What got you into firearms?

Being a guy. I also like blinky lights, burnouts, and fire.

Survived a drive-by shooting

Years ago, I was living in one of the most liberal, anti-gun states in the Union. Lynn, MA. My family and I were being targeted by gangs. They kept trying to intimidate my family. They shot up my house for fun. They shot up our cars for fun. The cops came, only to do a report on it. No one was ever caught. The thugs and criminals roamed free. I never felt so defenseless in my entire life right then. My wife and I were in a car driving home, and another car came by, and shot 3 times at us. The bullets missed us by a coupe of inches. That life threatening situation woke me up, to the 2nd Amendment. I then realized I need a gun to protect my family.

My wife and I, moved to Georgia. And now we're both PRO-GUN. We own every thing from ARs, to AKs, to HKs, to Glocks, to Taurus, and to MACs. I refuse to ever feel defenseless or intimidated by thugs and gangs again.

Toy guns starting around age 3 or 4. Trip to the gravel pit with Dad / Gramps / uncles / cousins / brother, age 8. First BB gun that Christmas. Spent most of my elementary school years split between the two Congos (the trip home @ age 8 was between the two tours). Half of third grade, all of fourth, and all of fifth, I pretty much carried that BB gun any time I wasn't in school. A lot of the other American embassy brats, missionary brats, and expat-brats did too. The native kids carried slingshots, and were just as lethal with them as we were with BB guns. For that matter, I had a half-dozen slingshots myself.

Learning to shoot .22 rifles in the Boy Scouts

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+1 to the boy scouts. Got my shooting merit badge as a boy scout living in Hawaii and I've been hooked ever since.

A buddy of mine, an LEO (gasp), actually took me to the range and we shot pistols together. He told me I should get a CCW and a pistol because 911 takes 5 minutes or more. He basically explained that every man is responsible for his own safety (and the protection of his family) not the police- they normally only show up in time to take statements and collect the bodies.

And no this wasn't some rent-a-cop, he was SWAT. Imagine that, an LEO encouraging CCW and self-defense!

My brother, somewhat. He is an avid hunter and shooter. But mainly, working with the late Larry Bullock, founder and president of Buffer Technologies. He was a little rough on the outside, but he was a good man who helped me a lot. He took me on my first prairie dog shoot.

LOL. A manga, of all things.

Rally Vincent FTW, for anybody who cares.

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She's so adorable expounding the virtues of the CZ-75. I also love how she plays Russian Roulette with a Colt Cobra.

Solo

I pretty much got involved in the hobby/sport myself. My Mom is terrified of guns, she wont even look at my rifle that is back at my parents house,and my dad just isn't interested. I grew up in a small town in NH and there are plenty of shooters, so I would hear the shots all weekend long... When I turned 18 I did some research and bought a rifle, and upon turning 21 bought a handgun... And the collection grows every year!

My dad took me and my brother hunting when were kids, we got some land in souther kansas and we would go hunting and shooting on the weekends. Dad bought us a belgian made .22 when we were 8 and 12 gauge browings for our 16th bday. I kinda stopped shooting for a while until i was about 19. Got my dads 357 revolver out and took it to the farm to do some shooting with my gf and a buddy. didnt have ear plugs in and it had been a while since i shot anything but shotguns. I pulled the trigger and couldnt here for about 10 minutes, scared the sh*t out of my gf. ever since then ive been hooked. I realized how fun it was to shoot and how much you have to respect the gun. bought my first pistol as soon as i turned 21, then bought my first AR bout a year later, gonna buy a 1911 soon, then a revovler for carry, then a nice rice handed hunting rifle(dads left handed so it is kinda awkard to shoot his rifles even tho they are very nice) then ill prolly buy somethin fun! downward spiral, hehe. ill be broke by the time i have all the guns i want.

I grew up on a farm in a rural area and some of my earliest memories involve guns. I don't remember a time when they weren't around and my family didn't use them in some compacity; from a toy to hunt with to a tool to protect livestock.
I got a bb gun when I was very young. A pellet gun for Christmas when I was 7-8, an 870 when I was 13. Now that I am in a profession that carrys them daily, it's more of a matter of protection... But they are still fun to "play" with too.

