It's occurred to me that those of us who are so interested in shooting and gun stuff may have some common gene. I was raised in a non gun/shooting family environment but still got the bug, somehow. Maybe it was the movies, or tv. My earliest memories include shooting back at the black and white tv with my toy Colt six shooter and Winchester lever action on Saturday morning. I got a good sized cannon for Christmas. It was spring loaded. After shooting my grandma from behind enough times it was taken away from me. In later early teen years my older brothers got a hold of a single shot .22 rifle. We hid it from my dad, a WWII vet who had enough of guns already. Anyway, I was just wondering what got some of you guys started? Grew up around guns? Or not, like me?
Gunnuts are born, not made?
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- Last Post 20 April 2015
My father's family were all from Eastern Kentucky. My earliest shooting memories are from about 4 years of age. When I asked my Dad for a 22 rifle he told me I would have to wait till my 6th birthday. Every Sunday during good weather, after church, the men folk target shot at “marks” on a tree stump. Usually a nail head or thumb tack at 30 yards and all done off hand. Gun trading was the real reason for these, I think as 3 or 4 got passed around every week depending upon how well they shot. That lasted until about 1 PM and diner time.
Most of that stopped in the late 1950's when we got TV. As soon as I turned 14 and could get a “farm” drivers' license, I started chasing girls and that was the end of shooting until the Army.
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Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest
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it was the smell ... at age 5 or 6 my uncles let me trail along on quail shoots ...the smell of the fall woods and the burnt powder was some kind of magic spell i guess. when we returned home my uncle let me shoot his 12 gauge ...
yesterday a friend showed up and we shot up a hundred or so hornets out of my warm shop ... the smell spell is still in effect ...
in the unlikely event that i might expire, i want to be cremated in a brass casket full of 100 pounds of No. 80 ....
” There goes ken, he was a SonOfAGun “
dang straight
ken
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around guns and fishing and farms since I can remember. Five boys and ALL around guns (ME!)!
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When I was four years old I went next door to my Uncle's. He was shooting at a target on a box in his back yard. He let me shoot and I hit the box with the pellet gun. My Dad found out and bought a pellet rifle and metal catcher. I would sit or lie on the floor in the family room and shoot in the evenings. Dad then came home with a single shot .410 . I killed my first grouse and goose with that shot gun that year, and a bull moose when I was nine yrs old. I've been hooked on shooting and hunting ever since I was four. Brodie
B.E.Brickey
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Growing up in the 1950's in Alaska, every house had a rifle or two or three in them. If they wern't in the closet or hanging on a wall, they were behind a door.
My dad had 2 rifles and a shotgun and so did my grandpa. After watching Hoppalong Cassidy, Gun Smoke, Gene Autry, and so many others, it was nothing to spend a saturday after- noon out shooting our capguns at each other.
Well, one thing lead to another so when I turned 16, my dad gave me his 30-30 Win. As soon as I could afford more guns, I bought them. While in the navy, I bought a 30-06 for moose hunting and a .243 for seal hunting. By the time I got out of the navy, it was illegal to hunt seals. :(
When I started college, the muzzleloading bug bit me and the rest is history. Today I attended a match at which I competed with a 45 cal flinchlock Southern Mountain long rifle.
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Used to think growing up in the Canadian backwoods and seeing/being interested in rifles hanging on kitchen walls is what got me started. Later learned that my Dad's Uncle (I never knew him) was really into shooting. By the 1930's they used to say he had shot up more ammo than a good than could pull on a wagon. Wife thinks it's Genetic , look into your past and you might just meet yourself..
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Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest
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dabrat ... good one ... i have come up with a few, following your lead ... but they are unfit for the eyes of our genteel readershipees ...
har
ken
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Yeap, I'm from a non shooting family too.
Cheers from New Zealand
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Hunting, fishing, trapping, reloading, bullet casting, family. My good fortune.
