I would not have expected an anti gun tirade on this forum or any other tirade for that matter. The reasons people want to shoot firearms are many and diverse. Some just find the technology interesting, some like to try to see how accurate they can be. It is extremely difficult to obtain a firearms license in this country and one of the requirements is that one has to join an accredited club and shoot under supervision.
There were 141,775 firearm certificates on issue on 31 March 2010 and 580,653 shotgun certificate holders.