When I was about 9 yrs old, (about 1977) I wondered into the neighbors yard as he had the coolest toys.
On a table in the yard, I found what I believed to have been the most realistic toy gun ever.
A simple bolt action, that was fortunately empty!
My dad and neighbor were both very concerned and pissed off.

Learned some valuable lessons that day:
Not to touch what isn't mine.
Treating firearms with respect, never to assume that it is a toy.
Also, not to trespass. Even if the yard doesn't have a fence, I need to respect other people property.

My Second exposure came one year AFTER I joined the NRA. When a friend taught me the rules! Later, purchasing my own.

I grew up on Montgomery County Maryland long before it went full retard. My father passed away when I was 2. Two of my uncles in SW Virginia and local friends of my father introduced me to guns when I was 6 or 7. As I recall, I started on a 22 revolver but moved on to a 22 rifle very quickly. The folks in Scott County shot a lot and one of my uncles served in the Pacific in WWII. I think I was about 12 when he let me shoot his 1903 Springfield. That really hooked me. My uncles gave me my fathers Winchester bolt 22 with a Lyman peep sight when I was 10 and my fathers Luger that he brought back with him from Germany at the end of the war when I was 14. I still use the Winchester to take small game and varmints on the farm. The Luger shoots fine but I now keep it clean and safely locked away.

When I was about nine months old, mother swaddled me in a papoose and took me antelope hunting.

I was weaned on the one she harvested.

I got my first gun, a Mossberg 142A (which I still have) when I was five.

When I was about 11 years old I went to my first overnight summer camp. They taught marksmanship and I fell in love at first shot with a .22LR rifle with adjustable rear sights. Can you even imagine what would happen if they taught marksmanship at camp now???

I think I was about 3. My dad’s brother was a rancher and, of course, he had guns around. He kept a Colt Official Police .38 under his side of the bed. They told me later in life that they heard me shouting “Bang! Bang! Shoot ‘em up!” And found me in the floor waving his .38 around.

I’m 68 and I still have that same Colt in my safe.

I was perhaps 9 or 10 and went rabbit hunting with my neighbor - I mowed his lawn in the summer and shoveled his driveway in the winter and asked if I'd be interested

my next exposure to a firearm was when I was an Air Cadet, I got to shoot a Lee Enfield

I don't remember the first time I shot a gun, but the family went shooting/hunting quite often, I would shoot the .22 (my dad grew up in an agricultural environment where shooting skills were needed at times to protect flocks/herds, they took it seriously).

I do remember, about age 6 that I would help my dad reload his own ammo. My job was to put the primer in the little cup, correct side up, at the right time, every time. I also remember he wouldn't let me have toy guns, as "guns are not toys, when you are old enough I will give you a real gun and teach you how to respect it". It was in the early teens I got a barrelled action, we did a custom stock (I still have that rifle).

With Webelos Cub Scouts (age 10) we would go to the National Guard armory once a month to shoot .22's. (That would never happen these days as we have learned that guns are evil. )

First long gun: Age 11, Marlin 336 .35 Rem lever action for deer hunting in PA when I turned 12

First pistol: Age 20 or so, Beretta M9 9mm in the US Army

Dad was a geologist for Shell Oil Co back in the ‘60s. On rare occasions he would take me with him to wells being drilled in southern Colorado. Once he took his JC Higgins (High Standard) .22 pistol along and we shot at cans on the bank of the mud pit. That pistol jammed about every 4th shot. Not one of High Standard’s better efforts.

The first rifle I shot was an old Stevens Favorite .22 that belonged to my Scout Master/Dad’s friend from work. Shot tin cans filled with creek water up in the mountains west of Denver. I actually hit some of them.

Been relatively on my own since I was a kid. No parental units around, and I started working at ten. I had a Benjamin air rifle as a kid, that I bought with my own money from work. That was it until I turned 21 and could finally buy a handgun, which was a Glock 23. Taught myself to shoot.

Since I was a '70s/'80s kid growing up with all that American media, I had always wanted my own handgun. I watched a Jeff Cooper instructional VHS in the mid '80s when I was a teen to learn more about them. Even though Cooper was a staunch 1911 .45 guy, I wanted a wondernine since they were all the rage having just been adopted by the military. When I turned 21, the 3rd-gen Smith autos were just being released and getting good reviews, so I saved my money and soon bought an early 5906 with a squared trigger guard and non-Novak fixed sights.

When I finally got the pistol, I was scared to death of it, having never shot centerfire before! It sat in its box for about 2 months until I finally took a safety class at nearby Chabot Gun Range in the Oakland Hills (R.I.P. 1964 - 2016).

I had a BB gun when I was early teens.

At age 17, Uncle Sam loaned me a M1 Garand and gave me cases and cases and cases of 30.06 ammo to play with.

No one had eye or ear protection at that time.

