One thing about people with autism and Asperger's is that they become heavily fixated on a particular area of interest. If their special interest happens to be firearms, they will not only learn about them in extreme depth, but also how to use them safely, and will, on average, be safer with them than the vast majority of the population.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me. I fixated sharply on firearms when I was 8 years old. I had watched the original Star Wars trilogy for the first time in my life at the time (it was freshly remastered on VHS cassette!). My father noticed my interest and bought me a book at Barnes and Noble titled 'Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology'. It had a picture of the dressed up Sterling SMG that was used in the movies on the cover.
Next time I was in Barnes and Noble with my dad, he was in the golf book section (he still plays golf 3 times a week), and on the shelf right across, was the gun book section. I was looking over the various books without any interest, until I came across one that was 'Military Small Arms of the 20th Century' by Krause publications. It had a picture of a Thompson SMG on the front, which I didn't care about, but then I turned it over, and there was a picture of a Sterling SMG on the back. I bought it with my own allowance money right then and there.
A month later, I bought Janes Guns Recognition Guide. A couple weeks after that, 'Encyclopedia of Modern Weapons', which is actually how I learned about Cold Steel knives. Then I started getting Guns Digest annual publications, and a couple big-blue-books of guns.
I could field strip an AR-15 or an AK-47 by age 13, and I never even handled one until I turned 22. To this day, I'll field strip and inspect guns at the FFL before a transfer, without reading the manual in the box. The guy at the counter has learned by now not to bother asking 'have you had one of those before?'
Many people on the spectrum have sensory issues. That is, they tend to be overly sensitive to light, sound, touch, taste, and / or smell. More severe individuals tend to be worse-affected
I actually had the severe sensory reaction. Well, I still do, but it's more under control. As a child, my hearing was sensitive enough that being inside a vehicle that was driving over grooved pavement was painful, a teacher popping a paper bag full of air would send me running out of the room. When I started playing airsoft at age 15 in Taiwan, people quickly started asking me where everyone was, because I could tell exactly where each team was by the sounds of their footsteps in the jungle.
I am also overly sensitive to physical touch. My girlfriend gleefully and mercilessly exploits this, because it means I am ticklish over ALL of my body.
I don't know if smell was ever an issue with me, but taste definitely was. As a child, even a mint flavored lifesaver was incredibly painful.
As for light? Well, I still wear a pair of sunglasses around my neck whenever I go out, even at night time. I normally leave them off to make eye contact with people (as an aside, eye contact isn't a naturally obtained behaviour for some people with Aspergers, I had to continuously practice it), but sometimes those supermarkets put in way too many light bulbs alongside the misters!
Nowadays though, I shoot, I enjoy fireworks on 4th of July and Chinese New Years, and I have a certain enjoyment of buffalo wings with labels like 'suicide' or 'atomic'. Go figure.