United States Navy

Dad was a former Marine. I had toy guns ever since I can remember, but the folks didn't have any. Dad is very pro-gun, just not into it enough to buy any. Mom is neutral. But with the toy guns, dad taught me all the safety rules, to aim for center of mass, shoot to kill, never pick up a gun(in defense) unless you intend to kill your attacker, and the Marine shooting method, BRASS (Breathe, relax, aim, slack[out of the trigger], squeeze. I still use it.)
Boy Scouts let me actually shoot for the first time, then my Grandmother passed away and I got all the guns. At that point I was 16, but an owner and soon-to-be collector. I went away to college and started buying my own guns and from there it just took off. I just graduated about 8 months ago and now my real paycheck is supporting my habit.

Everyone in my family that I grew up around owned and used them. Never really was any doubt that my brother or I would, it was just a matter of when we were old enough. If I can be seven years old and respect firearms as the tools they are, then i'm convinced I can make anyone else do the same. Now that i'm older I take my friends shooting whenever I can, and many of them are now openly pro-gun.

Boyscouts for me as well. Shooting .22s and shotguns at camp got me hooked.

I have ONE GUN for ONE PURPOSE - to defend the life and limb of my loved ones.

About two years ago I began to see how dangerous our world had become.

I began researching security options one of which was weapons. I decided on a number of weapon options one of these was firearms. I wanted one firearm that would be the best compromise for my purposes - home defense, and concealed carry 24/7.

My Kel-Tec P-3AT with ArmaLaser fits this role the best for my purposes.

I don't own the gun for fun. To me it is a tool designed for a very serious purpose, and as such, it is a tool with which I intend to gain great proficiency. Yes, it can be fun as well, but that is not why I own it and that is not why I shoot it.

I dry practice with it every day and live practice twice a month. This gun is not a "range" gun. I don't shoot slowly and try to make one hole when I practice. I practice with one goal in mind - to hone my defensive skills.

Would I buy one or more guns in the future? Yes, if I determined a need I wouldn't hesitate, but at this point in time I don't feel I have a need.

Bobo

"What got you into firearms?"

"I was born"
"Everyone I know shoots guns"
"My grandpa had a nice collection"
"My dad took me shooting at 4 years old"
"boyscouts"
"grew up watching john wayne, clint eastwood, etc"

all of them apply

martial arts got me into guns, in a roundabout way. i grew up in NYC, in a crime ridden area, where drugs and guns were a part of everyday life. i knew kids who were killed by guns, so at an early age, i decided guns were bad. my father decided that i should learn to defend myself, so he starting boxing with me. later on, i studied aikido, jujutsu, iaijutsu, escrima, and wing chun. i got pretty good; the couple of rumbles i'd gotten into proved it. i became confident in my skills. of course, i also acquired the classically trained fighter's disdain and contempt for firearms. "the tools of cowards and weaklings," as many of my teachers had said.

then i was robbed at gunpoint.

i was on the subway, and some punk kid stuck a SNS in my face, taking about $50 from me. all my training, all my skill, had yielded nothing. i was still a victim, to a giggling idiot with a gun.

i began to reconsider my anti gun stance.

i later moved to NEPA, a pretty gun friendly area. i live in a nice town, but outside of town, people still think it's the 1950's. being a brownskinned person makes you a target. while picking up my 5 year old nephew, i was confronted by 3 men who didn't like it that a "sp*c" was driving through their town. i got my nephew back in the store, called the police, figuring that'd be it. nope. 2 of them followed my inside; one of them had a baseball bat. all i had a spyderco chinook.

they ended up having a very bad day. the third guy ran in the store, but saw the mess, and took off quick.

after many, many hours of interrogation, and much money spent on lawyers, i was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. then, the most amazing thing happened. one of the officers involved, a PA state trooper, asked me about where i learned self defense, and what the range of my schooling was. we got to talking about things, and he basically encouraged me to buy a firearm.

"huh?"

he alluded that in my SD situation, things might have been very different had i had a gun. in many places in PA, knife carry is illegal, which i hadn't known at that point. but carrying a gun is perfectly legal, with the proper permit. a DA might look hard at a man who used a knife in a fight, but a man who uses a gun to defend himself might not. a lot of what he told me was mind blowing, to say the least. all my life, i was told that guns were bad, that they should be illegal, etc etc etc, and now, a LEO was actually encouraging me to buy one! he even gave me the names of some shops to go browse.

shortly afterwards, i bought my first handgun, a smith & wesson SW9VE. at first, it was a little awkard, mentally, to hold. but then, so was a blade, or a sword. i started to practice with it as often as possible, to become comfortable with shooting. after awhile, it struck me that learning to shoot is not much different from learning to box or fence or grapple. it's just another tool that is integral to a fighting dicipline. just another martial art, really.

well, that's it. sorry about the ramble.