But boy, did I have fun.

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Your first introduction to guns

My first ever "introduction" to guns was when I was about 6 or 7. My father came home from patrol with his men, and they just left their guns laying around. So, my brothers and I got curious and started fondling them. I still remember playing with the Thompson and said, "Man, this thing is heavy". Years later, I fondled the Thompson again at a fun show and thought to myself, "Man, this thing is still heavy, even for an adult".

The first gun that I ever actually shot was my first gun, a Colt Mustang Pocketlite. That was some 30 years ago. No one introduced me to shooting. I did it and learned it myself.

Around the age of five I had the opportunity to get a few shots off with a Ruger Mk1, but I was eight when my uncle introduced me to shooting. Ruger Mk1, USGI 1911, and a USGI M1 carbine. Needless to say, I was hooked.

My older brother shot me in the hand with his BB gun when I was 5. I was not allowed to own a BB gun because of that, until I reached 15. At 16 my parents got me a single shot .22LR for Christmas.
We had good times shooting ground hogs out the back door of our house, my dad, and brothers and me.
At 19 I went to Ft. Lewis and learned to use other firearms and loved it also.
I got my first revolver that year too.
My younger brother and I had loads of fun shooting together until his death.
I taught my 4 kids about gun safety and if they showed interest, taught them to shoot.
Taught one grandson to shoot last summer and shot with an older grandson last summer as well.

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At 19 I went to Ft. Lewis and learned to use other firearms and loved it also.

At 18 I was at Ft. Polk learning to shoot M-16's. Then they took the reservists aside and for most of a day we shot M-14's. I never got to fire an M-60 but was put on detail once to haul them around.

I was 7 years old and my dad (an infantry captain) was asigned as the PMS&T at Walla Walla high school, in Washington state. He bought a youth model .22 single shot Winchester for me and taught me to shoot in the high school's basement range. We shot there in the evenings about once a week.

Although my father was a bird hunter, I never wanted to hunt and did not fire any guns with him or my uncles. In high school I took Junior ROTC and we had a .22 range in the basement--my first experience to fire a gun was there, and I did very badly (shot on the wrong target!). No further association with firearms until I was commissioned a 2Lt in USAF in 1960 and was subject to be certified with a handgun--they were using 1911s back then and in my first 5 years in the service I only was afforded one opportunity to try to get certified, and I didn't make the grade (first several assignments did not have small arms training facilities). (I did purchase a couple of handguns in an effort to improve, though.) However, in 1965 at Vandenberg AFB, California there was a small arms unit and they noticed I'd not managed to qualify with the handgun yet, so they scheduled me for training. By then USAF had changed to using the S&W revolver for qualification, with .38SPL ammunition. I was put with a trainer who took particular attention and actually qualified "Expert" that day (don't overreact--"Expert" by their standards only meant keeping a majority of hits on the paper!). Nevertheless, my ability with handguns improved over the years from that. In 1973 I was a Captain and one of my subordinates was an A2C who was into reloading and pistol shooting, and we became friends (yeah--I know that was taboo) and went shooting most weekends at a local sand pit. He taught me to reload and introduced me to big-bore handguns: .44 Mag, .45Colt, and .44Automag. I even got reasonably good with a 1911 finally. My fascination with big muzzle flashes was triggered by those adventures. My collection has grown considerably over the years, and now includes rifles, shotguns, and a few Class 3s. My father would be amazed, because he thought I was afraid of guns (well, I probably was, being unfamiliar with them at the time).

My first time to fire a centerfire rifle was in 1961, when one of the enlisted men I served with (I was 2Lt) took me to his place down the mountain (Mt. Hebo) and let me shoot his M-1 Garand. I won't lie--that was quite a shock as a first centerfire rifle, with the steel butt plate, etc.! I was sore for a couple of days (but I'm glad I did it).

My exposure in the 1970s with my friend probably would qualify as my real "introduction to guns"--it was by far the most memorable and pleasant experience with them.

flashguy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: flashguy,

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

At 19 I went to Ft. Lewis and learned to use other firearms and loved it also.

At 18 I was at Ft. Polk learning to shoot M-16's. Then they took the reservists aside and for most of a day we shot M-14's. I never got to fire an M-60 but was put on detail once to haul them around.

When I was stationed in Iceland, I did the local Marines a favor (installed a crypto lock on their armory door) and they let me run a full can through an M60. WOOOOOOO!

First intro to proper firearms was in college. The police academy was run through the JC so they had an intro firearms class. Students could bring their own or borrow retired S&W Model 10s. My instructor was a former Ranger turned cop on the SWAT team. Every Friday I bought a box of 50 wad cutters from the range master and borrowed eyes, ears, and a .38. When we got to barricaded off hand from 25 yards out I looked at the instructor and told him if I was ever in that much shit he better be on the way with his buddies.