Crappy Guns

Every gun owner should fire a crappy gun extensively for a year.  Something that jams a lot.  Something that breaks.  Something picky about it's ammo and then don't use that ammo.

Why?  To familiarize him or herself with a crappy gun.  To get that experience.  To do the failure drills.

It's frustrating, but valuable.

It will familiarize a person with how a gun works.  It's a mechanical device.  It operates a certain way.  When it doesn't operate correctly you can figure out the way it was supposed to go, and internalize the corrective measure.  Like learning the sweet spot on a clutch, and learning the optimal feel on when the engine says it's time to shift. 

A reliable, works every time, pistol is a joy, but even these will have a breakage once in a blue moon.  Second nature correctives are a nice thing to have in your wet ware, and if they don't fix the problem the long experience will give you a good idea on the true nature for further addressing on a gunsmith bench.  Knowing at an instant "oh, I limp wristed it" "oh that was a light strike" "oh the magazine spring is going bad" or "oh an internal pin broke" is a useful thing.