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Did you grow up with firearms or get interested later in life?

  • Since I was a kid.

    Votes: 391 86.7%
  • Later in adulthood.

    Votes: 60 13.3%

  • Total voters
    451
Not to minimize the rest of your reply @mhayd93 , which is great, but this last part is something to talk about.
I know people who feel they should have a gun to protect them self, have absolutely no interest in hunting and yet still vote Democrat! WTF?!?!?!?

You know the story, "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help".

It really is amazing. I also know quite a few people who are that way; avid shooters who will tell you how pro-2A they are, but then vote Democrat exclusively. It's as if there is a literal mental block that prevents them from seeing how voting Democrat in the modern era (especially on the West Coast) is a direct vote against the 2nd Amendment.
 
1967 I was givin a Marlin 22 lr, purchased at the neghborhood Coast to Coast hardware store. It was a christmas present. When my 5th grade class re-assembled after the holiday, the teacher(Mrs. Nyberg), (bless her soul) asked all students to share what they recieved as gifts.
She immediately propelled me into popularity.
Still have the gun today, along with a full safe of others that I have been collecting, and respecting since.
 
I grew up wiith guns, and it's maybe a funny thing, but I NEVER remember a time when I did not clearly know the difference between toy guns and real ones. We had great cap guns like the Mattel Fanner 50, toy Tommy guns, later Johnny Seven OMA and Crimebuster, not to mention dart guns and later BB guns. I believe I was shooting Dad's Colt Woodsman at around six, and I learned on the .22 single shot rifle he had had since 7th grade. It was not too much later that I got to shoot his S&W K-38 Masterpiece (probably why I'm still spoiled for a nice trigger). Guns have just always been part of life. In the mid 1970's I got interested in handloading. Maybe it's fitting, given that I have the same birthday as James Madison.
 
Wow, old thead. Daisy Red Ryder was first then Benjamin .22, then Winchester. 22 lr then Sears .22/.410; then Navy with many play pretties. Lost count afer that, but still enjoying. Wife tells me people in our subdivision know where to go when SHTF. :).
 
60's kid, co2 powered rifle shooting phone books in the basement with dad are some of my best memories. Hunting the Colockum for deer or elk in the Blue mountains.
Got married and life took its own course.
When I became a widower I remembered the memories of my youth and here I am —-"
 
We had a 22LR with birdshot by our back sliding glass door to shoot robins eating my mom's strawberries. Later on, my 12 gauge to kill gophers that were tearing up the backyard.
I've taken half a dozen or so people, that had never shot, shooting last year alone. It's the same exact response every time. They want to go shooting again afterwards, some have bought their own guns. There's just this mystique about firearms when you aren't around them that people get a false pretense, because of what harm they cause in the hands of bad people.
 
As a kid, no but kinda.

My grandfather started my brothers and I, wasn't till I was an adult did I really get into firearms and concealed carry. Didn't get my first AR till my grandfather passed. My grandfather left my brother's and I some money, first thing I did was buy a Ruger AR556 with some of it at my grandfather favorite gun store in Lincoln City in memory of my Grandfather.
 
I grew up in Detroit, (uhhh, the one in Michigan as you have to clarify here in Central Oregon). My dad was a Ford man, we lived in the city quite near the Dearborn city limit and his job at FOMOCOWHQ -- an acronym you're likely familiar with if you grew up there, LOL. I guess I probably first held a rifle in my hand at the age of eight, visiting my French-Canadian grandpa (dad's dad) during our annual summer trip to Ironwood -- my dad's hometown in the UP. Grandpa was an all-around outdoorsman, expert marksman, WWII vet, prodigious hunter, angler, trapper, oh and a game warden to top it off. Give him an onion, a salt shaker, a wild protein, and a bottle of red wine and he would create a masterpiece. Some of the wine even went in the pot... Anyway, I still have that rifle -- Canadian-made Cooey .22LR single-shot "Ace 1" ca. 1930s.. I then remember a few years later my grandpa handing me a Ruger 10/22 with a bow on it. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Are you kidding me? I can put TEN BULLETS IN IT??? And I only have to pull the bolt once?

