Gun control.

I suppose being pro gun is probably coded in my DNA somewhere. For as long as I can remember I have always been fond of firearms, trucks, boats and bikes. My fondness of guns grew exponentially when my father finally relented and bought me my first BB gun. I was instantly hooked. I was incredibly lucky to live on a green belt in Northern Virginia so my back yard/shooting range was a few hundred acres of dense forest with a river running right through the middle.

My dad took me hunting when I was 12 or so and we kept the guns in a glass cabinet over my bed (yes I had the key, access and was taught a respect for firearms).

My dad was the first in our family to go to college and we were the first to move away. Every year we would go back to visit family for one week in the summer and one week in the winter.

In the summer we would go out to my grandpas farm and set up a bazillion tin cans to shoot. My dad bought me a Ruger 10/22 and taught me to shoot with it. I still have that same gun 45 years later and look back on those days very fondly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 1s1k,

For me, it was because I was an Army National Guard officer and I wanted to own a military-type sidearm, so I went with a THEN-new Beretta 96 in .40SW. Also, my oldest friend from HS was a competitive shooter since his USNA days and taught me to shoot. And this was before he became a VA State Trooper and then FBI SSA and former firearm instructor at the FBI Academy.

I've been shooting ever since, but did slow up sharply when I got married and had small children. I no longer have that Beretta as I got out of that caliber in 2012.

I was very involved in high level competitive martial arts from a very young age. Time and cumulative injury no longer allowed me to compete and train at a level I enjoyed. A friend invited me to shoot, and eventually started competitive pistol matches. I enjoyed the process of learning and competing again, and made some good friends in the process.

And as an American, and a guy, it is just cool to shoot guns.

I grew up surrounded by farms and forest in mid Michigan, knowing how to use a rifle and shotgun was required

I had permission from all of the farmers around us to hunt on their land, pheasant, turkey, deer, quail, tree rat and also allowed to fish in their ponds and lakes. They would hire me often to kill wood chucks around their property

7 yrs old, Big Bear Lake, Army dad and a .22 rifle. That crisp Saturday morning I fired my first addictive round. Been a junky ever since. As stated above, gun control turbocharged that passion.

My Dad grew up hunting and fishing with his Dad and then with his FIL after he and Mom got married, and started teaching us about guns when we got to be about 6 or so. A couple hours blasting at tin cans or pine cones or whatever with his Marlin 39 was usually the highlight (for my brother and I, at least) of any family outing into the mountains. He started taking me pheasant and then deer hunting with him when I was about 15. I haven't hunted in years now, but shooting is still my #1 hobby.

Growing up on a farm my brother and I started on bb guns and naturally graduated to real guns. We would wear out the Sears gun catalog just wishing, man I miss that catalog.

My Dad was a Deputy Sheriff and I saw his gun every day.

He always had a pellet gun or a 410 he let me use whenever I wanted.

He kept the family old wood rifle cabinet in my bedroom, so I grew up sleeping a few feet away from the family guns

I didn't buy my first gun and start seriously shooting until about 10 years ago.

I was busy playing sports and then coaching for my first 45 years or so. When that ran it's course I started my gun hobby...

Great tradition of hunting in my family. My grandfather and Dad and uncles all hunted. I joined them in the dove field as early as I was allowed which was 5 years old. I had a Daisy BB gun that I would use to give the downed birds the coup de grace. Shortly after I got to tag along on deer hunts and I've been hooked my whole life. I have a few pistols but my main obsessions are bird guns and classic deer rifles.

Saturday Westerns.

https://www.pinterest.com/1Cas...a-kid-cowboy-heroes/

I got started in guns when I was 12. Dad gave me a single shot .22 for Christmas. I used it to put a lot of meat on the table. Rabbits, turtle doves, occasional pheasants and ducks. Moved to a bigger bore rifle at 14 and started hunting deer and elk. Oh, did I say that was in North Idaho.

My dad wasn’t into firearms, but I had an uncle who lived out in the country. He wasn’t “into” firearms either, but he had a rural Nebraska practicality about guns as tools, had a few around and taught me to shoot. Later, when I was a young teen, it was about camaraderie, pheasant and deer hunting with friends.

Dad was in the Service (AR and Civilian M-F for the AR) and had a side business as a gunsmith/retailer,

so, brother and I were his lackeys

we still own the business he started

I'm an American Male - what else is required?

Dad shot trap and skeet when I was a kid - 10ish or maybe a little younger. We had a manual trap and it was a Summertime Sunday afternoon tradition to go out in the side yard and shoot case of clays. I'd go with him to the local trap and skeet fields and watch them shoot. I wasn't old enough.

Also had an ancient Remington single shot .22 that I had permission to use as long as I provided the ammo. Manually place a round in the chamber, close the bolt and cock it by pulling a knob on the end of the bolt. Most of my allowance went to ammo in the non-Winter months.

Dad bought me my first shotgun, a Model 12 featherweight in 20 gauge. I also got to use his Remington 1100 to shoot trap with, as long as I loaded the shells. A MEC 600JR on his reloading bench (he also loaded .22-250 and .30-06) and for every 5 boxes I loaded, I got to shoot one.

He was big into rifles for a while. Bought several Milsurp 03-A3 Springfields and re-barreled them. Had a Remington 700ADL in .22-250 that was his varmint gun - woodchucks along the ditch bank and foxes out of the corn fields.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
1 - I was male.
2 - I liked to blow crap up.
3 - Guns accomplished #2 swimmingly.
4 - The more I blew up, the more I wanted to blow up.
5 - And here I am today still enjoying blowing crap up.

Deer camp / hunting trip as a 9th grader.

NE kingdom Vermont, 1972

One Dad brought his cute 9th grader daughter (that I had a crush on), and taught us to shoot.

Pretty Awesome

We never had guns at home as a kid, because we lived overseas. My dad told stories about hunting as a kid, but that was about it. My mom wasn't even keen on toy guns, but my brothers and I made all kinds of guns out of sticks and anything else we could find...like boys do. One day when I was 9 or 10, our landlord was doing some work on the house, and cut us some rifles out of some scrap wood on his band saw. We played with those things for years...I wish I still had mine!

There were also little gypsy carnivals that would come to town on occasion, and my friends and I would go shoot air rifles in the little shooting gallery trailer they brought along. The guns were terribly inaccurate, and the targets were tiny (wooden shishkabob sticks with candy tied to one end....you had to break the stick to get the candy). It was basically a way for them to separate us from our money, but we loved it.

When we'd come back to the states to visit, My grandpa in Ohio would let us shoot his BB gun in the backyard, and my uncle in rural PA had some land and would let us shoot his .22 revolver. When I got to college, I got to be buddies with some guys who were getting into LE, and we started buying and shooting guns. I got my first one, a Beretta 92FS, a few days after I turned 21, and it's been an addiction ever since!