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

[kcofohio]

Never heard of anti-gun stuff growing up. Closest I can remember was Atlas powder company that bordered the land, asked neighbors not to allow high powered rifle hunting on their properties. They made dynamite. Go figure.

 

[vamo]

Grew up in a rural area, most of my classmates grew up hunting so there was not a general anti gun attitude; those that would call themselves Democrats were affiliated for purely economic reasons. I myself have always had a very libertarian mindset so the government telling people they can't own something has always struck me as just wrong.

My family didn't hunt, and we lived in town so I had to be happy shooting BB guns. I didn't even know about the only gun in our house that wasn't an airgun until I was out of college. Guns were a bit of a non factor growing up, though I did shoot some at camp and with my cousins when I had the opportunity. I will say I learned proper gun safety growing up, but not much else.

I always wanted a gun when I got out of school, stars aligned and dad got into shooting right as a graduated and I actually learned proper handgun technique from a family friend instead of just figuring it on my own. Got my first gun soon after and have been slowly accumulating ever since then.

 

[Blue Duck]

Wasn't an issue when I was a kid. Most guys in high school had a shotgun or riffle in their pickup and so did the teachers.

 

[GBExpat]

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?

I grew up before all of that crap became so fashionable.

Dad introduced me to shooting at age 6 or 7 and I have been hooked ever since.

 

[JRH6856]

I don't recall any "anti-gun thinking" when I was growing up. But then, I was born in 1948, grew up in Houston, and bought my first gun, a .22 rifle, in 1962. Walked in, bought it along with ammo. Took it home on my bike. No adults involved except for the store clerk who just took my money. There wasn't any gun thinking either way, anti or pro. It just wasn't a big deal.

 

[dmancornell]

I grew up in a part of the world where authority is unquestioningly obeyed, from the government to the family. Naturally that culture is anti-civilian gun.

My appreciation for guns is part of the total rejection of authoritarianism.

 

[armedwalleye]

I was a child of the early 60's, working class St Paul, MN and every family I knew and every friend I had grew up hunting and fishing. Met a girl when I was old enough to date who "didn't like guns". For our second date, we each went somewhere else with somebody else. Don't know how it worked out for her, but I think I came out OK.
BTW, Madeline, if you're out there, I don't miss you.

 

[230RN]

Grew up in NYC where there was no "pro-gun" attitude. Steeped in the idea that "you can't fight City Hall" and all the laws were dicta like the Ten Commandments and not to be questioned. Only cops and bad guys have guns. Played cowboy games with cap guns with my friends.

Pop bought me a Daisy about 1950, but I was not allowed to use it except out on Long Island, where we had a country summer home.

He helped me put a BB range in the unfinished basement, and taught me safety. My older brother and I used to have competitions down there. He was better than I was. We used to shoot wasps and cicada around the property.

He taught me a lot, like how to sight with an upraised front sight to compensate for range, either close or long range. I remember him drawing a diagram on the kitchen table showing how the BB would cross the line of sight twice. He of course had his own BB gun.

Got much better and started to pop just as many wasps as he did.

A couple of years later, back in The City, I remember our Scoutmaster bringing out a Radom pistol he'd brought back from WWII, and it was a "close the curtains and swear to secrecy" situation for us Scouts.

I was shocked when I moved out to Colorado in the sixties and discovered that any Colorado resident could buy a handgun almost anywhere.

I remember asking the clerk, "Don't you need a permit for a gun?" and he answered "Why would you need a permit?"

I was shocked, and the day after I established residency, I bought my first handgun. Still have it. All I had to do was show my shiny brand new Colorado Driver's license to prove residency and that was that. The only paperwork was a receipt.

And that started it all. A buddy of mine was pretty good with guns and taught me a lot about handgunning. He sponsored my membership in the NRA... in those days you needed a sponsor to join.

Terry

 

[gym]

All my uncles were hunters, and all served, From the Marines to the Army K9 corps, Navy and Air force all 5 of uncles, and they all went together several times per year. My dad was the only one who didn't do "outdoors stuff", but that was because he had seen too much death, as his family were military and he served in 2 different armies, in 2 wars, and his father went back to Greece to fight the Communists when war broke out, and took him with him, where he grew up in the Greek army, and rose to the rank of Colonel. I don't know the rest as he didn't speak about those things. But was pro gun, and taught me at a young age how to shoot. I think that those guys were the real Hero's.
That's the reason that when I hear anyone speak about trashing the Constitution, I get Irate. Millions of good men died defending that document and what it stands for.

