It's because of one person...

[cmgee67]

Who was the person who introduced you into guns and gun safety and instilled in you the second amendment and all that comes with it? Mine was my Dad. He started taking me duck hunting when I was 5 years old and I was shooting an old single shot 20 gauge until I was about 9 then he bought me a Remington 870 youth model 20 gauge and then a beretta A390 20 gauge. After that I won a Remington 870 express super mag 12 gauge and also owned a pre 64 Winchester model 94 30-30 that my grandfather had given me. I grew up shooting BB guns and sling shots and bows and arrows but it was my dad that got me into guns and hunting and gun safety. I never had any interest in pistols or AR 15's until I was about 17 then it has all gone down hill from there haha! Just ask my wife! But I owe it all to my dad. Love you dad!

Who got you into it?

[mupepe]

Mine was also my dad. He taught me how to shoot very young and we would go walk the property shooting rabbits and the occasional snake. When he passed away I inherited his collection and it's just taken off from there.

So speaking of my dad, he passed when I was 23. I was dumb and sold the Bersa Firestorm 22 he left me. I regretted it really quick and I've spent the last 6 years or so looking for it. I make it a habit to check every gun store I go to. I found it yesterday in a pawn shop near Stafford, TX. Asked to see it, turned it over and I read the serial number 6 or 7 times before I believed it. I'm so happy! I always thought it was ugly but when I finally got the chance to break it down and clean it this morning it looked beautiful. He was looking out for me yesterday.

[rotor]

Nobody in my family. The Cub Scouts got me started. I don't know if they still do that but it was a one week camp as a Cub Scout.

[Medic624]

Me... Growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 1970s and 80s with a single mother I actually didnt know just anyone could own a gun. I grew up under the impression that unless you registered your gun you couldnt have one and even then it was difficult to own one... if at all...There was the (if you dont register your handgun it was an automatic 1 yr in jail sentence)... Only once I went into the military and left NYC did I find out about the 2nd Amendment and the RTKBA... from then on its been a steady climb of loving, defending and exercising my 2nd Amendment rights

[timdsmith72]

My Dad.
He started taking me hunting with an old bolt action .410 when I was.... Darn near too little to even lift it. When I was 5 years old, he bought me my very own .410 single shot to go dove hunting with. Not long after that, a 30-30 lever action to deer hunt with. And it just snowballed from there.

[Jusme]

My maternal grandfather. My parents divorced when I was young, my grandfather bought me my first gun a Crosman 760 bb and pellet rifle. He then let me shoot his 22 rifle, and then his 16 gauge shotgun. He took me dove and rabbit hunting. Still miss him he passed away in 1981. Thanks PawPaw.

[The Annoyed Man]

Nobody in my family taught me either. As a kid, the area I grew up in was sort of transitional from rural to suburban. There were still open fields in the area, and lots of orange groves, but suburban expansion was gradually intruding into those areas. My siblings, friends, and I grew up toting everything from Wrist Rockets to pellet guns to .22s. I really enjoyed it, but I grew up in a very liberal and anti-gun family, and my brothers and I didn't even have BB guns, let alone anything more powerful than that. My dad had two guns, but they were hidden away in the attic, and were both sourvenires of his past life. For years, we didn't even know that he had them. One was a .22 rifle that had been his when he was a little boy. The other was his WW2 sidearm, a 1943 Ithaca 1911A1, which I still have today. When he died in 1990, my brothers and I inherited the guns. I got the .45, and my youngest brother, who already owned a couple of guns, got the .22. (My middle brother didn't really have an interest in owning a gun at the time.)

At the time, I was very into motorcycling, and was involved in road racing. There seems to be a lot of crossover between the gun world and the bike world. (And the flying world too.) A couple of my motorcycling buddies were still serving NCOs in the California National Guard, and so I asked them to take me out to a range, teach me to shoot the 1911, and to show me how to safely load and unload, and to fieldstrip the gun for cleaning. They, like many of us today, were all too willing to jump in and help. The first time I shot the 1911 was the first time I ever fired a pistol. That was 1990, and I was 38 years old. When I shot through the first 7 rounds in that magazine, I turned to look at my friends, and I had a yuge grin on my face. I was hooked.

