How old were you when you first started going into gunstores by yourself?

My mom used to drop a me and a school buddy off at the gunshow at age 12. We used to save our lunch money and buy ammo. I was able to buy 9mm surplus ammo when I was 14.

Certaindeaf said:

I started when I was around eleven. I looked at and fondled everything.
I probably knew then way more than any clerk behind a counter.. but I've always been set in my opinions, lolz.
Grabbed all the glossy brochures and stuff too. The various proprietors were accommodating and pretty much just let me look around to my heart's content.
Now I don't really go into shops that much, just to look around, but back in those days it was kinda like taboo and exciting as a kid.

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10 or 12 years old.

Gunstores?

I bought my first new firearm from a Pay-Less Drug Store outside of Grants Pass, Oregon. My second new gun came from a Bi-Mart (kind of like a Wal-Mart) in that same town. I'd been going into gun shops and surplus stores since the age of seven, alone or with others.

When I was 12 I stopped at a yard sale. There was an S&W Model 10 for sale for quite literally next to nothing. While I didn't know much about the revolver I knew it was a good deal despite being priced at more than I had on me.

After studying it for about 15 minutes, its owner asked if I was interested? I said I was but that I didn't have the money with me. He told me to take it, have my dad approve/disapprove it, and then return with either the $$$ or the gun. I also had to have my dad call him if I intended to keep it.

As was common they knew one another and I was able to buy the old revolver... Try that today.

Shoot, I can't remember that far back! Like many here have said, guns were sold in all kinds of stores when I was a kid. I don't even remember any actual "gun shops". So I'd say whenever it was that I got my first bicycle and had mobility, or probably even before that when we'd just walk to the nearby stores. Firearm fascination began early in those days, it was just part of American life.

I was 18 back in the late 60's and bought my 1st firearm by myself. It was a Revelation 12ga pump I bought at a local Western Auto.

12, buying 5mm pellets for my Blue Streak. The next purchase was at 39.

Mid-1950's at the Western Auto store in Iola KS when I was about 10.

My folks lived 17 miles north on a cattle & wheat farm, and made the trip every week or two on Saturday afternoon to stock up on grocery's & repair parts.

They would drop me off at Western Auto and go to the grocery store across the street.
If the older man who owned the Western Auto wasn't too busy with real customers, he would sell me my weekly supply of Daisy BB's, and regale me with story's of his annual trip to Alaska after big bears and Moose, or quail & pheasant hunting in Kansas in the fall.

The WA was a full stocking Winchester, Browning, Colt, & Ithaca dealer, and he allowed me to take anything in stock off the rack and coon-finger it, by myself.
(He also had the first SAKO's I had ever seen)

The handguns were kept in a glass case next to the register, and he would even let me hold a Colt SAA, or 1911, or Woodsman Match Target, if he had time to fool with me at the time!

The only warning he ever gave me was to check them for Empty as soon as I touched them, not bump them into anything, and wipe them off with the oily rag when I got done.
Good advice that I still live with!

He would even occasionally go in the back room and bring out his well worn pre-64 Model 70 .375 H&H in a leather sheepskin lined case.
He had cut it to 20" to better handle in the alder thickets on Kodiak Island, and I think it had a low power Lyman Alaskan or Kollmorgen scope on it? I forget which.

I will never forget as long as I live, the smell of Hoppe's #9, fine new guns, racks of new tires, and his Old Spice & pipe tobacco aroma!

Funny things kids remember nearly 60 years later!!

PS: No he was not Chester the Molester!!
He was just a damn fine old man that treated a 10 year old kid like a adult with the same intense interest in guns & hunting as his.

I have forgot his name tonight, (H. B. something) but I still remember his face like I just talked to him an hour ago while he was explaining the fine points of a Winchester Model 12 as opposed to a Browning A-5 Auto!
Or a Winchester Model 62A as opposed to a Browning .22 Auto.
He had a low opinion if the Savages & Mossberg's of the day, although he did sell them!