 

[PowerG]

I grew up in rural southern Mississippi, I'm not sure I was aware of anyone being "anti-gun" until I was nearly an adult.

 

[Tommygunn]

When I was growing up I was neither really pro or anti gun. My father was somewhat of a conservative and imbued in me an independant way of thinking that made me question big government and the numerous wealth redistribution schemes and other liberal programs.
When I grew up and found employment I started getting involved in black powder shooting as a hobby ... then more modern guns, a .22 then .30-30 and others. During this time I was sensitized to the antigun culture represented by the liberal side of the Democrat party (in fairness some republicans are little better, I admit) and I realized that if I wanted to maintain my 2A freedoms I needed to do something other than punch .38 caliber holes in a black dot on a paper, so I joined the NRA, the GOA and a couple of other progun organizations.
When I got on the internet I started joining and posting on boards like this one.

 

[P5 Guy]

Born in New Jersey in the middle 1950s no one had an anti-gun attitude. Just some were more ambivalent. Some of the neighbors hunted, but as only shotguns could be used in NJ most went to PA to hunt big game. The only time I can remember people complaining was when a neighbor hung their kill in the garage prior to butchering. My Grampa was a butcher and dressing wasn't a big deal in my house. My Dad shot trap some and had hidden his Dad's revolver. I'm sure it wasn't properly documented.
I got a shotgun and went water fowl and upland bird hunting a bit. Right around the time I moved to Florida the governor of NJ decided to ban all semi-auto long guns as assault weapons. Making the A5 I owned in conflict with the ban. As I had properly documented it I got the letter. Destroy, sell or other wise remove it from the state. I removed me but still sold the A5 in PA to a hunting friend.
I did not get another gun in Florida until Hurricane Andrew in 1992. There is really no sense to having the stuff to survive a hurricane and no way to make sure you can keep it.
Most of the anti rhetoric I've heard has been since I moved to Florida. Strange considering the anti-gun state I was raised in.

 

[Bobson]

I grew up in a pro-gun home, and was raised to believe everyone should own guns so that they can protect themselves from criminals. Always made sense to me.

 

[Frosty Dave]

I grew up with guns but began being exposed to anti-gun rhetoric in college. I remember a National Guard officer on TV news saying that the Second Amendment was about the guard because the guard was the modern militia.

I thought, "Hunh. Who knew?" but it didn't bother me. My Dad and I still had our rifles so I didn't think of it as any threat. I just accepted that this guy was on the news because he knew what he was talking about, and obviously I was mistaken about what 2A's quirky language really meant.

Then there were various college texts and reference books that matter of factly talked about "the gun problem" and the news media reports about the dangers of even owning a handgun. I was buying into all of this, but still nobody was talking about taking my rifle away, which by now included my AR-15. So I didn't see any threat to me unless of course, I were to obtain a double-dangerous handgun.

At long last I began to see the light when I inherited Dad's revolver. I started searching the web for info about its history and value and browsed firearm forums similar to THR. I couldn't help but run into threads and quotes about 2A that didn't jive with what I already "knew." I also noticed that gun owners on the web were not dying by the dozens from their viper-tempered pistols.

I loaded up Dad's gun and went to the range, very nervous about shooting a handgun. But it didn't blow up, I didn't shoot myself, and it was fun. I wondered what all the scare talk was about?

And I wanted to know, what DOES 2A mean? I began a process of finding out for myself, digging through history for the truth, and it became more and more obvious that it was meant to be an individual right.

I was always registered independent but usually voted Democrat up until then. Thanks to that old revolver, I realized I had been betrayed by the party I trusted about the basic meaning of one of the Bill of Rights.

 

[silicosys4]

My parents taught me what guns actually are; Metal objects that when treated right can do good things, and if treated wrong can do bad things. They also taught me that a lot of people are just plain bad, no matter how many opportunities they have to be good.

 

[Maggie]

Born 1959. I swear I never heard any anti-gun stuff until Bill Clinton. I was too busy going to school and politics was not my thing. I grew up in a rural area and still live there. My dad gave me a snub nose .38 S&W revolver in 1977 cause I was going away from home to college (about 20 miles away). He taught me to shoot in the back yard. My grandma always had her revolver out for protection when I stayed with her as a child. I never even knew there were any gun laws until the 1990's. I was amazed and upset when I had to live in NJ for a year. Never will drive across that State line EVER. Felt exposed and scared the whole time I was there.

