[Burke]

The day my evil step dad told me guns kill and that as long as I lived in his house I would not have one..not even a squirt gun..that's when it started for me.

[That1GarandKid]

I saw dirty harry when I was 5. Nuff´said..

[cremley]

Boy scouts.

[UtahMike]

I grew up in the midwest, Kansas. As a kid, I had my share of toy guns and spent many a week playing the bad guy, the cowboy, the army soldier, etc. My best friend and I were always shooting something. My grandmother's brother and his family lived in the country and whenever we visited, it was time to break out the .22 over/under and take shots at birds and squarrels.
When I entered college, one of my classes was Army ROTC, this was during the Vietnam War. During my second year, I began target shooting with a buddy of mine.
Mostly on weekends using a .22. Then I decided to purchase my own guns. The first was an Enfield .303. Shortly after that, I purchased a WWII Japanese rifle (forgot the caliber) and later a Browning 9mm.
Due to too much partying and not enough studying, I did not finish school and entered the USAF. My particular job assignment required me to be proficient with the .38 snub nose.
Once I left the Air Force, I got away from shooting as I was living in that great bastion of liberalism California. Frankly, I never thought about it much as nobody I knew was into shooting.
When I moved back here to Utah with my kids, I was reintroduced to shooting as my daughter-in-law comes from a family of shooters. Her father and brother are both avid shooters and reloaders. I bought my first handgun in May of this year and now own 4 plus 2 rifles. We get out to shoot every chance we can, and I enjoy it and just shake my head when thinking about all the fun I have missed all these years.

[ArkansasHunter]

Isn't it Interesting for some of us olders guys that the firearms we had back then when we were growing up were for hunting with little thought if any as a weapon for defence ?
Sure if someone were to do you harm or break in you'd use one but we hardly had those kind of problems like we do today.

Today we own guns to hunt with plink or shoot AND for personal protection with emphasis on protection.

Yepper times have changed.

[CrazyIvan]

I loved the story you had AH. It was great. It is also interesting to see the others. I'm relatively young compared to most here, and I love hearing stories of the 'good old days.'

I did forget one thing. I always had a BB/Pellet gun when I was a kid. I didn't get to shoot it much, but when I did, it was great. Many squirrels and birds fell prey to the Crossman 2100.

[mdj696]

As a kid, my neighbor was a marine corp Korean Vet and had guns, I was hooked when he showed them to me. My dad got me a No 4 Savage Enfield around 63-64. An Iver Johnson 12 ga for Christmas. Joined army in 66 straight out of high school, became small arms repairman, went to Viet Nam in 67, 1st Inf. Div. Got out in 69, joined P.D. in 71. In 22 years we went through 38 Spec, 357 Colt Border Patrols (hated gun) went to .45 Smith Long Colt (restored my faith in God) retired carrying 92F Barettas. My love has been Enfields, even have a Mark II Sten. Guns have been with me my whole like. Retired LEO I carry a 1911A1. My biggest thrill was going through small arms school in Aberdine Md. in 66.

[KingMusa45]

My love with fire arms has been with me as long as i can remember.
My dad, all his friends, uncles, and my mom had guns and I've been around them my whole life.
Of course i played cops and robbers,i liked being the bad guy, cow boys and indians, and my all time favorite war. That was when all of the kids in my neighborhood, like 50 of us, would split into two sides and wage war. We would give witch ever side 3mins to run, hide, set up defense or what ever then the other side sets out to destroy them.
What really made me get serious about fire arms and all things dealing with self defense and self sufficient living was growing up in the in metro atlanta during the hay day of crack. I witnessed a lot of violent crimes and became a victim of one when i got robbed when i was 13 by a crackhead with a gun.
After that i knew the moment i could go to the store and purchase a fire arm i was going. My first fire arm was a mossberg pistol grip when i was 18 and my uncle took me to the store so i could buy it for my first apt for home protection. My first pistol was a barreta 45 my uncle gave me for my 21st birthday.
Thus began my days as a "gun nut".
bang bang

[That1GarandKid]

Quote:       Originally Posted by mdj696

As a kid, my neighbor was a marine corp Korean Vet and had guns, I was hooked when he showed them to me. My dad got me a No 4 Savage Enfield around 63-64. An Iver Johnson 12 ga for Christmas. Joined army in 66 straight out of high school, became small arms repairman, went to Viet Nam in 67, 1st Inf. Div. Got out in 69, joined P.D. in 71. In 22 years we went through 38 Spec, 357 Colt Border Patrols (hated gun) went to .45 Smith Long Colt (restored my faith in God) retired carrying 92F Barettas. My love has been Enfields, even have a Mark II Sten. Guns have been with me my whole like. Retired LEO I carry a 1911A1. My biggest thrill was going through small arms school in Aberdine Md. in 66.

Why did you hate border patrols? It´s just a lightly blued trooper right?

[tmanbuckhunter]

I've been interested in them since I held my dads pellet gun at 3, but it never really hit me until a few years ago. I loved guns until I got my marlin 336c in 30-30 and then I got the dreaded disease of marlinitis and was buying left and right, now I have milsurpitis so in the last 3 years I've accumulated more guns than my dad has in the last 10 and started reloading! Not much more to it.