Becoming a gun owner and shooter was a HUGE part of my growth as a citizen. I had learned about the Constitution as public school student, but I never really thought much about its application in my own life until I got a gun. I knew what the 1st and 2nd Amendments were, but I had never personalized or internalized their meanings because they weren't important to me. It is worth noting that, at the time, I was still a registered democrat. My concept of the Constitution was that it guaranteed my right to vote (it doesn't), to have an abortion (somewhere in its penumbras and emanations, it allegedly does), and the right to not have to testify against myself, and that was about it. I HAD read it, but somewhere along the line, my teachers had failed to communicate just how important it was to know everything about it. That's why I had no problem with a massively expanding federal government. As a liberal democrat, I thought that was a good thing. I am flat out going to apologize to all of you for that right now.

Becoming a gun owner got me interested in the 2nd Amendment because my NCO friends were sure to include that when teaching me about my newly acquired gun. Getting interested in the 2nd Amendment got me interested in the rest of my rights. That led to me getting interested in the limits that the Constitution places on gov't, and it led to my have a much more expanded understanding of what liberty means. Becoming a gun owner changed everything. There were other things going on in my life too. I came to faith in 1994. The time between 1990 and 1994 was a time of transition for me. I was still a registered democrat in 1990. I voted for Clinton in 1992. In 1994, in the wake of the AWB, and as I began to have a different understanding of morality due to my new faith, I changed party affiliation to republican, and after more than 20 years as a democrat I cast my first vote as a republican for Bob Dole in 1996. Since then, as my journey brought me to the point where the liberty of the individual has become my highest political value, I've evolved into a libertarian-leaning independent. But ALL of that begins with my first gun. My youngest brother's political evolution is similar to my own. My middle brother, who to this day has never owned a gun (and who is a Cal Berkeley alumnus), has remained a liberal democrat in the same mold as my parents were. I think if he had gotten one, he would have changed too. Why? Because it is gun ownership that teaches someone whether their gov't regards them as — to quote Susanna Gratia Hupp — "as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of." If your gov't treats your gun ownership as if you were part of that unruly crowd that "needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of", then you ought to resent the heck out of it and vote accordingly.....irrespective of which party is responsible for doing it.

THAT is why I've always been more than willing to introduce other newbies to shooting. I consider it a form of paying it forward. New gun owners become converts to individual liberty, and they replicate that highest of political values in their children, and try to convince their friends.

[crazy2medic]

My dad taught me, i started shooting when i 4yo, first gun to shoot was a 25 cal baby browning, my first gun was a savage single shot 20ga, when i turned 13, my dad made tbis big hoopla about a job we had to do on saturday, said it would take all day!, we loaded up the work truck and headed towards Grapevine, i knew something was up when he pulled up to jess stockstill's gun shop, said i could have any 20ga shotgun in the store, i picked out a Ithaca mdl 37, still have that, it has never been to a gunsmith still functions flawlessly, first rifle was 1917 enfield eddystone my dad had customized, still have that, my first pistol was mdl 19 S&W 357 my dad gave me when i was 16, carried that in my car(illegally) for a couple of years, first pistol i bought for myself was a S&W mdl 25-5 .45lc sold that and used the proceeds to buy my paraordnance .45 in 1994 to go with my chl!

[oljames3]

SFC Austin and SGT Jett, Ft. Leonard, MO, 1973.

Having taken, for the first of many times, a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution (https://www.army.mil/values/oath.html), I found it prudent to learn what I had pledged my life to defend.

In our society, not all who take a similar oath are committed defenders of the Constitution while many who never take such an oath are ardently involved defenders.

