"How Did You Become a Gun Enthusiast"
- Thread starter MtnMike1
- Start date
How did I get started?
2 separate trips to a buddy's farm/hunting property where we shot a variety of handguns and rifles and shot some Tannerite targets. After the second trip, I knew that I needed to own my own gun so that I could go to the range.
As luck would have it, my dad informed me shortly after the second trip that he had all these rifles and shotguns that belonged to my grandfather and he wasn't sure what to do with them. I gladly took them in and gave them a home, having just bee bitten by the gun bug. So my collection went from 0 to 8 guns in the blink of an eye.
As far as adding guns to the collection, there has been no huge rush, since I got a good variety (3 shotguns, 3 rifles - including a .22 - and a revolver) in what I "inherited". However, the revolver shoots .38 S&W, so I wanted something in a more common caliber that could be taken to the range frequently. Plus, I just wanted a gun that was truly my own and not inherited. So for Christmas, I asked for cash and put that towards a Smith and Wesson M&P 9mm.
That has kept me pretty satisfied to the this point. I have an idea of what the next gun I want to buy (something in the semi-auto rifle arena, possibly an AR 15), but I'm not in any rush. I think my M&P can stand to have a few thousand rounds through it before I need to get something new.
2 separate trips to a buddy's farm/hunting property where we shot a variety of handguns and rifles and shot some Tannerite targets. After the second trip, I knew that I needed to own my own gun so that I could go to the range.
As luck would have it, my dad informed me shortly after the second trip that he had all these rifles and shotguns that belonged to my grandfather and he wasn't sure what to do with them. I gladly took them in and gave them a home, having just bee bitten by the gun bug. So my collection went from 0 to 8 guns in the blink of an eye.
As far as adding guns to the collection, there has been no huge rush, since I got a good variety (3 shotguns, 3 rifles - including a .22 - and a revolver) in what I "inherited". However, the revolver shoots .38 S&W, so I wanted something in a more common caliber that could be taken to the range frequently. Plus, I just wanted a gun that was truly my own and not inherited. So for Christmas, I asked for cash and put that towards a Smith and Wesson M&P 9mm.
That has kept me pretty satisfied to the this point. I have an idea of what the next gun I want to buy (something in the semi-auto rifle arena, possibly an AR 15), but I'm not in any rush. I think my M&P can stand to have a few thousand rounds through it before I need to get something new.
Must have been something in my blood. No gun enthusiasts in my family, but I can remember going up to the attic to play with the M-1 Carbine my old man brought back from WWII, later cap guns galore. First shooting experience was at Boy Scout Camp in 1963. Used to gaze at the gun section in the Sears Roebuck catalog, read my 1966 edition of Small Arms of the World to where I had memorized large sections of it.
Rifleman1776
New member
I can't recall a moment when I "became" a gun enthusiast. As a child, yes, young child, in Chicago I built zip guns from junk in the basement of our home. I could buy whatever needed for mixing up explosives at the pharmacy. I shot bottles and rats in vacant buildings using marbles and ball bearings for projectiles. Learned from that, if a seven year old kid with no training could build a gun capable of killing, the notion of gun "control" was a falacy. But, later, living near woods I would wander around shooting mushrooms and stumps with a .22 rifle. Later I came home from school and picked up a shotgun to hunt squirrels, rabbits and pheasants. I guess, looking back, from age 7 to now almost 70 years later, I have never been without guns. I could write pages on my path to political activism but will only say that pursuit convinced me the 2ndA is our bedrock for preserving freedom.