly her owners daughter, the thought of seeing the cute little blond haired blue eyed girl was enough to bring a tear to her eye.

There was a grinding sound and then a thunkas the vault door was cut off.
Followed by a an ear piercing shriek.

"oh my gawd is dat an assult rifle" came a shrill voice" 
The man who cut the vault door off winced in visible pain.
"umm I think its an m14 he replied"

"i don't care what it is its disgusting and vile the women replied"
"I'm going to have it destroyed by the police like all guns should"
"the man who cut the door off had a sad look in his eye.

Suddenly the man replied "do you have any paper work on this rifle ann shoemaker" Upon hearing the name of this women the rifle couldn't believe it her owners daughter had called her ugly and terrible, the grief sally felt was tremendous, she was the rifle that watched over the house ready to be used to defend the family for all these years, she had grown to love them. Where had things gone wrong.

"noo why would I have paper work for an evil gun"
the man replied "well before it can be destroyed you need to register it first that can take a long time if you want I have a friend who is a cop who can get it done faster then you can"

The blond women paused for a second.
"okay you take that killing machine away from here I don't want it to hurt my children" she screeched.

"okay" replied the man who then carefully took the rifle out of the safe and then walked back to his panel van and wrapped the rifle in a blanket and stuck it in the back. "don't worry I'm not going to let that happen to you." He said.

after 10 minutes went by the man came back seeming as if he had been relived of a great burden. And looked back at the rifle.

"what a gorgeous rifle a shame that idiotic fool wanted to destroy it."
So the man drove to his home after finishing up a few other minor jobs around town. He brought the rifle in to his house, which looked more like a machine shop and definitely smelled like one to. 

As he got out of his truck and went to the back and picked up the rifle with his callused hands he ran them over the subtle curves of the wood letting them rest on butt stock.
"well some one loved you didn't they" he said cheerfully to the rifle that looked just as polished as the day it was machined on the factory floor.

"well your safe here why don't you meet the other girls." He said gleefully. sally wasn't sure how to feel, her previous owner had been a one gun family she hoped the other guns would be kind to her.

With that he walked into his house and down a hallway and made a left hand turn.
There he opened up a steel door with a passcode lock on it, and behind it laid a machine shop and a vast armory of weapons ranging from brown Bess to the latest .338 mile shooting bolt action rifle.

"Ill put you with my other m14s". he said as he glanced down at the rifle.
"oh you are a federal ordinance rifle that's great now I have every model of m14,". "guess when my friends come by we can have an it aint me party" he chuckled, as he carefully placed her into the rack.

A few months had passed and sally had adjusted to her new home while she wasn't fired as often as she used to she had grown fond of her new owner Bob Shire. It was a slower pace of life and the guns frequently talked to each other when he wasn't around in their humanoid form. One day though bob was with his friends and he suddenly collapsed. he was rushed to the hospital where it was found out that he had brain cancer that was most likely terminal. while he had no children he did have friends but they couldn't take all of his rifles, so this left the rifles in a serious dilemma what would they do, to prevent them self's from being sold off and having their group of friends broken up. It was then that sally had an idea they would use their physical form and talk to bob and have one of them placed as the inheritors. 

The rest as they say is history, Bobs house has now become a legal rifle sanctuary where rifles are now go when they no longer have a home this is the beginning of 
"shire rifle society"

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Currently it has been 5 years since Bob shire passed away leaving a what he called modest sum of his business funds and personal ( a combined 60 million he inherited 40 million from his parents who made their money investing in the GI bonds and then reinvesting that money back into American owned corporations after the war the rest was made by his company which involved custom metal fabrications and lock work along with safe cracking) and his property in the hands of the rifles. Some of the rifles took up his books and educational material on machining and gun smithing and started doing repairs on peoples rifles for a modest cost, as well as collecting unwanted guns, and other military goods along with cars and other machines that contained spirsits (ex for machines that have spirits must be mechanical or mostly mechanical, ex cars, tanks, mechanical clocks/analog) generally rifles and other machine spirts so to say could not take much initiative on their own unless they were extremely old (over 100 years) or in most of their case since bob declared that the rifles were their own masters before his death it essentially freed them to do what ever they wanted. 

Despite rifles representing individuality and independence they seemed to have a tendency towards group think and could form a consensus fairly fast, mabey that was due to some of them having a military history, or that they were mass manufactured and spent long times with only other guns as their company, but that aside the society had done fairly well and functioned as a democratic institution with a parliament and a prime minister. Currently the parliament consisted of 60 members who were among the older of bobs rifles or had seen extensive military, para military use or were extremely old. Although a few of bobs mills and lathes were also in there along with one of his pickups who was a 1954 ford f100. Not all the guns or machine spirits was female, some were male, others decided to representthemselves as what ever gender they felt easy with showing in public but would change it for individuals they knew well or had taken a liking to.

so some generally most of the rifles were female although a few that had female or in the case of a world war 2 rifle who had a secretly gay owner (although rifles and other machines know their owners preference regardless of verbal communication or not ) 
or the rifle just felt the need to differentiate themselves or preferred to represent themselves as male. 

