As you grew up, how did you avoid siding with anti-gun thinking?

[ShooterMcGavin]

Some threads have got me asking the question... With all the anti-gun propaganda and the anti-rights mentality being championed within our public schools these days, how did you avoid siding with the anti-gun line of thinking?

It may seem just so logical and ingrained in who you are that this question seems redundant, but lots of us have different backgrounds and different exposures. Maybe you grew up with family members who hunted? Maybe your parents felt it important to raise you with a high sense of personal responsibility regarding your safety, later getting you into guns? Maybe your mom/dad owned guns and felt the need to teach this important skill? Maybe you experienced a traumatic event, like an assault, robbery, or worse? So, what was it that kept you from becoming "brain-washed", as you grew up and developed a strong sense of your own personal freedoms and protection regarding guns?

 

[Skribs]

I was always pro gun, but as I've learned more and more about guns, I've learned that the people who are against them are usually wrong and I take anything they say with The Dead Sea's worth of salt.

It actually becomes a blood pressure issue, because whenever I hear someone make an anti-gun comment, I not only know how stupid it is, but I also know millions of people will buy it.

 

[Comrade Mike]

My dad took me out and taught me to shoot and I loved it. Family encouraged it, no way would I ever give up shooting after I made dad so proud.

 

[Deus Machina]

I've always been mechanically inclined and more the logical sort. So they interested me from a technical aspect, and when someone said "he wouldn't have been shot but for the gun," to think "the gun wouldn't have put a bullet in him but for the crook."

 

[gunsablazin]

I had never heard of "anti-gun" when I was a kid, I grew up in a family of hunters. It never occurred to me that anyone wouldn't want a gun. My grandparents lived out in the country, and even my grandmother kept a .38 handy. I guess we all thought that was plain common sense, I realize now how lucky I was to be raised in that environment.

 

[Ky Larry]

I grew up in rural Kentucky in the 1950-1960 era. Every home had guns. All kids were gun proofed. I knew that guns were tools, not evil objects that needed to be destroyed. I guess I was teflon coated to ignore the silly B.S. coming from the far left or right.

 

[22-rimfire]

As a younger person, it only made sense to me that new gun control laws must make sense or they wouldn't enact them. This has changed as I see how government works and became exposed to more and more of the anti-gun culture.

I grew up shooting, hunting, and fishing essentially in my backyard.

 

[buck460XVR]

When I grew up, I didn't have to avoid anything. Guns, responsible use and ownership were the norm. Didn't know anyone in the neighborhood, or the small town I grew up in that didn't own gun or at least have one in their home. Local gun club sponsored the local Boy Scout Troop and we had our weekly meetings in their clubhouse. First impact gun control had for me was when they took the ads for Mail Order Mil Surp off the back pages of my dad's hunting mags. Didn't make much of a difference, cause the local Montgomery Ward had 'em in barrels as you walked into Sporting Goods. My ideals and thoughts on guns was deeply ingrained long before I met or even understood what a "anti" was.

 

[ATLDave]

I was once in favor of some* gun control. The more I looked into the data, however, the less effective it seemed to be. I concluded that since it generally didn't move the needle on murder or crime rates, all it was doing was restricting freedoms in exchange for no benefit. Giving up some freedom of choice in exchange for nothing positive except a placebo-type sense of safety didn't seem like a good trade for society to be making, so I changed my views.

* The AWB seemed like a good idea to me in 1994, for instance. To be clear, I now regard that as one of the stupider pieces of legislation of all time.

 

[Ryanxia]

I had never heard of "anti-gun" when I was a kid, I grew up in a family of hunters. It never occurred to me that anyone wouldn't want a gun. My grandparents lived out in the country, and even my grandmother kept a .38 handy. I guess we all thought that was plain common sense, I realize now how lucky I was to be raised in that environment.

Pretty much this. Very lucky to be brought up knowing my way around the Bible and a gun.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

I was born and raised in Alabama. Anti-gunners were the devil. You didn't even speak their names out loud.

 

[splattergun]

Growing up with guns as a positive was the normal, natural way. Some neighborhood dads had guns and some didn't. There was no arguing about it. There was always a kid with a BB gun and I learned to shoot with my buddy's. My first hunt with a .22 was for ground squirrels in the boy scouts. It's the anti crowd that's unnaturally avoidant of the order of things.

 

[tarosean]

Can't recall ever running into a anti gun person growing up. Course small town America is generally a world a way from city folk..

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Guns were such a large part of my life, I was a teenager before I knew there were people who were against them.
Growing up, they were leaned in nearly every corner. And they were all loaded. You literally couldn't walk into any room (except maybe the kitchen) without seeing something firearms related.

Now my house isn't like that now. The wife isn't quiet as into them as I am, but its pretty close.

So there was no opportunity for brainwashing.

 

[rockhopper46038]

My parents (and grandparents) taught me to think for myself. That pretty much precludes anti-gun doctrine.

 

[gojuice101]

I was lucky enough to be raised around guns, not through my parents (not gun people), but through my grandparents, who are big into guns. Got introduced to shooting at a very young age and was taught exactly what kind of power a gun had. So it was natural to realize that the gun was a tool, and in the wrong hands it could be dangerous, but that was the fault of the person behind the gun and not the gun itself.

 

[22-rimfire]

The internet and I might add the gun forums have helped a lot in terms of providing information. When the AWB was passed in 1994, I didn't even know about it until after it was passed..... Cell phones weren't common at this time and certainly internet was not a common experience for most people.

The movie "You've Got Mail" essentially marked the date as to when the internet became freely available to regular people.

