Were You Born Into the Firearms Culture?

Guns have always been a part of my life. As a child, I was given my first .22 at the age of four. It was a single-shot Stevens bolt-action .22 and my father kept the bolt in the glove-box of his automobile until Friday evenings when he would come home from work with two boxes of Federal .22 shorts and we would shoot tin cans with bad attitudes. My Grandfather would shoulder his old 12 gauge Long-Tom and let me shoot rabbits when we would walk to the mail box in the evenings before supper. I still have his Long-Tom. I bought my first shotgun, a .410 Mossberg bolt gun from my school bus driver, Mr. Ralph McCleary when I was in the third grade with money I made mowing lawns and shoveling snow. I bought my first pistol, a Colt Woodsman that I still own and shoot, when I was 13. The family owned two .22 semi-automatics, a 12 gauge Mossberg bolt-action with a poly-choke, a 1911 Remington Rand. a 1917 .Colt 45 acp Army revolver, a 20 gauge Sears and Roebucks pump gun, a .44 Magnum Marlin lever-action, and a Remington Woodmaster in .308. Shooting was a family sport and if we had a cook-out, the family or neighbors that stopped by would bring rifles, handguns, and shotguns. We would plink or shoot clays thrown with a hand thrower. Opening day of squirrel hunting season and dove season were as much a holiday to look forward to as Christmas or Thanks Giving. When our neighborhood became too populated for impromptu matches, we would drive down to the old river bridge over the Forked Deer and shoot leaves floating by. My Father sometimes shot on the National Guard rifle team so I often had access to a national match M14 without the selector of course, but all the Lake City NM ammo I wanted to shoot. I enjoy USPSA, IDPA, SASS, 3-gun, and Sporting Clays. I load for everything I shoot, not because it saves money; it doesn't. I load because it allows me to shoot more for the same amount of money. I am teaching my five year old grandson to shoot and bringing him into the culture. We are already discussing that there are no bad guns, only foolish, careless, or bad people. He understands this and life will tell which of these he becomes but my bet is on responsible, safe, and proffecient. Are you a member of the gun culture? Were you raised into it or did you decide at a later time, to adopt it? Do you mentor young shooters?

 

My father was a world class trap and skeet shooter rated AA for handicap.... won the Bisley Cup 3 times, British open foreign high gun 1971, Wallace cup, shot Air Force, NATO, SHAFE and other teams while enlisted shot for the AF team in rifle and pistol.... I got my First shotgun at four and a half. (.410)...so Yes I guess I was.... Shot IPSC, and some cowboy, trap skeet and sporting clays

 

I was raised by my anti gun mom.

 

A SWAT fiend of mine's daughter couldn't qualify with her service arm after applying for the local sheriff's dept. Rick just didn't have the patience to work with her, being so locked into his macho SWAT crap so he sked me to work with her at the range. By the end of our first session, she was ready to qualify and did the very next morning. All she had to learn was that it can be fun too.

 

My dad did not like that I liked to hunt but did not stop me from hunting my older sister took the time to show me how my brother could shoot a nats eye out at 100 yards right or left handed shooting became my video games but guns started to bore me that's where slingshots bows atlatl slings took there place I still shoot but just don't get all pumped up like I did back in the day

 

Not really, I had a BA pellet gun.
I could hit a sparrow from my hip.

Rancher

 

My parents weren't much into firearms, so a bolt action .22 and a JC Higgens 16 ga were my choices...until I turned 12 and got my own Mossberg 20 ga. for hunting. Had fun on the high school rifle team, but couldn't get above 96 6x on my weak side. lol After the Corps I began to expand my tool collection, nothing exotic, but items that seemed rugged and practical to me...but that first Mossberg still is one of my favorites.

 

In the 1940's in Minnesota there was no gun culture, they were a fact of life. One of the first guns that I can remember was my great grand fathers civil war rifle that hung in my grand fathers parlor and that my great grand father had carried at Gettysburg among other places. I got my first 22, single shot break action, at about 6 or so and as far back as I can remember had an air rifle. Our 1 room school house had gun racks in both the boys and girls cloak rooms and if you shot game on the way to school, taking it home and being late was an accepted excuse for being late. In high school I shot on the school team, did not do great, eyes were bad and I have little depth perception, but well enough that the ODM gave me a Springfield 06 that I still have. We shot 22's and 30-06 on the team. Was taught from as early as I can remember that guns are a good, but dangerous tool, and must be respected. But so are cars, tractors, chain saws, weed eaters, circle saws, nail guns, etc. When we visited our relatives on the reservation, we were reminded that the loss of access to firearms and being totally under the control of the government was not really a good thing, and that all governmental actions were not necessarily good for the individual. When I was 6 years old, I sat and listened to old men whose parents had lived in Minnesota as free people and controlled the state and who had all their lives been told where they could live and were furnished food and education by the Indian agents etc. They were not happy campers and their words have always remained with me. Have to love the irrationality of the system, my great grandmother was Lakota, but married to a German immigrant, so her children were "white", but her brothers children and their descendants were and still are "Indian".