Round about 1980, my folks finally read the writing on the wall and we moved to the suburbs. Got tired of our cars up on blocks since someone had helped themselves to the wheels overnight. This would happen, on average, twice a year. And we lived in one of Detroit's "good" neighborhoods. It was here when I became involved in scouting and exceled at marksmanship. By the time I was 16 and driving, I was allowed to take my 10/22 to the range by myself about 20 minutes away from our house. That's right, there was a time when a 16-yo could go the range by himself! And I think I want to say a brick of 500 .22LR was around $5! Lawn-mowing money kept me in ammo all summer. Those were good days. Nobody called me a racist for owning a gun, and for the most part, nobody wanted to take it away from me.

So I guess that's about 43 years. Since then, I can't think of a firearm I haven't handled at least once. I love taking out new shooters -- especially some of my anti-gun lib friends. The number of people shocked when I take a 5.56 round out of my Ruger Ranch Rifle and put it in my AR, and demonstrate "one trigger pull, one discharge" illustrates to me how badly we've lost the narrative. But at least if they go shooting to me, they will have to at the minimum question theie belief in the Biden lie of Americans walking around with "weapons of war."
 
I grew up in Havre and Helena Montana until I got into High School when we moved to Boise. Dad was a baker but he grew up hunting and fishing with his Dad. He started teaching my brother and I to shoot with a single-shot .22 when we were in the neighborhood of 6 or 7. Then came a Marlin 39A. Shooting that Marlin at tin cans, pine cones, squirrels and whatever else we could find was always part of family camping trips. Sometimes when we were stopped along a river, Dad would walk upstream a hundred yards or so and toss sticks into the water, and my brother and I would take turns shooting at them as they drifted by. I remember one time, I was on the rifle and down to the last round of ammo. As the stick came by I fired, but I jerked the trigger and pulled the muzzle up. I knew it and was mentally cussing at myself by the time the bullet got there. It should have been a clean miss, except the stick happened to catch a whitecap at exactly the right moment that lifted it right into the errant bullet's path. Broke the stick clean in two. Dad started calling me Deadeye after that. I never told anybody until now that it was just a stupid lucky shot.

Dad gifted me a Remington 721 in .30-06 for Christmas when I was about 14, and we went hunting with it the next season. I haven't hunted for many years now and probably won't anymore (I'll be turning 63 later this summer), but I still have that rifle. Dad's still with us and still likes to go shooting, although he spends most of his time taking care of Mom these days. Of the three siblings in my family I'm the only one that really got into guns. When I was in my late teens / early twenties I developed a neurological condition that gives me a mild tremor in my hands. It gets worse when I'm tired or hungry or angry, and it's gotten worse overall as the years have passed. The result of it is, I can't shoot a handgun for squat outside of about five yards. I own a few, but I don't shoot any of them very well unless I have a solid rest. Regardless, I'm on email notification lists at a couple of places, waiting for a new Dan Wesson .45 automatic to come available. Go figure.

When I finished HS and college and moved out here, 43 years ago now, it didn't take very long before I was buying my own guns. First came a Ruger Single-Six convertible, then a Colt .45 automatic, followed by a whole raft of things. I got into IPSC pistol shooting, then IPSC-style rifle and shotgun shooting, then NRA Highpower, and now I'm moving into F-Class as my deteriorating eyes and joints make Highpower more difficult. My match rifles now are a Remington 700 that I had rebarrelled in 6.5CM, and a Krieger-barrelled AR in .223 that I built myself. A couple years ago I fell into a too-good-to-pass-up deal on a Colt SAA in .45 Colt. That got me to thinking, "Ya know, I really should pick up a lever-action rifle in .45 Colt to go with this!" So I started researching those, and along the way kind of got the yen to acquire one in .45-70 as well. Why a .45-70, I don't know. I have no plans to hunt with it, I just wanted one. So in the last few months I bought a Uberti copy of a Winchester 1873, and a Winchester/Miroku 1886. I haven't been able to scrounge any .45-70 ammo yet and I'm still waiting for some reloading components to come in (just bullets, I have everything else), so I haven't been able to shoot the 1886 yet. But I will.
 