 

[Ed Ames]

I grew up in an anti-everything part of the country. You couldn't park a car in your own drive way, or have a swing set in your back yard, you couldn't paint your house an unapproved color, you couldn't do anything that would cause even one person to complain. The one gun store that opened within 20 miles of where I spent most of my chidhood literally had protesters out front and was hit with stricter and stricter rules (they had to take their signs down, they had to black out their windows so you couldn't see inside, etc) before it was shut down.

The experience made me a libertarian. I don't even want to live anywhere with a HOA, and I am opposed to most government including standing armies.

Frankly anti-gun laws are just part of the problems I try to fight.

 

[blarby]

I too, grew up with guns on both side of the family.

There was no "anti-gun", but then again, there wasn't any "pro-gun" either, as best I can recall it.

Just guns. Every house had 'em.

Funny thing was, bout 19-20 I got wrapped up with this gal who was raised VERY anti-gun, although her brother did have a .22. Didn't have firearms access for over a decade.

Like most anti-gunners I've met, all it took was someone stickin one in her hand ( thank you Trevor, for ever and ever, thank you ) and that was it.

Now she has more guns than me, and we need a new safe.......

It did make something very important known to me : Ignorance breeds the purest fear.

Every time I meet someone who hasn't or "doesn't" shoot, I offer over and over to get them out until they do. Eventually, most cave, and we've gotten some good votes out of it.

 

[herrwalther]

I am not sure. I was raised in not necessarily anti home, but not BB guns for Christmas either home. I liked firearms in video games so that played a large role in keeping my interest in firearms. My uncle bought me a BB gun when I was 16 (yes, late bloomer) that virtually started a family feud.

 

[dogrunner]

I recall reading our Constitution at about the age of twelve and was struck by the clarity and simplicity of the document. The bill of rights left no doubt as to the intent of the framers. I have held that conviction for over sixty years!

 

[blindhari]

We lived in rural Calif. while I was growing up. Nearest LEO was Highway Patrol and they were a good 40 minutes away. About 1953 a 52 Chevy pulled up in front of our house and across the street. Three guys pulled a fourth out of Chevy 4 door and proceeded to beat kick and stomp him into the pavement and gravel, blood everywhere. Dad went down the driveway and one of them picked up a 2 x 4 and tried to brain him. About that time they heard a noise back behind me and realized mom was braced into the doorframe with Dad's Winchester. She was wearing a white summer dress with green polka dots and my little brother was hanging onto her leg. The men dragged the guy back into the car and took off down the road. Mom taught me when I was seven that the scariest thing in the world is a red headed Irish colleen defending her family with a Winchester. I have believed in firearms ever since.

blindhari

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I was raised in not necessarily anti home

My uncle bought me a BB gun when I was 16 (yes, late bloomer) that virtually started a family feud.

That sounds like a pretty anti home to me.

 

[Sol]

When I was a young lad in the late eighties and through the nineties there were many political sentiments that were "taught" to me.

My teachers were very vocal about their beliefs. They hated Bush the first and loved Bill Clinton. They expressed that Japan has a way more peaceful society than us and no one had weapons. My teachers were pro-whale and pro-enviroment, recycling was forced down our throats.

Then Columbine happened, assemblies and essays were required and my peers and I heard it all. Guns this guns that blah blah.

One English teacher in particular was very anti 2A. No kidding, we were forced* to write a mock commercials about how bad guns are. This is the same teacher who forced us to write pro-gay sentiments on "gay day" at school (some sort of commeration of Matthew Shephard). They (the faculty) played gay themed music during period changes (Cher, Madonna etc.)

*forced, as in threat of a failing grade.

Teachers encouraged kids to wear duct tape on their mouths with "Silence The Violence" written on it as a protest to gun violence. Of course wearing the tape mean you didn't have to participate in class, except for lunch.

Some people really have no idea what goes on in public schools.


Me? I heard what they said, but I certainly didn't listen.


Feel free to mod this post for no THR content. I just had to tell it like it was in my school days.

 

[Bexar]

Our generation was pretty much raised by WW2 vets only yet in their thirties and many had been raised on farms and had even hunted to feed their families as boys while the older men looked for hard scrabble labor jobs. My Dad's Mom (my grandmother) my Mother and my best friend's Mom all hunted using .22s to put meat on the table or for trade goods while the men either did the heavy farm work or were gone looking for work.

We only had one anti-gunner do-gooder but her husband hunted. Her kids were not his and she was a rabid Woman's libber for her two daughters but loathed her son. She wasn't opposed, however, to living high off the hog off of her geologist husband's dime.

Back then even the drug stores and liquor stores sold guns and many kids ordered guns mail-order or bought guns before they were old enough to drive. I remember buying my first rifle for $15.00 a .303 British Enfield at our local Sears. I had rode my bike to Sears to look around and discovered the rifles and shotguns. I couldn't have been much older than 13 or 14 because we all went shooting at my older Brother's girlfriend's family ranch with my Mom and Dad and we shot that rifle. My Brother was in high school and I am exactly four years behind him...Mom died when I was sixteen so I had to have bought that rifle around eighth grade. Dad came with me later to pick it up...not because they wouldn't give it to me but I couldn't figure out how to get it home on my bike.

I just remembered...I must have been in 7th or 8th grade because I brought it to an eighth grade show and tell and the Mother Superior that taught English had me set in the cloakroom. When the history teacher came in he discovered it as he hung up his coat and asked who it belonged to. I said it was mine and he said I would need to clean it because some kid had tried to stick a piece of chalk in the end of the barrel.

I turned 14 in 1968 so that is another time reference. This wasn't in some farm community but San Antonio, Texas in the late 60s.

I don't remember ever running into anti-gunners except for that geologist's wife until I was well into being a grown man.

Now...it is like every time I turn on the TV.