(The Winchester 62A, and Browning A-5 & .22 Auto won out, and I have owned one of each my whole life)

rc

When I was about 15 or so I started going into this one gun store that was in the same plaza as a beauty supply wholesaler a family friend worked at. I went in and the owner was a Native American gentleman that was always wearing a fishing vest and a cowboy hat with reading glasses on. He was the nicest person ever. Answered all kinds of ridiculous questions that my clueless butt had at 15. He even let me hold some of the display handguns (After briefing me on safety procedures, of course). I honestly believe that those experiences helped influence my interest in guns. I hadn't been there in a couple years, but when I passed by it recently, it wasn't there anymore...It was actually a great shop, too. Always had ammo on the shelves whenever I went in. I wonder what happened to it?

Like a lot of the "times sure have changed" folks, where I grew up in TX the term gunstore didn't have much meaning.

We had a drugstore, a general store, a hardware store, a furniture store, a feed store...

No gunstore. You could buy a gun, though, at any of the above stores...

I bought my first (with my own money) gun when I was 16. Had a hard time making up my mind between a Browning SA .22 ($68.00) at Sears-Roebuck and a High Standard Citation ($79.00) at the local furniture store (don't remember the name). I opted for the Citation which took up all my savings (that was a lot of money; 79 hours operating a Farmall M).

I kept that Citation for a long time and it helped get me through college.

Tmes sure have changed!

Will

Sears and Western Auto.

Suppose it was still like that today... or do we have reasonable regulations?

Imagine 50 years from now.

I never had more than a passing interest in owning firearms until I was in my early 40s, so sometime around there. As a youth I would have been disowned if I had ever set foot in such a horrible place.

18-19, but it was inconvenient, since I had to bum a ride from one of my college buddies.
About 20, with my own ride to drive around, that was different.

I remember Sears and JC Penny's along with Western Auto and my lgs. I was probably around 16 or so when I started driving myself to my lgs.

Around 8, buying BBs, and lusting over the .22LRs. . Once I completed Hunter Safety, they let me handle the rifles. . My mom's office was next door. She payed me 1 penny per photocopy I ran for her. I took my earnings next door ... Frequently.

Geno

21

I didn't fire a real gun for the first time until I bought my own at the age of 21

You would have to define gun store...


When I was knee high to a grasshopper I bought arrows and 22lr from my local hardware store whom sold all kinds of guns. Bought my first rifle from them and my first pistol from Walmart.. I was probably in my 20-30's when I went into a store that sold only guns.

The Summer I was 6 years old, I stopped by the hardware store and bought a box of .22LR. Then I stopped by the grocery store and bought a box of matches. I had gotten about a mile out of town and was looking for a safe place to shoot and build a lunch fire, when I heard my Mom honking from the road behind me.

She proceeded to take me home and beat my butt. Not for the .22LR cartridges, but for the matches. Summer in Southern Nevada tends to be pretty dry, ya know.

Bought my first gun on my own when I was 8. 03A3 from DCM.

Pops

There were no dedicated gun shops nearby, but I rode my bike to a variety of stores that sold guns. I would guess I was 12 then because I got my driver's license when I was 14 and could drive to the "real" gun shops.

I didn't know they existed before the late 80's. If you wanted a gun, you went to your family owned hardware store.

11 y.o.

I was about 11 years old when I was frequenting gun stores without an adult, one, or both of my parents may have been waiting outside in the car for me as I went in to buy .22 rimfire bullets as I did a lot of competition shooting at the NRA local indoor range which was in the local YMCA. I also bought .410 shotshells to shoot out of my dad's bolt action single shot Ted Williams (Sears) .410 shotgun.

I also shot at a high school that had a very large indoor shooting range.

All those things would be unheard of in this day and age, unfortunately.

Earlier this year at the age of 23. My first time shooting was just a few months prior to that, around Thanksgiving of last year. Bought my first gun at a local gun store in March of this year. Now I have three total, and have completed the NRA basic pistol course.

Better late then never, I guess.