How many of you grew up in a shooting/hunting family?

[danez71]

I grew up in more of a camping / outdoors-y family.

Guns were part of camping... a small part. In fact, we didn't shoot on most camping trips.

The atmosphere for guns was that they are for protection and hunting (we didn't really hunt persay) and then just for fun.

We didn't pay money very often just for the sake of having fun. Playing is free. Hiking is free. Fishing bait was free or practically free. Bullets cost money.

 

[tygranch]

My paternal grandfather was my hunting and fishing buddy until he passed away when I was 14. It was always a real treat when he would let me hold his Dad's 1873 (still in the family). My Dad though, was the person who got me interested in accumulating firearms. He had around 25 when he died in 1998, still have almost all of them except a High Standard double nine I gave to a cousin Dad mentored and a Remington 742 to a friend Dad also mentored. I'll never forget the look on his face when I got my first M1 through the DCM in the mail. He'd carried one in basic and hadn't handled one since he got out of the service. My favorite uncle, his brother was also a regular hunting and shooting companion right up until he passed away in January. I wouldn't trade my growing up years for anything, truly blessed!

 

[TonyAngel]

I did. I'm from VERY rural south Louisiana. A town called Golden Meadow. My dad is one of 14 kids. They all shot and hunted. If you could eat it, they hunted it. Of course, my dad became a city slicker and moved to New Orleans when I was young, but the outdoor life and all that it entails has always been a part of my life. Unfortunately, my dad got so busy with being a successful business person that he didn't have much time to do what he truly loved. I'm not much of a hunter any more. It turns out that for me, hunting just meant that I got to shoot and when I got older and discovered that I could just shoot, well...now that he's retired, I still take my dad shooting with me when he feels up to it.

Isn't it amazing that so many can be so opposed to something that is so cool to do and share with those that you love.

 

[jwamplerusa]

Dad was a Korean war veteran. There wasn't much time or money for hunting or recreational shooting, but he did take me to learn, and he taught. A little hunting, with little success, and a little fishing.

Once I had my own 22, I could shoot as much as I wanted if I bought the ammo. You did not want to get caught doing something unsafe (I'll let those of my generation guess how I know...).

I now have Dad's collection, and I hope someday it will go to my children.

 

[TonyAngel]

Dad was a Korean war veteran. There wasn't much time or money for hunting our recreational shooting, but he did take me to learn, and he taught. A little hunting, with little success, and a little fishing.

Once I had my own 22, I could shoot as much as I wanted if I bought the ammo. You did not want to get caught doing something unsafe (I'll let those of my generation guess how I know...).

I now have Dad's collection, and I hope someday it will go to my children.

You aren't half Korean, by any chance, are you? Because my dad was too and I am. LOL

 

[illinoisburt]

Nope. Military family - parents, grandparents, uncles - pretty much all semi-antigun. They owned handguns and a few shotguns here and there, but pretty much all had enough of violence and kept us kids away from guns as much they could. When I got a bb gun from my maternal grandfather it created a bit of family uproar. Joining a local shooting team through the Jaycees didn't go over well either. Ah, well. They all did like fishing though. They were lukewarm to me taking up bowhunting as a teen. Being in the small town midwest deer hunting was pretty much a local religion and groundhogs were a pest landowners were thrilled to let you remove with 'safe' arrows.

Anyway when I turned 18 and went full bore shooting, reloading, and hunting on my own lets just say there was polite acceptance and bit of learning curve. Thankfully I had a good public library, a nearby highpower club with range, and some disposable income.

The older folks have pretty much all passed on now. Taught my brothers, friends, and now tons of kids including my own over the years and pretty much all of them hunt, fish, or shoot (or at least know how to anyway).

 

[jwamplerusa]

No, all Hoosier. From Coal mining stock.

 

[TonyAngel]

Nope. Military family - parents, grandparents, uncles - pretty much all semi-antigun. They owned handguns and a few shotguns here and there, but pretty much all had enough of violence and kept us kids away from guns as much they could. When I got a bb gun from my maternal grandfather it created a bit of family uproar. Joining a local shooting team through the Jaycees didn't go over well either. Ah, well. They all did like fishing though. They were lukewarm to me taking up bowhunting as a teen. Being in the small town midwest deer hunting was pretty much a local religion and groundhogs were a pest landowners were thrilled to let you remove with 'safe' arrows.

Anyway when I turned 18 and went full bore shooting, reloading, and hunting on my own lets just say there was polite acceptance and bit of learning curve. Thankfully I had a good public library, a nearby highpower club with range, and some disposable income.

The older folks have pretty much all passed on now. Taught my brothers, friends, and now tons of kids including my own over the years and pretty much all of them hunt, fish, or shoot (or at least know how to anyway).

Wow, no kidding. Just goes to show. We all choose our owns paths, if we have the strength for it.