It was also not uncommon for the rifles of war to send letters of condolence to the families of those they had been used wound or kill.
Even the civilian guns followed suit, while to the outside observer this might seem as a self serving gesture, 

most if not all of the rifles sincerely meant what they wrote as despite being weapons that took lives they were also entrusted with keeping a person alive so they knew the feelings of loss and sorrow and understood that they could cause pain. While many of the guns managed to put their past behind them along time ago a few felt the need to travel in person to apologize for the actions of their former owners such as ones used in crimes or war crimes.

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It could be said that despite being machines many of them had a strong sense of morality, many of the guns that had served in wars would up hold the Hague convention and Geneva convention as such rules in theory should have or did help their masters survive. 

Above all the guns wanted to ensure human survival first and along with most machine spirits (hey its possible to hate someone)when not under human servitude followed Asimov's 3 rules of robotics. In that most of them cannot hurt machines or humans intentionally (unless they are really old over 200 years old this is a fact that machine spirits would like to keep to themselves but wasn't much of a problem as all of bobs original guns didn't hate humans. and he only had 1 gun old enough to do so an vintage revolutionary war musket which was a brown and was the oldest and only one which would soon gain the ability to do so model 1855 revolver produced in the year 1860 )

As such one of their overarching goals asides from providing machine spirits a safe haven or a place to retire from work was, humanitarian. while bobs original rifles helped serve as security coordinators while not acting directly as boots on the ground they trained humans who would paired them with a rifle that they received that they deemed would fit the person the best, and sent them out, although all the teams also had as many late model m16s in their humanoid form plus ammo as they did actual humans just incase their ammo ran out for their assigned guns

currently a detachment consisting of the prime minister a brown bess ( who surprisingly adopted the name ben and is male easier negotiating as well as power) and 2 members of parliament an m16a1 named sherry, and a Russian myosin nagant referred to as mossy.
Currently they were on an expedition to inspect the newest acquisition of the society the USS intrepid air and sea museum and the assorted planes. Since the Shire rifle society had recently acquired the museum and associated staff all of the former care takers and staff had been acquired as well. This arrival was just for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the handing over of the museum to its machine spirits the ownership of the property to the shire rifle society. Despite the rather progressive nature of new York some people protested the move saying that machines shouldn't have rights others stated that weapons shouldn't be allowed to make their own choices along with those who plain old just didn't like guns or fun.

As the somewhat crowded f100 moved along escorted by NYPD finest of 2 patrol cars in front and 3 suvs in back and a military MP detachment two light MRAPS at either side. they saw a see of people holding up signs ranging from "thank you for serving our nation" to a very odd sign that said "i love you raifu".

they had finally reached their destination at hells kitchen newyork the intrepid museum. The convey came to a halt. Ben opened the door and a collective gasp could be heard from the teeming masses, followed by a cacophony of shouts and cheers. as ben stepped out the f100 rocked slightly as his 6ft 4inch frame barely avoided clipping the top of the door frame. 
While one could say he had an imposing presences it was not malevolent it was imposing in much the way a large tree was large impressive and sturdy.

Sally and mosey had both exited from the left of the truck and walked around the front of it. While smaller in stature sally was around 5ft,6in with a slim hour glass figure, some might same almost dainty, compared to her compatriot mossy who stood in at around 5ft 8in with a well defined muscular body.

They flanked ben on either side and waved to the crowd.
As they walked towards the musume entrence they were flanked on each side by 3 nypd officers who escorted them until they could reach the podium which was set up right in front of the where the entrance, it was a modest temporary structure, most likely the same one used for when they broadcast the Colbert report a few years back.

AS the walked up the stage in single file ben waved to the crowd bringing some cheers. 
He cleared his throat and spoke in an almost aristocrat high British manner that a human could not reach even after hundreds of years spent at an etiquette academy. 
"My fellow citizens and guests I would like to thank you for your support and participation in this great event." he scanned the crowd, with a gaze that conveyed confidence..

He made a slight pause and motioned to the crowd
" As you can see we have made much progress through out the ages of this wonderful civilization called America. When I was first forged a few progressive minds would have thought that one day we would have people black , white, Asian and native inhabiting the same town, going to the same schools. But no one could have that machine spirts like us could actually exist much less have rights. so I would like to thank you for your participation in helping your representatives pass a bill that allows for our recognition as individuals."
Suddenly a quick movement from the left caught ben's eye it appeared that a man had rushed past the nypd and was going to make it on to the stage.