Your Conversion Experience?

[Abraham]

Bob,

You must travel with a dark cloud over yer noggin...

[MrBalll]

My parents have always been pretty anti-gun so I kind of was as well. Never was against them, just never really cared.
I guess my conversion was one weekend I went home to see my parents and my roommate said he saw someone in our backyard at two in the morning walking around. I thought OK, that's not good. Then, a week or so later I saw a light on the kitchen ceiling that could only have come from the backyard and it couldn't have been headlight reflecting off something because of the angle and windows. Didn't see anyone when I looked so I guess they ran off. The next day I went out looking and got myself a handgun then a few weeks later pursued my CHL and got that. I also have plans to become a LEO so that also kind of pushed me over the edge on getting a weapon as well.
That's my story.

[bigred90gt]

Thankfully, I never really had an experience that led me to my CHL. I grew up hunting from as young as I can remember (my family owned 200 acres in Columbus until I was about 18). I got my first shotgun before I was 10. Thankfully, I was blessed with fairly decent genetics and am a large guy, and have trained in grappling, submissions, kickboxing, and weapons disarming techniques, so while I know I'm not invincible, I'm certainly confident (possibly to a fault) with my ability to physically handle myself in an altercation. I fully understand that I may get severely injured, or even killed by an armed assailant if I am unarmed, but that would not stop me from doing everything I can to end it swiftly with minimal damage to myself.

I was born and raised in, and unfortunately still live in, Baytown. Not sure how many of you know anything about Baytown, but it can be rather ghetto at times. I've been talking about getting my CHL for several years, with all the reports of people getting robbed at, kidnapped from (and often murdered later) the grocery stores and walmart (which incidentally, is less than a mile from my house). it's to the point that I dont like my wife going to the store by herself in the middle of the day, and she can forget it at night. I finally just decided to go and take the class, and am glad I do. Now, from the time I get dressed in the morning, to the time I go to bed at night, my pistol is on my hip (even right now as I sit in my recliner). The only time I dont wear it is when I am at work (anti gun policy, it stays in the safe in my truck), or when I have to run into the post office. I feel naked without it now.

[anygunanywhere]

I have been a believer all of my life so there was no conversion. I have owned firearms ever since I was a wee lad.

There are multiple instances in my life that have led me to the point where I am an absolutist regarding the 2A and the RKBA.

Anygunanywhere

[RAM4171]

I've always been around guns, had guns around me. I grew up being tought a healthy respect. I would get a woopin' for pointing my cap gun at anyone or anything living. Started shooting at about 4 or 5 and never realy looked back. I could be trusted to use a rifle or pistol on my own by the time I was in junior high. I remember the first time that I saw on a movie when the cops found a gun on a guy and he protested "Hey I've got a permit for that", I looked at my dad and said "daddy, what does he mean a permit for a gun?" He just said "alot of yankee states make you get one" . Well I guess that we've come full circle, dang yankees.

[jecsd1]

I grew up in So CA. My family wasn't anti or pro gun so I never had too much exposure. Wife and I moved to TX 4 years ago. I don't know if it was living on our own, owning a home or maybe it was being the only people each other could trust within 1400 miles. I promptly bought a 12ga for the home and last year got my CHL. I now carry everywhere I can. My wife is almost convinced that she needs hers too. We see too many stories on the news and I refuse to be a sheep anymore. I can't beleive the infringements to my rights that I grew up with and just accepted. Now if I can just get the rest of my family here I'll be all set.

[C-dub]

Two events for me.

1. This isn't something that actually happened to me, but within the first year or so after my daughter was born there was a rash of kidnappings in the news all over the country from just about anywhere. There were several here in the metroplex from the home, to the car or shopping cart in a parking lot, to inside the store somewhere. My wife wouldn't take her out in public without me until she was almost 3y.

2. When someone tried to enter my backyard during the day with both of my Rottweilers trying to remove his fingers. He was not deterred by the Rotties and didn't take off until he saw me. I did not even own a gun at that time. Later we figured that he was probably after my riding lawn mower, but I used this experience to convince my wife the need for a gun. I was enlightened to the possibility that if someone really wanted my daughter a couple of dogs would only slow them down. My dogs needed backup.

[LOLWUT]

Always was raised around firearms. Hunted at an early age, I took about a 4 year break off firearms (randomly, no reason to it) for school and other things. by the time I hit 20 years old I started feeling the fiend effects I was getting from no gun powder. Also never realized how much skill it took to accurately fire a pistol until I a few years back when I shot my first handgun then.

[Jasonw560]

Also always around guns. Saw a pistol in my dad's gun cabinet when i was younger. It was my granddaddy's service revolver. S&W .38 Special. I never got to shoot it, though.

My first real experience with a handgun: hunting camp with my dad. A friend of his son had a Colt Python .357. Shot it, and was like Gollum in "Lord of the Rings".

My dad bought me a Beretta 92 for one of my birthdays, and I bought a Browning Hi-Power .40. Had to sell them both to eat, though.

FF a few years, and with the border violence spilling over, thought it would be a good time to get my CHL and really protect my family.

[OldCurlyWolf]

For most of us I'm sure there has been a time in our lives (if only for a moment) were we acted like lost little sheep, oblivious to the world around us. Then comes the time in our lives when an event or series of events shocks us out of that naivety and awakens us to the necessity of situational awareness, obtaining our CHL, protecting our families, and acting as sheep dogs to the remaining sheep in the world.

What was your "conversion experience" like? For me, the first real time I became aware of the big bad world was in college. I took a girlfriend out to the movies in South Dallas and had to stop to get gas on the way home (it was somewhere between 11pm and 1am... my memory's a little hazy). While I was pumping the gas, a woman approached my then-girlfriend on the passenger side and asked for money. She shook her off, but the woman persisted and began rapping on the window. I told her we didn't have anything for her, but she continued asking- aggressively. I finally stopped worrying about the stupid gas pump, turned it off and got the heck out of dodge.

Although there was never a threat of physical violence, the fact that I was completely oblivious to my surroundings, that the woman could have easily had a weapon or worse- an accomplice with a weapon- and had her way with us, and the fact that I had NO idea what I would have done had the situation escalated shook me up. Although I didn't change right away, I made a decision that night to always be alert no matter where I was or what I was doing. Several years down the road, and here I am with my CHL and a healthy respect for the crazy situations life can throw at you at any given time. I’m a changed man.

What's your story?

My going from Green to Yellow alert as a normal condition started when I was about two. The problem was rattlesnakes. Texas Panhandle. Prairie dog towns, etc.. It stayed that way until I was eight, then I added obnoxious humans. That kept up until I was 25, then I joined a SE Texas PD and added most of the rest of the human race. That is when I started having a firearm handy nearly 24/7/365. Other than no longer being on a PD not much has changed in the past 30 years.

BTW I was about 12 when IT came out. That thing that says: "You hurt me or my family, you better pray the cops catch you before I do." A fellow about 2 years older, 8 inches taller and 50+ pounds heavier than me brought IT out. When you hit someone that much smaller than you and he doesn't even blink, it is time to run. HE did.

I am most definitely the type of sheepdog the wolves REALLY don't like.

[OldCurlyWolf]

This person is most definitely converted.

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