Take for example a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved in producing the elements. The pig was committed.

In our society, we have decided to rely on a few volunteers to serve as the committed guardians of our constitution so that not all are required to so serve. Only a few feel the call to be committed. Each of us is responsible to choose our form of defense and support for the Constitution. The important point is that we do choose and do act.

[C-dub]

Dad introduced me to guns and safety, but there was never any talk of the 2A. Not even as an adult. I learned about that myself.

I can say that I've done my best to teach my own daughter about firearms, safety, and the 2A. At only 15y, she's already interested in getting her LTC when she's old enough.

[RPBrown]

The first shooting that I can remember was with my grandfather in about 1962 then, both dad and grand dad and later trips with my dad after my grandfather passed away.

[Middle Age Russ]

I blame Dad. He set up a range in our single car garage and began working with me on a BB gun when I was about five years of age. Then came more formalized training with Cub and Boy Scouts, the New Mexico Hunter's Safety course and one brief NRA-sponsored rifle marksmanship series of classes before high school, as well as hunting with rifles and shotguns. A few years after high school, I took the plunge into pistols as well.

Dad was always a conservative libertarian politically, and his views as well as some exceptional teachers in the public education system led me to a firm foundation in conservative leaning libertarian beliefs. My Rights -- including the Right to an effective defense of self and loved ones -- are God-given and I hold them dear.

[txglock21]

Mine is two fold: My ex-stepdad got me into hunting which in turn got me into rifles and shotguns at about 12 years old. I got my first 20 gauge on my 13th birthday and my first 30-30 rifle on my 15th birthday. I was never interested in handguns until my dad (ex-LEO) bought me a .38 revolver and took me to the range to shoot it. A few months later, I went into the Air Force as a Security Specialist and had to become proficient on all types of weapons. I got expert ribbons for several small arms, including M-16, .38 and 9mm. I also got to shoot weapons like the .50cal, .81mm mortar and stinger missile. My love for ALL types of weapons just grew from there.

[Liberty]

In my sophmore year in High School I had a teacher and neighbor, that taught my Civics class. He presented the Bill rights, How we earned them and how important they were. He was a libertarian before we knew what libertarian meant. He later became the principal of that school. He was a positive influence over a whole lot of kids.

I took a hunter safety course at High School and my mom bought me a Stevens .22/.410 over and under that year, and I learned to hunt. Things are a lot different these days.

[MrMcCullster]

I had a small and short introduction to guns, but didn't really have one person flip the switch for me. It was small memories here and there from different people.

Like a previous poster mentioned, it was a camping trip and a short stint with BB guns in Boy Scouts for me. I remember we had 4 or 5 boys all lined up on a bench next to the campfire, and on the other bench about 20 ft away we had soda cans setup.

It was going to grandma's house in the country and shooting an aluminum pie pan nailed to a tree every once in awhile. It never really was a highlight or something I was addicted to, just something we did if we were bored.

The big introductions to guns was my grandpa's Winchester 62A .22 rifle when I was 7 or 8. We drove out to a small bridge in the country and tried to shoot turtles. I didn't want to shoot it at first because I was scared of the loud bang, but after I saw my dad shoot it I wanted to try.

My dad had a few pistols but never brought them out or showed us. The pistols were all locked in his closet throughout my entire life. I found a few magazines in there instead and that took my attention away from the guns for some reason.

I inherited those pistols when my dad passed away last March, and I inherited my grandpa's Winchester 62A as well from my grandma.

Most of my fascination with guns is from researching guns and because I enjoy shooting. I used to only go to the range once every 6 months or so, or when a family member wanted to shoot a real gun. I in turn ended up being their introduction to real guns. I never really pressured my brothers or sisters to go either and it never really was something I always talked about or wanted to do if I had free time. But now my 60 year old mother and younger sister are taking their Tennessee CHL/LTC course, and my sister in college just bought her first pistol (an M&P Shield 9mm).