How old were you when you first fired a firearm?

[coloradokevin]

I was around 5 years old, and started out with one of my grandfather's air guns (that gun lives in my safe these days, and occasionally comes out for my own kids). In the next couple of years I shot a variety of air guns and .22lr's, then got to give it a go with a 12 gauge shotgun around 10 or 11 years old.

My own kids started out at 3 and 5, respectively.

 

[entropy]

About 8, a pump 22S on the boardwalk at some moving ducks in a stand.

Out of a brand new Remington Model 12 I'm sure......

 

[mljdeckard]

When I was four, (about 1977,) my dad took me to the local cinder pit and let me shoot his Ruger Standard Model. He warned me to not put my thumb behind the bolt, and to squeeze, not jerk. I had that pistol until recently when I passed it on to a nephew.

 

[rubberduck]

16 years old,87 years old now

 

[JWF III]

I was 2 or 3. Shooting an M1 Carbine at our “farm” next to the campfire. My dad had to hold both me and the gun up, but I pulled the trigger. It was a case of me having to do what my older sister did.

Wyman

 

[md7]

Maybe 6 or 7. Remington Nylon 66 shooting at dirt clods with my dad with a brick of 22 lr.

 

[gunny2]

I was 20. I was in basic training. The M-16

 

[GRIZ22]

I was about 12 when i.fired.a 22pump on the Boardwalk in NJ. First centerlfire was a M14 in basic training.

 

[small town life]

5 or 6. Shooting p-dogs with a 22lr or magnum revolver out of a p/u widow in an uninsulated cab. Man, ut was loud!

 

[bullet maker 57]

Somewhere around 10. 12ga that knocked me on my backside. Despite that, it was a lot of fun.

 

[gifbohane]

22 Years Old...at Parris Island

 

[entropy]

Better late than never!

 

[sqlbullet]

I was eight years old. It was within about 50 feet of this pin: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yWLxhj1ePiFfdTEM9

We had just moved here and were walking the property lines with my grandfather. Dad had his cheap Rohm 22 revolver and Grandpa had a just purchased Ruger Standard. They let me shoot them both.

Dad and Grandpa are both gone now and I am a grandfather myself. Those guns are in my gun safe. They are the first handguns my kids all shot and one day they will be the guns I teach my grandkids with.

 

[luv2safari]

I was about five and shot my new Winchester mdl 67 youth model. I was good at hitting the cans beside the ones I was shooting at when I jerked the trigger. I didn't admit that to my dad, though. He thought I was a "prodigy".

 

[Mini30SS]

About 10 yrs old. A neighbor kid I was friendly with invited me to go with him and his father to the local shooting range. My first shot was with his father's 1911 .45 ACP. It was very intimidating to me. I fired off one shot, then handed it back to his dad, and waited for them to do their shooting. I didn't fire another firearm for about 14 years. I have been an enthusiastic Gun owner and shooter now for over 40 years now.

 

[Mannlicher]

I am pretty sure it was an old Winchester Model 67 single shot .22 rifle. I was somewhere around 6 years old. That would put it about 1951. No memory of it, but there are old Kodak B&W pictures of me doing that at that age.

 

[Stickmann]

I was 16 firing my dad's Model 97 Winchester

 

[25-5]

12, 20ga Remington, skeet.
Shortly after ducks near Cairo, IL.

 

[Bwana John]

Ist centerfire @ 11y.o., 30 cal M-1 Carbine.

 

[BlackHand1917]

The first time I shot a firearm was at age 18. I lived in the People's Soviet Socialist Republic of New Jersey and I had to go through the rigamorale with the local PD to get a Firearms Purchaser Identification Card. I was planning on a military career after college and readying myself to challenge the Reds at the Fulda Gap. I didn't come from a gun culture family. Dear old dad's only experience with firearms was a quicky familiarization with the M1 Garand in Navy basic training during the early months of the Korean War. I was itching to get my first firearm, being a regular purchaser of gun magazines. My father didn't discourage my interest in firearms, but was slightly puzzled at my interest. Well, after I picked up my card in September of 1977, I went to the gun store and picked up a Marlin-Glenfield Model 60 .22LR semi-automatic rifle and went deep into the local woods and did some plinking for the first time. I enjoyed it immensely and still do.

 

[Gelrir]

After two or three years of using Crossman air guns, my mom sent me out when I was 12 to destroy robins and blue jays in the garden during the summer (they ate up the fruit). I was handed the Sears .22 she'd gotten from her parents in the mid-1940s; I'd take that, a box of .22 LR shells, a cheap deck chair (one of those aluminum tubes and nylon straps monsters), a pitcher of kool-aid, and a book out to the garden and wait for bird sounds or sightings. The next summer the ordnance was upgraded to a H&R "Topper" in .410 gauge. Also in the photo was the only other firearm in the house at the time: my dad's .30-30 Winchester.

 

[makavelli55]

My first exposure to firearms came when I was 10 years old, and on New Years Eve my dad brought his guns out and he, my uncle and I shot them into a hillside next to the house. The first gun I ever fired was his Ruger Standard Model .22, and then he let me shoot his .45 a couple of times. I was hooked, and from that moment on it was a long road of toy guns, then BB guns, and finally my own "real" gun by the time I was 15.

The Ruger... my mom has it currently for home defense.

 

[tazbigdog]

You know, can't remember the exact age…10-12 years old. Summer camp. NRA instructor using .22 bolt-action rifles, and iron sights. Became an expert marksman. Still have diploma…somewhere.

 

[DustyGmt]

I believe I was 8 years old with my grandpa's Winchester 94 30-30. Can't say I shot it very well, my dad was taking me out to hunt my grandparents property even though I don't think I took hunter safety til I was 10 and had basically no gun handling experience but even from the days of shooting super soakers I knew I was going to be into the real thing. For whatever reason nobody including myself really considered having me shoot a .22lr to help me warm up to shooting bigger centerfires. Not sure it would have made that big a difference though, even though recoil was a lil stout, it didn't deter me and I was always happy to send the next one.

The next time I shot a gun was a Maadi AK in a sandpit with my uncle, trigger slap was the worst but it didn't stop me from making 30 lil craters in the dirt.

First handgun I shot I was also 10, it was an HK USP Compact .40S&W and after I showed some gun handling safety basics, I could grab a box of .40, .22LR or .38spl ammo and go off by myself to shoot on weekends I stayed with my uncle. He had many guns and many gun magazine subscriptions and after showing a keen interest he gave me all the back issues, I had enough to stack a pallet by the time I was 17. First gun I bought myself and still have was a Western Auto Mossberg 500.

Loved shooting guns from the start, whatever magazines my uncle didn't have I bought off the stands. I wish I still had them all.

 

[KY DAN]

I was 5, it was a mossberg 500 12 gauge.

I told my dad I wanted to shoot it and he said why not? Lol

My dad was a hippy back to the land Vietnam war veteran and I was a product of late life reproduction, he let me try things that I probably shouldn't have and that's how I figured life out.

In firing that shotgun I got planted into the ground and so began my fear of shotguns. I still to this day hate shotguns due to piss poor stock design and the recoil.

I do not have a irrational fear