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I spent a lot of weekends on my Grandparents farms. My uncles were only a few tears older and my Dad was staying out there. Dad was the hunter. My Mothers folks had a farm and my Grandmother over there was the squirrel hunter. My Dad showed me how to shoot and Grandma Harris showed me how to hunt. I started to shoot just for the sake of making holes when I realized that I needed to do something for fun besides get drunk. Shooting takes me out of my head, a place where I should not play unsupervised.
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I did the cap gun and BB gun thing when I was a kid. Always knew where my Dad's 22 rifle and double barreled shotgun were in the closet and .38 Super was in the top dresser drawer and NEVER thought of taking any of them out to play with. I don't remember helping my Dad refinish a .303, but was told I got real mad when after I spend a lot of time helping with it my Dad did something I thought he shouldn't have.
My formal firearms training started with a Boy Scout safety course in our church Nazarene. I doubt that would happen today.
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When I was 13, (yep, I once was 13, honest)and my brother was 3-1/2 years younger, my Mom convinced my Dad that Jack, (brother) and I should be taught to shoot and to handle guns, because in our urban environment (LAX) she thought that we could be at a friends house, be exposed to a gun or guns, and possibly get in some kind of accident. She wanted us to know just what a gun could do, handled improperly. (Smart lady.) So, Dad got a SS .22 and we started. Got such a hold, that next was a Mossberg repeater, and then, when we started going to the desert every weekend, a Rem. 513T junior Match rifle. Started in outdoor prone competition in 1948; soon, the entire family was engaged--all 4 of us in competition all over the land. Just seemed to naturally snowball from there, so here I am some 70 years later, still crazy after all these years!
Bill
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.
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billg..those old 513 rem. can stil shoot !! a friend brot one in; we set back and put in a tight chamber, pillar bedded it, added a rear action pillar y bolt, ...and ... a one-holer at 50 yards !! heh, he uses it to shoot sparrows off his barn ...
funny :: compared to any other magnificent accomplishments i may have accomplished in my life ... simple small achievements with guns are most numerous in the top 20 of my happy memories ...
ken
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My mom grew up around guns and we had her college .22 and her dad's shotgun in the house when I was growing up. My dad didn't like guns. Only time I remember him with a gun was on a trip there was a deer that had gotten hit and was suffering, so my dad got out the 22 (we were on the way to our cabin) and finished it off. We usually took the 22 up to our family cabin and I got to shoot it there. I guess that's where it started for me. None of my 4 siblings are very interested in guns, but one sister owns several for her own defense.
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Born & raised in rural Oklahoma, “guns” were remarkable only if someone didn't have at least a “22". Odd to go into a home the first time and not see one standing by the front (or back) door, and always prompted the question: “Where's your gun?” - until Mom told me it was impolite. But at least it was a way to start a conversation (I'm still a little bit puzzled how anybody wouldn't have one - now, more than ever before). Now & then Mom would shoot a couple of fat cottontails just to cook something special for supper. She could keep the gophers out of the front lawn, too. Is that maybe why we have break-ins & burglaries now? Because odds are against confronting someone to discourage it these days? “Gun Nut"? Sounds like a contradiction in terms. “Anti” Gun - Now that sounds “nutty".
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I grew up in Texas in the 40's and every boy and many girls had a 22 rifle and a 410 shotgun. Nobody thought anything about it, guns were just like bicycles and baseballs, gloves and bats, they were just part of growing up.
I guess I just never grew up!
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Somewhere along the way, somthing went terribly wrong with our nation. Can anyone say exacttly “what?", “when?", “why"?. “Urbanization” doesn't make sense - since city-dwellers need guns far more than rural-dwellers do. At some point, citizens lost the will (or courage) to participate in their own security and relinquished it to the “state” - with rather deploreable consequences. In their incredible wisdom, some of our founding fathers predicted this - didn't they? And yet - we have today an important segment of the population that insists that our Constitution is “outdated” and that its authors could not have envisioned the society we live in today. Amazing! (And depressing!)
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I respectfully ask that we keep this thread on why we are gun nuts and not get into a political discussion. We tried that in the past with disastrous results.
Thanks,
John
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