I also like blinky lights, burnouts, and fire.

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I couldn't have put it better. Oh yeah, and I grew up around over 100 firearms, my dad sold most of them when my mom passed. What he didn't sale, he gave to my half brother.

My parents were nice, decent, anti-gun liberal folks who tried to raise me against my own nature. "No toy guns for this boy". I had a pair of plastic toy golf-clubs when I was three or so. First thing I did was flip 'em around, put the head against my shoulder with the shaft pointing like a rifle barrel, and said, "Bang bang".

Can't raise a boy against his nature, and they learned that. Eventually, they let me mostly do my own thing, but wouldn't let me get a gun while I lived under their roof. At ten, I had a BB rifle. At 15, it was paintball.

At 19, living on my own, it was a Mosin M38 carbine. They tried, I'll give 'em that... but I was destined to be what I am.

Every once in a while, usually in my cups, I'll stop to think about why I am the way I am, and why my parents' teaching didn't take in many ways. Maybe it was because, there at the end, I was trying to just get by, trying to be an adult, amidst their catastrophic personal and health problems. Maybe when you've seen your parents in a hospital bed, or lying unconscious in a pool of their own vomit, or stiff with rigor at the very end, you realize that Mom and Dad aren't omniscient, your own opinion's the only one that really matters, and nobody can think for you.

Whew, memories. Powerful things. Wasn't drunk when I wrote this... think I need to rectify that.

Here's to being the Bad Seed. Sláinte!

I was at a gas station one summer, just after the price started sky rocketing, 2 African-Americans start shooting it out. I had to jump in between the seats and use my body to shield my daughter who was buckled into her safety seat. Fortunately both guys fired every round they had, missed each other completely. My car only got dented on the rear quarter pannel. I was never so mad in my life, who gave them the right to endanger my daughter. I vowed never to be caught in that type of situation again. Last year when CCW was approved I made it into the second class.

Originally, my dad. Taught me to shoot when I was about 12. Then I went to college and didn't touch one again until recently. Kudos to the Chicago Democrats in the Illinois legislature for reviving my interest in firearms.

My pops originally got me into guns(ie, hunting stuff) and my buddy(exar) got me into the fun stuff.

I shot my first 22 when I was 7. I really liked it but really had no one in my family who owned guns except my grandpa. But then a buddy took me to a turkey shoot, so I bought a new 870 for it. Then I went gun crazy and buy everything I can get ahold of. haha. I've gotten into it and love it.

Early teens but fascinated much earlier

I always liked those old cowboy movies with those revolvers. I am not that old to say I was around when they were made though. only 37 but still I grew up knowing that guns themselves were not evil. It all depended on the user.

It really took off when my Uncle came over one evening and wanted to take me to a friend's of his to return a tape he had borrowed. My Uncle had already asked my parents and they were cool with it. Though I did not not know yet what they actually okayed till later. You see my Uncle's friend was a collector of many things including firearms. And I do mean lot's of firearms. When we first arrived and the door opened I noticed a pair of civil war era swords on the wall. I said wow that's cool. My Uncle's friend was like you like them, oh by the way they are actually the real deal. I was like wow! Then he said well you like stuff like that? Heck ya I said, didn't most boys I thought?...lol He then proceeded for the next hour to show me his gun collection.

He also taught me gun safety big time. I will never forget it. He cleared the first weapon and then handed it to me explaining about never point the muzzle at anything your not willing to destroy. Also said you think that gun is safe? I said yes. He said why? I said well I saw you clear it. He said you trust me? He said never take another persons word. Always check it yourself. You never can tell if someone thought they cleared it but might have not. Also he taught me if you put the gun down and walk away for even just a few minutes, check it again upon picking it up and you will never go wrong. That night sealed the deal for me. I knew one day I would own my own guns. It was many years after that but I now own 10 of my own.

My Dad and all my Uncles on both my Mom and Dad's sides are was shooting big Hunters and target shooters.... So I have been around guns as long as I can remember...

I feel comfortable with about anything I can pick up...

I love and respect firearms and safey...