When did you become interested in guns?

I have been interested in weaponry of all ages and times for a long time--I suppose I'm sort of a militaria buff. I have always thought guns were fascinating mechanically, and in general just neat, but guns were not a part of my life growing up (unless you count toy guns).

I first fired an actual handgun about a year ago, at the behest of my wife, who is a bigtime gun person. I was immediately hooked. I took a firearm safety course; purchased my first gun about a month later, and the rest is history.

As a little kid I loved military stuff and the one object that I projected that love on to was the firearms.

My parents did not own guns but they did give me plenty of cap guns and caps. But my neighbors did own guns and had a boy my age too, and his father had no problem letting me look a the guns through the glass case. By then I was hooked and my maternal grandfather had guns and loved telling me complete BS stories about hunting.

Needless to say I was hooked long before "Santa" brought me my first gun, a NOVA 20 gauge last Christmas.

I liked guns from as early as I can remember. Cowboys & Indians, Cops & Robbers, you get the point. Grew up in a hunting family and guns were always around and visible. Real gun first consisted of a BB gun in 2nd grade. First 22 (mine) was in 9th grade. By the time I was 18, I had the hunting bases covered. At 21-22, bought my first handgun. The rest is history....

I grew up with guns, and I think I would have owned guns no matter what.

That said, a couple of events in my life have been very influencial. I was robbed at gunpoint with a friend at the age of 19. That was scary as hell, and it sucks to have a crackhead point a gun at you and to know that you have no choice to but to what this dirtbag is telling you... and even then, you cannot be sure he won't shoot you... I couldn't wait till I turned 21 so I could CCW.

When I got married, although I had owned a couple of guns at the time, I felt a great need to "invest" in the protection of my wife and family.

Does running around like a wild thing with my sixguns in my cowboy holsters as a young child count? REAL guns I got interested in at around 18 or so; boyfriend that became first husband had a .22 and we liked to go shoot tin cans off fence rails out in the woods. When that marriage ended, the fact of that gun's presence in the house did not make me feel terribly secure, sadly. It would never have occurred to me that *I* could have used it for self defense.

Didn't have any guns in the house when our children were little (given the damage they did with BB's and their nigh-on EVIL ability to get into stuff they weren't supposed to, this seemed wise at the time). Got back into it when oldest son, who had started a modest gun collection, wanted to get DH a shotgun for his 50th birthday. Then he got birthday money from his mom and got a Sig Trailside. I shot the Trailside (well) and that got me back into it. Then getting my CHL really accelerated the process.

Oddly enough, I've never bought myself a .22 rifle. Kids have them, but I do not own one of my own.

Springmom

I just turned 60 and I'm sorry but my memory doesn't go back that far......
I DO remember trying to flush a small teddy bear at age 3 though

Well,...

first it was cap guns. My brother and I had quite an arsenal. Nobody questioned the correctness of allowing kids toy guns back then (1950's).
BB guns by age 8. Benjamin air rifles at age 11. This was all unsupervised shooting, of course.
Got my first shotgun (a Marlin 20 ga O/U) at age 10. Then began dove, duck, & quail hunting. Deer hunting at age 10 too with one of my Dad's rifles.
We had a Colt Challenger semi-auto .22 pistol that we shot infrequently. Being hunters we couldn't understand why anyone would handicap themselves with a weapon That wasn't shoulder mounted. 12 gage shotgun later, then a 30-06 rifle for deer. I was an adult before I discovered the joy of springtime turkey hunting.
I didn't buy my first handgun until age 50. A friend suggested it might be fun. It was. I've got a dozen handguns now in various calibers and styles.
I've grown up with guns. They have been a constant source of enjoyment for me all my life. Now I believe they are a (sadly) necessary component of self defense.
I look forward to many more years of enjoyment with them. Hope you enjoy yours. Safely.

When I was pushing seven years, my grandfather figured out that if he gave me his .22 rifle and a box of shorts and pointed to the woods, I'd be out from under his feet. That Christmas, my mother gave me a Daisy Red Ryder.

That ws 1941. I've pretty much been running the woods ever since...

, Art

I grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan and my grandparents had 40 acres of land to play on. All of my uncles were avid fisherman and hunters so guns were alway laying in the corners of various rooms in the house. Then of course there was deer camp where there were always SEVERAL guns laying around and ready to shoot.

I started shooting (bb guns of course) at the age of 6 or so. I got my first 20 gauge shotgun and .22 rifle around the age of 8 or so.

When I turned 18 I bought my first centerfire rifles which were a .30-30 and a SKS. I bought my first pistol (a Bersa .45) at age 21 and have aquired several since. I waited til I was 25 to get my CCW permit. I don't know why but that's just what I did.

I have been interested since childhood. I bought my first weapon from a neighbor at an early age. It was a beautiful old style Ruger SA .357. From there it was onward and upward. I have never been a non owner since that day. Aside from the sheer fun of shooting I am constantly amazed at the ingenuity and invention shown by the people who design firearms. A mechanical device that is capable of functioning for decades or longer with only minimal maintenance. Some guns can fire literally thousands of rounds and still be as mechanically reliable as when new. Its hard to find many other inventions of man with that level of reliability. Just look at the Mosins and the Enfields and the Springfields. Many are approaching a century in age and still perform as intended. Few inventors have been able to leave a legacy that lasts as long as those made by a quality firearms manufacturer.

It was about the time in the delivery room when the doctor hung me upside down by my ankles and swatted me on the butt...

Man that hurt!

It was right then that Sam Colt's contention that his product was the "great equalizer" popped into my head. I saw the light!