[gunnut2u]

I had a daisy BB gun too ! and as a little kid , I always loved the shootouts in the old black and white westerns . (still do ) .I think the most fascinating gun when I was a kid was the riflemans rifle . Rapid fire with just the lever , WOW!!! and was the best shot ever ! LOL!!
those were the two things that started my love of guns . It's been great ever since , Hunting and range time are a very enjoyable thing for me .All possible by a gun ! I can't wait to enjoy these things with my grandson so he can carry on our right to bear arms !

[tippmann7]

didnt really have much influence. my grandpa was the only one who hunted and he quit when my dad was a kid, but when i was about 8 or 9 my grandpa bought a new house and gave me his old stevens 94c .410 he had sitting in the closet, been hooked ever since. been shooting a bow since that age also

[samuel]

Wild game was a staple (pheasants/rabbits,etc) as I grew up and by 8yrs I had shown my father I was a responsible boy around firearms and had outgrown my homemade slingshot.So he bought me a singleshot .22short.It had already been cut down. ,,,sam.

[Cynikal]

I am different from all of you. I was never around guns or hunting.
As a matter of fact,when an uncle died I got a revolver(don't even know the caliber), and I passed it on to a cop. I had no use for it.

THEN IT HAPPENED.

I got a divorce and had to go through the legal system.
I saw things that frightened the beegeebers out of me.
And all those things I saw were not necessarily law, but opinions
of one man, the judge.

I figured that some day, some one would have an opinion that
nobody can have a fire arm, and I wanted to have some when that day came.

For 8 years now I have been a buyer.
Hell, I even became a FFL dealer to help finance my "FIX".
I built a new house and put in a 15' x 6' concrete vault in
the basement and have been filling it up since.

I also got my sons hooked, boy was that hard.

This site even got us hooked on Mosins.

[ruger22com]

No dad around so I learned at a ymca summer camp when I was 9 or 10 shooting a bolt action single shot .22short rifle. I was hooked for life.

[CrazyIvan]

Quote:       Originally Posted by ruger22com

No dad around so I learned at a ymca summer camp when I was 9 or 10 shooting a bolt action single shot .22short rifle. I was hooked for life.

heh, you won't see that at a YMCA summer camp nowdays...

[mtncrash1]

I always had a toy gun growing up. At around 8 or 9 my Grandfather took me down back and let me shoot his double barrel 16 gauge. Didnt tell me to only have one finger on a trigger. When I shot it the recoil took the second round and I was on the ground. Grandpa was laughing. Got my first shotgun for my 12th birthday. I believe it was a stevens .410.The rest is history for me. Got my son started with the cubscouts with a bb gun. Once in boyscouts it turned to .22's and shotguns. Bought him his first gun when he was 15. Yugo SKS.Now when we can make everything work between his job and mine he is my shooting buddy.And cant wait till I turn over my guns to him.

[jmp8927]

It's a family thing somewhat. We all have them, but only me and my older brother went overboard with them. My interest started in blades and then sorta migrated to firearms when I bought an SKS from one of my brothers. I started researching that SKS and that got my attention fixed on firearms and I never looked back. These things are awesome!

[Heavy shooter]

I was lucky enough to grow up in a shooting family in Northern Minnesota. We had our own 200 yard range on our land. We shot literally every day. When we could make one ragged hole at 100 yards with one gun/caliber, My dad would buy another one Usually something bigger and harder to shoot. When I turned 18 we were shooting .416 Rigbys (still my favorite caliber to this day)from the bench almost every day. It was a constant challenge thing. He would always have more ammo than we could shoot. Hunted and fished all the time. That were the sports we played in high school.

I never had any interest in pistols until a couple of years ago when I bought a CZ-52, and now I must admit I shoot pistols more than I do from the bench. I even got my dad into pistols so I guess it's come full circle. In my family shooting is a way of life.

[tclu1308]

I was lucky as a kid to have a grandfather who was an avid hunter and also owned some timber ground. I used to spend whole days tromping around in the woods with my bb gun, and I used to set up pop cans all over and pretend I was fighting off Indians. (I read a lot of Louis Lamour when I was a kid). When I got a little older, 9 I think, I was given a single shot 410 (that I still have) and I did a LOT of squirrel hunting with that gun. My grandpa and I would spend days out in the timber playing checkers in his cabin, eating cheese and crackers, chopping wood, and almost always doing some shooting with one of his rifles or shotguns. In Junior high and high school I worked a lot but always found time to hunt either with my grandpa of my friends. It just was kindof a way of life for a lot of people in the rural area I grew up in. I really doubt my grandma ever bought much meat at the grocery store because the deep freeze at their house was always full from all the game and fish my grandpa and I provided.

These days I don't get out as much as I'd like, but I still try to go hunting a few times a year and also try to get out and shoot as much as I can. When the Clinton ban expired, one of my older cousins got into "more expensive" toys, and I caught a bit of that bug as well. I guess I've just always been nuts about shooting and hunting.