 

Sorry Duane, but what you described is the gun culture. You are looking at it like it is some sort of cult thing but that couldn't be farther from the truth. The gun culture is just exactly what you described, no more, no les. It is growing up where guns are just a part of your life from beginning to end and as normal and accepted as a pocket knife, or your very first hammer.

 

Yep! We was part of the gun culture. Wall mounted gun rack with a pair lever action .30-.30s (1 saddle model and 1 full barrel length), .300 Savage, and a bolt-action single shot .22. All boys were taught how to use them safely as soon as we were strong enough to hold them correctly and the girls too if they desired. We all hunted. All males members were in WW2, Korea and Vietnam and all males were expected to go into the military also at some point. I grew up in North Seattle prior to Microsoft and all we had was Boeing, and the Logging and Fishing industry so military was a good option. I never met anyone anti-gun until many years later and being a bit naïve of the world I still remember my innocent reply when they said "I don't like guns"..."So, you prefer a bow?"

 

I grew up figuring everyone had a gun on their person or in their vehicle, kind of like everyone had a pocket or belt knife. Guns were just there. My first gun was a .22/.410 over under and a whole lot of squirrels and rabbits were brought to the pot with that old contraption. My second gun was a crossman 2200 power master air rifle. Loved it more than the over under since it didn't send everything in the woods running when fired and killed squirrels and rabbits just fine. 13th birthday Grandpa got me single barrel 20 gauge and two barrels one a modified choke and the other a rifled slug barrel. And I added Deer, pheasant and quail to the hunting list. On the 14th birthday I got a side by side 12 gauge and a 8 shot .22 revolver for use on my trap line. Guns were never considered toys but as tools and no more or less dangerous than any other tool when operated properly. All of us kids grew up with the basic concept you don't point your gun unless you intend to shoot what you are pointing at and you never pull the trigger until you are sure you want it dead and that there is nothing behind the target you don't want broken or dead. It was just a part of life and a good part.

It was not until the late 80s that I learned that some people consider guns to be evil and believe guns kill people. In all those years not one of my guns ever loaded itself, snuck out of gun cabinet, walked into town and started shooting people! Did have one problem in highschool where someone broke into several cars and trucks in the student parking lot and stole several gun. The school asked that in the future we put our guns in our lockers after that incident. I went to the 30th class reunion a few years back and visited the old high school and signs on every door declaring it a gun and knife free zone. .............

I can't call it a gun culture that I grew up in, tractor culture, hammer culture, truck culture, or agriculture pr chainsaw culture. The guns were just there like every other tool on the farm and had real practical applications.

 

Having guns was not a focus ,it was just a rare post of conversation that led to the bed room dad kept rifles in his closet .
We would go the desert from time to time to plink and camp .
I was probably 12 when I got my first JC Higgins .22 still have it .
Guns were not thought of as any the more than the tools in the shop were, that required relevant respect . Dad would show off his tools in the shop with as much interest .
I had cap guns and pop guns for play, and with the neighbors we did a lot of cow boys and Indians .
WE had good sense not to play with our parents weapons .
When we moved to the mountains dad Had me take a hunter safety course we both enjoyed , I really miss those days.
I worked with my dad doing construction, and in 1964 dad got me a new "94" Winchester 30/30 . what a piece of junk .
We tried to go deer hunting with it but it kept letting shells slide into the lever mechanism, and when it did function neither one of us could hit a pie plate at 100 yards.
I've gotten a few other lemons through the years ,colt python, and Smith and Wesson have lost all respect.
Ruger and Rossi is about the most reliable out of the box guns I've ever had .
Though I have a reasonable selection of guns now I much prefer to play with my air guns for trigger time and save my fire arm ammo for important things ,hunting and dealing with predators and home protection .
I raised my own family to shoot and we had a lot of fun and adventures living in the desert ,training with guns paid off.

 

Were you raised with firearms and taught how to use them as a family?

Including intersecting fields of fire, lateral limits, and hasty ambushes inside the house.

 

Yep! My mom was a competitive target shooter and dad was a ranch kid. They started me when I was four.
We lived out in the middle of nowhere, so we shot from the back porch. Dad built a cool bench and range, there were about a billion jackrabbits too.
I learned on my dad’s 1949 Mossberg .22, I still have it!

 

Reading all of this I look back and laugh because I could do almost anything I wanted with a gun bow knife blow gun atlatl spear you name it except a lasso I would get my ass tore up dad like the cat with 9 tails and some times it to 6 to 7 licks to get in the three he was going to give you always 3 good ones any way the lasso I finally ask my mom I can do anything I wanted but carry a lasso he thinks I am going to hang my self she said no when he was about 10 he lassoed the bumper of a mail car and it drug him a block before they knew he was back there

 

My golden retriever, Georgia, would travel with me at sea aboard the Lana. One of my sea monkeys was a rodeo cowboy from Idaho. He would use her for calf roping practice on the main deck, She loved it so much that every time Cully came out on deck, Georgia would drag him the first rope she could find if he wasn't carrying his lasso. Usually it would be a 9" hawser line. LOL

 

You could say I was I guess. I had bb guns as a kid but didn't have my first fire arm till I moved to kentucky at 26. I grew up in southern Illinois with anti gun family

 

My mother was so liberal she made Hillary Clinton look like Ronald Reagan