Family moved from Kansas to Seattle area in early 60s, my dad was an avid shooter, mainly into varminting though, so I grew up being the automatic reloading machine and shooting a lot of bolt action rifles at long range. Rockchucks and Coyotes are a fun challenge! Lots of things have happened along the way, sister had a stalker so we got her into a self defense shooting class, got into Search and Rescue, lots of hiking and camping all over the state. It's sure changed, not for the better, sadly.
 
Never handled a firearms until 1964-65 (15-16 at the time). Took a hunter safety type class. Fired 12 ga shotgun on skeet range. Civil Air Patrol training. Next exposure was basic USAF training M-16 qualifications. Got to my first base and during occupational training (Security Police) shot 38 & M16. , Added M60, M79, M203 for my year in Southeast Asia. got our after 4 years (1971), worked for private patrol service (armed) working East Oakland, then Southern Pacific RR PD, a city PD, then State Police/Highway Patrol.

Side Story: Dad was career USN, WW2, Korea, South Vietnam. 61-63, while stationed at NAS Moffiet Field, had a second job working private security. Until he got sea duty. Late 1970s, Cal DOJ "discovered" that they had a large number of firearms that did not have a DOB associated with the records. These firearms were purchased before 1968. After 68, Gun Control Act of 1968 required DOBs be placed on the DEROS and 4473 forms. So DOJ said since you have to be 21 to buy a handgun, we'll just give all the firearms entries without a DOB, a DOB of 01-01-1968. I found this out when I had to submit a list of firearms owned for a school I was scheduled for. But when dispatch ran my info, they only came up with a guy that must have owned 60-70 rifles and handguns (all antiques/collectibles), and a 38 revolver registered to my dad. the Date of Transaction was in late 1961. But none of my firearms ever came up. And one dispatcher tried for a couple of days without getting mine.
 
Was doing some overdue long gun arranging to accommodate the Pedersoli Hawken I picked up today and laid hands on the first shotgun I owned:
20210709_165330.jpg

.410 Mossberg 183D-B. My dad bought it for me for my 10th birthday......in 1953.
The deal was, in return for the shotgun I had to use it 1 day a week to put my own supper on the table. It wasn't much work really, the pheasant, quail and rabbits were thick in those days and I put enough meat on the table for the whole family on my designated day more often than not.
Hard to believe that was going on 68 years ago...
 
Great topic! I too grew up on a farm. Dairy farm in Whatcom county, and never was without a gun, .22, shotgun… had a creek running through the farm, summertime fishing, winter duck hunting, grouse hunting… i often ask myself why I ever left! It was a blast, but Dad had some very hard laws and to break one was PAINFUL!
rule # 1- every gun is a loaded gun treat it like one
rule # 2 - if you were aiming your gun it had better be at something you intended to shoot!
rule #3 if you shot it, you eat it… ( learned this the hard way after goofing round and shot a Goldfinch with my BB gun, course me being me, didn't see Dad watching behind me…, Goldfinch tastes like shit by the way)
Rule #5 - if you wound it, you don't come home till the job is done!
That's why you will never see me take a "long range shot over 300 yards"!
Dad taught us to respect your gun, to be always fanatically safe when handling guns, but most importantly was the lesson that guns are not mystical, not magical, they are a tool with one purpose to make live things dead. The mystical and magical comes when a shooter can tune out the noise, get that calm centered focus, and his gun is tuned and sharp, its hard to explain.. but the few times it has happened to me, it felt like magic!
 
my dad was raised on a farm and grew up shooting ground squirrels& sparrows with a homemade FLIPPER, made from red willow crotch and old innertube so yes that was passed to me. one of my early memorys was my dad and uncle reloading ammo. my uncle had a homemade powder measure made from a prince albert can and every time he would throw a charge i could hear a ZING of powder and those shiny new bullets fascinated me no end, i was hooked on reloading. . i was crazy about hunting and guns, still am. i always had to share a gun with 6 brothers, we got daisy BB gun a singlshot 22 then browning 22 auto. i shot my first mule deer buck at 13 with 25 35 win. my brother and i shot up all my dads outdoor life and other hunting magazines with BB gun shooting at all the pictures of game, dreaming about when we could shoot the real thing. wish i still had all those mags that we destroyed. i love lever actions single shots and bolt actions in that order.
 

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