With risk of going OT, gold is a long term investment. It's not day trading. 10 years is a short amount of time. Yeah there are going to be fluctuations between a few years, but in the long haul, it will always hold value. It has the longest record of holding value in human history. Gold was valuable before the wheel and will still be valuable after "faster than light" travel. It may take 50 years to really mature, but if a college kid save some money and buys gold now, when he retires, it WILL hold some serious value. Stocks, bonds, 401Ks, pensions; they all fluctuate and can be killed by the market. Companies go out of business and entire economies fail, like the USSR or the Crash of 1929. Paper money and electronic investments can turn in $0 in a split second. But if you have some real Au in hand, it will be worth something to someone. Always. In the year 3000 B.C or 3000 A.D.
As for guns, I would only do it if you already have a comfortable solid investment, and are just looking for something to do with your money. Go out and buy something with proven collector value. But don't buy a regular out of the box gun from from a store and expect it to hold value. Limited editions, like the guns presented to the Presidents would be the thing to buy if you can.
