A deep interest and passion in WWII specifically. I used to spend hours after school in the library reading books on WWII. I loved my history classes as well in college and it grew from there.

I grew up in a small ranching/farming community, and started target shooting and hunting at about 10-11. The love never went away.

Glutton for knowledge. Never once did I ever think "Boy I wish I didn't know how to do something".
Guess Im just an old time boy scout "be prepared" at heart.

My dad was a Marine who served during WWII on Guadalcanal and Peleliu (was wounded on Peleliu). When I was nine, he bought me a J.C. Higgins .22 single shot and took me to a range to get some instruction. It was his opinion that every boy should learn to shoot at an early age.

BB guns- as early as I can remember.
Real guns- since the first time i shot that double barrel Savage .410, and those paper shells came flying out when I broke it open. And that smell, that fine smell coming out of those two skinny barrels.

About 20 years ago a neighbor friend asked if I was interested in shooting guns. He had gotten his license and was going to the range. My brother had a gun when I was a teen and I had shot that but no experience otherwise. I said sure, let's go. Then I ended up getting my license. I bought a P226 and ended up here. You guys did the rest. So I was already in my 30s when I got my first gun. I wasn't political back then and would have probably said I was a democrat. You guys are to blame for my far right views also.

Anyhow, Charlie, the friend that got me into guns, is now a successful YouTuber. He has GunGrams and Riding Shotgun with Charlie channels. He is also a minister and is officiating my wedding this July.

I had BB guns as a kid, but it wasn't until I was 34 or so, when a fellow member of the Commemorative Air Force said he wanted to sell his '43 M1 Garand. And down the rabbit hole I leapt...

Todd

Watched Combat and other shows as a kid in the 60's. I lived in a rural area and playtime for all of us kids was walking around in the woods with toy Tommy guns and other stuff thinking we were bad asses.
Westerns were big then too but the WW2 guns were much cooler.
A little later I walked around with my dads .22 bolt action when he wasn't home. Lucky I didn't shoot myself in the foot.
I don't know how we lived through that and made it out alive.

I grew up without a dad so my uncle was my dad figure. He and my grandfather were into hunting, shooting and gunsmithing so I just grew up in the culture. My uncle started taking me hunting with him when I was about 4, but of course, I didn't have a gun of my own to shoot at that age.

I used our family guns when I did start carrying a gun to hunt, but my uncle finally got me my own - a Mod 94 Winchester .30-30 and a Harrington and Richardson 20 gauge single shot shotgun. I got pretty good at skeet with that shotgun even though it was a single shot and full choke.

My grandfather purchased my S&W Mod 19 .357 for my first police academy, but I had already started purchasing my own firearms before that starting while I was in the USMC. Only my funds and my wife have tempered my purchases over the years.

I'm now down to having three firearms in my house - a SIG Sauer P365 XL, a Howa short action 6.5 grendel hunting rifle and a Beretta Mod 418 .25 auto my mother left me. Moving away from a desert area where I had a gagillion square miles to shoot to my new location and with the ammo shortage, my frequent shooting days are over...at least for the time being.

I grew up in rural New England, one my first recollections of guns were my mother shooting a pheasant (out of season I later learned) with a single shot 16 gauge. Guns were always around the house. At around age 8, my father taught me to shoot (WW II Vet). I had a BB Gun very young; the family property, which now belongs to me, still shows my youthful indiscretions. I learned to shoot better hunting squirrels with a very old single shot 22 with a manual cocking mechanism.

At about age 11 or 12, I saved up from working odd jobs and bought my first 22 LR for less than $25.00, probably more like $20.00. It was a Western Field, tube fed, bolt action, from the Montgomery Wards catalog. In those days you did not need to prove age, residency, firearms education, have a permit or any such stupidity. This gun got shot a lot until I joined the military at age 18. It sat for about 25 years until my nephew ended up with it. According to him "shot it to death".

Like many here, firearms have been my life and for 45 years, my career. Sometime, hopefully many years in the future, I intend to be buried is with a Sig 225 right next to me, loaded of course (the mortician in my home town is very understanding about things like this). As they say it is better to have it and not need it.......

I honestly have no clue. No guns or hunters in the family before me. I started reading field and stream in my late teens and took an interest in hunting, I became a bowhunter a few years before I gun hunted. Late 20's I took an interest in handguns and been going strong ever since. I do wish I had someone along the way to teach me something.

I've always like them even as a young kid, but got my first hands on experience when my next door neighbor friend's dad got him a pellet rifle.

My uncle was the first one to take me to shoot my first real gun when I was probably 9. It was a S&W 38 special J frame looking thing.

Was putting together a bugout bag when I decided I should have some kind of firearm "just in case" (it was a short time after 9/11). Bought a Mini-14 with the intention of shooting it just once to make sure it worked then throwing it in the bag. Yeah, right. Never expected shooting to be so much fun. I was hooked. Plus it was kind of an extension of my martial arts training. Rest is history (also from there went on to invent the Accu-strut.)

Started out with BB guns
Progressed to crossman pump pellet rifles
My dad got me a 410 when I was 12 ish
And I love history(lots of gun violence there)
And I used to watch the Rat Patrol and Combat on the TV when I was growing up.....

As far back as I can recall, I played with toy guns, then BB guns. When I was elementary school age, my Father kept a loaded S&W Model 10 .38 Spl under his pillow (I know, not what I would do, either...) BUT I NEVER touched it without permission, and he ALWAYS dropped whatever he was doing if I asked to look at “the gun”. Even if he was watching a boxing match (he loved boxing) he would turn it off, and take the time to show me the gun, unloading, loading, safety rules, etc.

He gave me his old Colt Frontier Scout .22 (which I still have and would never part with) when I got married, and shortly thereafter I got the gun bug and bought my first Ruger, a P-85. A few years ago when my FIL passed, I got his old Colt Frontier Scout .22 also, and a slew of other old classics, such as a Winchester Model 69 .22 LR.

I recently had Dad’s EDC, a 2.25” Ruger SP-101 .357 customized by Gemini Customs. V-8 porting, moon clip conversion, bead blasting, action work, barrel crowning, high-polish trigger, etc. Stunning work by Gemini Customs. I know Dad would be pleased.

Here’s a picture:

ETA: With Wright Leather WOrks Predator holster, TK Custom moon clips, moon clip holders from Jeffrey Custom Leather.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Watching re-runs of old TV westerns.

This.

My first gun was a Winchester Model 94 30-30.

“Interested” as a kid with purchase of a Ruger 10/22 from paper route money.

“Interested” as an adult with the ‘94 gun ban.
It was then that I realized the importance and patriotic duty to own guns and actively support the 2nd Amendment through political activity and financial support of gun rights groups.

After ‘94 my purchases and interest greatly increase from the interest I held as a kid.

It was just natural, like learning to walk.

I learned to shoot so early that I don't remember learning to shoot. I have pictures of me shooting with my sisters, and I'm so small, I'm not sure I'm even out of diapers.

Hunting as a kid with my dad and uncles.

My buddy and I both had BB guns, man did we have fun. Small town, nearby woods, plenty of targets. My dad had a "Ruby" .32 that he had for when he got called in by the alarm Company. He was the responder if the alarm tripped at his place of employ. I went to the Library and looked the gun up and saw how to field strip it. He came home for lunch one day and I had it broken down and cleaned on the kitchen table. We went out to a relatives farm and shot it. I was hooked. I was 12.

Lock N Load

Michael
USMC Ret