You can bet your paycheck that there ain't no doctors hangin' me upside down and swatting my butt ever again!

Ever!

The earliest I remember being interested in guns was around 4-5 years old (tou guns). Real guns at maybe 10 years old.

I grew up watching the history channel which convinced me I must own a Garand. Also, getting mugged and not being able to defend yourself isn't fun. So I started to research NYC gun laws and was horrified to find out that I live in a totally different country. However i'm just a HS senior. After college I plan to move to a more gun friendly state. For now I just lurk here and try to learn as much as possible.

Several years ago after my grandfather died I inherited his. We never really discussed it much before that. I always thought it was taboo with the family and now I find out it never was.

I remember exactly when...I was in the 4th grade. Mom & dad weren't gun people so we didn't have them in the house. But, in the 4th grade, one of my best friends transferred into my school & he grew up w/ guns...his dad had an FFL and they had EVERYTHING. My first love was the lever action 30-30 & the Thompson smg It wasn't until I was 21 and working and living on my own that I bought my 1st firearm

Dad had some handguns and we would go shooting at a gravel pit once or twice a year. We really were not all that enthusiastic about shooting. After I turned 25 I started going to a local range and got very interested in shooting, and got interested in NRA Bullseye competition. I've been shooting ever since, and I'm over 63 now.

Always.

First good toy gun (a lever action that made a loud pop) in kindergarten. I remember my neighbor shooting his BB gun in the backyard. I told him mine was louder and he said his was more powerful and shot a can. I shoved rocked in mine to try and make it shoot them out...didn't work.

Lots of cap guns.

It was always my favorite part of cub scouts to go to the BB gun range at day camp.

One year for Christmas my brother and I got BB/Pellet guns and my parents set up a range in the basement. For the first month they required to be down there, but after they saw us being safe we could shoot on our own. We would bring them out to my grandparents whenever we went to visit.

Boy Scouts. First year at summer camp as a tenderfoot I got my rifle shooting merit badge. I probably spent $15 on ammo since at the beginning I wasn't good, but figured it out by the end of the week. Next summer I got my shotgun shooting merit badge.

I guess it has always been there...

Not sure exactly how but I remember my dad taking me to the gun shop to get a bunch of guns when I was younger maybe 7 years old. I always thought they were interesting and he tried to get me involved but I was afraid of them. I want to say I started to get an addiction to them when I heard all the fuss on assault weapons being legalized, I got into it politically and gradually sided with gun owners and bought my first gun.

During my middle school years for some reason my mother became very liberal and against guns (she even got angry when our school let us use toy guns) which I think was a result of some family issues she had with my father and guns and that kind of made me want them more as a result.

Unlike many here my main interest was animals when I was young. I do remember having a moment of amazement the first time I saw an auto-pistol rather than a revolver in a movie, "Wow, so the bullets go in the handle?" Many of my maternal relatives were hunters though, and I remember wanting to go with them. My parents are not shooters

I was really turned on to shooting by video games, specifically Goldeneye for the N64. Nothing like chasing around your friends with the KF7 Soviet (rebranded AK-47) and AR-33 (rebranded AR-15) in elementary school.

I got my first shotgun when I was seventeen, brought it physically home when I was 18. Waiting till I turn 21 to get a pistol. Maybe it was the games, but I have a strange desire to get a wood stock M1A, but they are too damn expensive.

Growing up, I had a general interest in guns ('50's-early '60's--Westerns, war shows, etc.) I learned safety early on, but didn't become a "nut" until 1986.

I heard a man at church mention that he was carrying; I promptly went to one of the church staffers and told him there was a "gun nut" carrying in church. As I said it, I got a sinking feeling in my gut that perhaps I didn't know what I was talking about. Actually, it was the same sensation that came with using a racial slur (the "n" word).

Anyway, I did some research and realized what a crock the gun control movement was, so became determined to exercise my Constitutional rights. The rest is history (and a lot of money).

I grew up with guns, knives, boats, fishing, swimming, hunting, camping, fishing. Having guns in the house, truck and around was as natural as can be. No accidents - and if I or any other kids did something unsafe for dumb with a gun or anything else for that matter............well my/our ass was grass and Dad was the lawnmower.

I was born an anti-gunner, to an anti-gun family. Not even squirt guns were allowed when I was growing up.

I started realising the "truth" when a coworker opened his glove box to get something out of it, and OMG I SAW A GUN IN THERE!@#!@#

I freaked out of course, but the guy was reasonable and explained things to me, and offered to take me out shooting. It took about 6 months of him annoying me about it, but I finally relented. I was impressed with the safetymindedness of everyone there; it totally blew away my preconception of "gun nuts" being a "bunch of ignorant backwoods rednecks" and I was well on my way to changing my feelings.

The biggest change was when my fiancee moved in with me. Several incidents involving her and some nere-to-wells made me realise that the "gun nuts" really were right! The police really can't get you out of a mess; it's your responsibility.

Well unlike most of you I wasn't crazy mad about guns when I was a kid. Sure, I played cowboys and Indians and the like, I even had a BB gun, but I was (am) a science/technology/math kind of guy. (Some people call us geeks. ) But I was never an anti--just on the sidelines.

Well then I got a wife and a child and start thinking, if things go sideways some night, we are going to be in a world of hurt. Then I found out that I'll probably be taking a short (1 to 2 week) tour of the little sand box known as Iraq to walk some Marines through an upgrade job on some computers. So I wanted to be as familiar with handguns as possible--plus I wanted one for SD/HD. So this August 11th, I took the plunge from sidelines into the world of guns.

I didn't think that I'd enjoy it so much. I think it might be turning into a hobby and a passion against anti's .