 

[Quentin]

I grew up in gun friendly North Carolina but my Mom was anti-gun and didn't want us to shoot or even be around guns. My Dad owned guns but didn't take us hunting or even fishing. I begged him countless times to teach me how to shoot but no luck. I was fascinated by guns that I saw on TV and the movies so when I was 10 (in 1958) I decided to teach myself. I got my father's S&W pre-Model 10 38 Special and had a great time shooting tin cans in the woods behind the house. Fortunately nothing bad happened except my parents got real mad at me! I never fired a rifle until the M14 in basic training then later the M16.

I don't know, sometimes it seems to be innate in some folks, I loved guns as far back as I can remember and the P08 Luger was my favorite. When I got out of the Army I was able to buy my own firearms.

Throughout my adult years I've had many anti-gun friends and tried to bring them around. The ones that did go with me to the range or desert enjoyed themselves.

 

[JTHunter]

My Dad was in the Natl. Guard when I was little, and we grew up in "coal mine country" in Southern Illinois. He had me (trying) to shoot his M1 Garand when I was 7.
I've been fascinated with firearms ever since.

 

[AlexanderA]

I didn't encounter any antigun propaganda in school. Understand that I graduated from high school in 1963, in Texas. Kennedy was still alive. As I recall, the antigun crusading started after he was assassinated.

My parents, although they weren't shooters, had an appreciation for guns. I suppose that had something to do with the fact that they had lived through a Nazi occupation in WW2 Europe. It's a terrible feeling to be helpless, knowing you could be taken away by the Gestapo after some denunciation by a neighbor. Many of their friends took to the mountains and became guerrillas. The idea of fighting back against a tyrannical occupier is something that many "comfortable" Americans don't understand.

 

[JVaughn]

Dad taught me gun safety and shooting early on. It was never a "big deal" in my house. Guns were a thing, just like knives and screwdrivers and clothes pins... Tools, nothing more. They were to be respected but not feared or treated as something taboo.

 

[WestKentucky]

Drafted military on both sides of the family, farmers and hunters on both sides of the family...I was the kid who went to school bragging about the deer, squirrel, dove, etc that I killed. Then I shared barbequed deer hams a few times and converted a few to pro-hunter stances on guns.

 

[1911 guy]

I was raised in an environment that fostered THINKING about decisions and issues, not blindly allowing groupthink and knee-jerk reaction dictate my beliefs.

 

[Drail]

People definitely need to learn to think for themselves, which is no longer taught today. Everyone appears to get their opinions from the media and from some churches and from parents who may also have been brainwashed. I can remember having a Physics teacher in grade school who stressed the concept of questioning everything I heard or read. Really stressed that. This really pissed off my Mom who unfortunately was and still is completely brainwashed by the media and her religious beliefs. She accepted everything no matter how absurd on faith.

 

[Wishoot]

Born and raised in Detroit. Surrounded by narrow-minded liberal dingbats of which my family was a member.

That changed the day my father was carjacked at gunpoint. Within a few days, he never left the house without a PPK.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Well growing up, guns were not really talked about by my parents. Dad had a gun cabinet hung up in the front room but he never really had them out or anything. He had a beautuful Browning BSS 20 gauge and a Ruger 10/22 carbine hanging in it, and I pretty much thought they were just decorations and I never even really asked about the guns. Dad wasn't much of shooter when I was growing up. He had too much on his plate I guess raising two kids and working, because ever since we moved out he has really gotten back into firearms.

Anyway, I never really heard anything one way or the other about guns, for better or worse. I just was taught that they are dangerous (of course) but nothing negative really at all.

I took an interest to shooting when I was in my teens, and me and Dad would go out plinking sometimes. Eventually in my later teen years Dad was fine with me going out to the creek to shoot his 20 gauge or S&W .38 revolver, and of course his 10/22, by myself.

Since then, my love of firearms has only increased to were I am today! So really, I formed my opinions on gun/anti-gun thinking when I was already fairly mature. I like to think on the logical side of the table, and the anti-gunners... well they just DON'T!

So there's my story, I pretty much figured it out by myself and was neither encouraged nor discouraged in pro-gun/anti-gun thinking. I guess I had an innate interest in them, because nobody really taught me how to shoot or took me shooting when I was a small boy.

I'm pretty glad of how things turned out, and glad my parents taught/allowed me to THINK FOR MYSELF, not only about guns but about many things in life.