 

[AZmark]

I grew up in a shooting family but not hunting. My dad was a WW11 vet and medic and would take us shooting both pistol and rifle but he would never kill anything after he came back from the South Pacific after the war. I know he hunted before the war because Ive seen pics of him and my uncles with deer draped across the hoods of old 1930's cars. He never minded us hunting though and was supportive if we wanted to. I learned to hunt from and with my brothers while growing up. There were 4 boys in my family, 3 of us are avid hunters and the other is a avid gun owner and shooter but will not hunt or kill anything either.

 

[illinoisburt]

Wow, no kidding. Just goes to show. We all choose our owns paths, if we have the strength for it.

I guess I was blessed with being hardheaded. It's not like it was all that long ago (I'm 48) and honestly I think firearms and shooting have become more acceptable than it was in the 80s due to the military build-up and participation since 2001, especially pistols and semiauto rifles. I got a lot of poor feedback on my choice of surplus guns and ammo in 90s and early 2000s.

 

[mdauben]

I was raised in a very... gun indifferent home. Neither of my parents ever expressed any particular animosity towards gun ownership but they were certainly not "gun people" either.

My father actually owned a shotgun, two rifles and two handguns. I think he inherited all of them (except maybe one of the handguns, which he might have brought back from WWII). I have no memory of him ever taking any of these guns out and shooting them during my lifetime, and when he passed they were all packed away in his attic, covered in dust.

Of his three sons, I've got a modest collection of rifles and handguns that I do shoot at the range (although never as often as I'd like to). My middle brother has dad's old shotgun and a couple hand guns he bought for self-defence, and my youngest brother owns nothing, and seems to have no interest one way or the other.

 

[X62503]

I, my Father and his Father were all military. Guns were commonplace in our homes, resting on racks, leaning against a corner, and still are. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I could shoot my .22 rimfire rifle (Remington Targetmaster) and .410 single shot (Montgomery Wards) unsupervised, after qualifying to my Grandfather's satisfaction on watermelons growing on the boundaries of his pea fields. When we went to my Grandfather's house in rural East Texas for holidays or just to visit, the first thing I did, after giving everyone a hug hello, was grab my rifle. I mowed the yard at home for 5 dollars and vacuumed the stairs for 25 cents a pop to buy ammunition, which I would dump in my pocket. My Cousin (now a game warden in Texas) and I would make the rounds for many miles down red dirt roads to all of the family's and neighbors gardens, dooryards and fields to reduce the rabbit and crow populations. The crows we left to rot like the cowards they were; the rabbits went into gumbo. We would then follow cattle trails to half a dozen ponds and reduce the rattlesnake and water moccasin populations, and we would shoot pine cones, abandoned cars and tin cans along the way. This we would do from daybreak until near dark, and it was suppertime. No one ever worried about us or wondered if we were safe. We didn't need food or water, and didn't care if it was hot, cold or rainy. Once I got to high school, those times ended, but I still regard those days of walking through the woods with my rifle as the happiest I have ever been in my life. My rifle is long gone, but I recently purchased a Remington Model 41 Targetmaster off GunBroker that's a dead ringer for it, and I bought a box of Aguila to feed it.

 

[splattergun]

My dad was a deer hunter and had a 30-06. I think it was a Mauser sporter. He always went meat hunting by himself or with a couple chosen friends. Do ya think that old $!#*&@$ taught me to shoot, hunt or fish? Not on your life! His rifle was completely off limits, and I know he always kept it in his closet with a full magazine, chamber empty. I remember he had a .30 cal ammo can full of surplus ammo, including some tracer rounds. The only time he took me hunting was when I was 12. He spent the weekend grouching at me because I didn't know what to do. My old man was a real piece of work!
I learned to shoot a friend's BB gun when I was about 8 or 9, then in the Boy Scouts I learned to shoot a .22 and a .270. We scouts often went shooting jackrabbits and pot guts. I got pretty good shooting off hand. MY hunter safety shoot was with an old pump .22 borrowed from a neighbor. I didn't go deer hunting for myself until I was in my late 20s.
Just about 10 years ago I learned that he had his old Navy issue 1911, and he had given it to my oldest brother when he turned 21. Said brother turned right around and sold it to pay for his wedding. Sad sad sad.

 

[X62503]

I learned that he had his old Navy issue 1911, and he had given it to my oldest brother when he turned 21. Said brother turned right around and sold it to pay for his wedding. Sad sad sad.

splattergun, that is a sad story indeed.

 

[22250Rem]

As a kid during the depression my dad did lots of small game hunting, especially rabbits, which were used for stew meat because beef was expensive. Did it with his Model 67 Winchester .22 and about 1939-40 got himself a 16 ga. single shot shotgun and pheasant hunted until 1943 when he entered the Navy. Kept pheasant hunting for a few years after the war but then got married and got a house and 4 kids and that ended the shooting & hunting. So I never got to do much of that growing up and started in my teens with friends & mentors like my old boy scout leader. My dad encouraged it all even though he had his hands full with work, a wife, 4 kids and a mortgage. The .22 cal. Winchester and the 16 ga. single shot Iver Johnson were the only two guns he ever owned but he enjoyed the heck out of them.