How should I start her out?

.22 rifle.... Mine start with a single shot at age 8. Most of them like my Colt Trooper with .38's best of all the handguns.

my 16 year old daughter after years of not wanting anything to do with guns(probably because I hunted and she's a vegan
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Because I believe vegans are not all there upastairs, I would not teach one to shoot ...... they may decide you are murdering animals when you hunt and "avenge" those "victims" ........YMMV.
 
I would recommend a .20 gauge break action shotgun. It won't take her arm off, but she can still get a rush not from merely plinking at a can, but of utterly shredding it with one shot.
 
A lot of people talked about calibers. My suggestion is to sit her down before you go to the range and let her know what you expect in terms of safety and conduct.
 
how about signing the two of you take some training together and sign up for an appleseed. Let someone else teach her (and you) how to shoot.
 
An excellent suggestion....my son learned a LOT more by going to an Appleseed shoot. Kids tend to listen more to other folks' instruction better than their parents...

And, girls usually do better than boys...that listening thing again. Take a couple .22 semi-autos and a couple bricks of ammo...you're all set.
 
I'm with the majority here and say start with a .22 rimfire. Closer ranges,10-15 yards works great, and shoot exciting targets. You might get a rush from shooting small groups at paper, but generally paper is boring to beginners. If you must shoot paper, shoot some the one that are games, tic-tac-toe. Also, the shoot-n-see type targets are great! Cans, water bottles, and balloons work great to get them interested in see their success. Someone mentioned to have her take a firearm safety class first. I respectfully disagree, as some of those classes are filled with 10 and 12 year-olds and other classes are dull and boring. She might lose interest if she sat in a class like that. Personally, I think you can do a better job getting her firearm safety oriented by yourself. Sit her down, and stress to the utmost importance how big of a deal firearms are. And get her shooting! Good luck and report back!
 
Most students in NRA Basic courses are adults not kids. If she develops a flinch by moving up too quickly in recoil, she will have a hard time getting rid of that flinch. Also, if a person is not disciplined enough to take a training course (claim of being too boring) why would they be disciplined enough to handle a firearm? I see some posts on here about shooting bottles filled with water. We need to promote safety first, and IMO shooting bottles filled with water does not fit into that category. When there is an incident, it makes the entire shooting community look bad.
 
We get a full spectrum of shooters at Appleseed...under 10 yrs old to 85 yrs old+, and frequently get the whole family coming out. Most folks shoot rimfire, most of our ranges are at 25m. We drill the students hard on SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY, and basic rifle marksmanship.

I took my daughter out to "learn to shoot" when she was 13 (a 20ga shotgun), she didn't want to listen to me and hasn't touched a weapon since. Kids tend to listen to an adult instructor better than their parents.
 
I took out a lot of different guns and let her look them over. She was interested mostly in hand guns and shotguns though I did bring along two rifles. When we got to the gun club we checked the rifle range first but there were a couple of folks there sighting in for deer season I think so we decided to go to another range.

We started at the pistol range with the Ruger Mk II, steel swing targets and bowling pins. Next was a S&W .357 magnum revolver with .38 Special target loads which she liked. Then I loaded up a cylinder with the .357 mags and told her that it had a bit more kick and blast. She shot that and agreed that it was a lot more powerful, but didn't want to shoot any more magnums. I'm certain that because I told her straight up about everything at every step that it helped and there were no suprises. Last one on the pistol range was the S&W 459 9mm. She was holding it a bit loose and had a couple of failure to properly feeds until I explained that she needed to hold it firmly enough to allow the slide to cycle the action. After that it shot fine. She liked the Mk II best of the three hand guns.

There were other guys on the rifle range so we went out back to the skeet fields to play with the scatterguns. First up was my H&R Topper Jr. .410 that I got as a kid for Christmas one year. It has a 26" full choke barrel and makes a nice tight pattern. At first I just had her shoot into the brush growing on the hill behind the skeet field so she could see how it made a pattern and how it spread as distance got longer. Next up was another break-action single shot, another H&R Topper Jr. in 28 ga. with a 22" modified barrel. A bit more kick and bigger pattern but no issues with that one. Then out came the Ithica Model 37 Featherlight, 28" modified barrel, and she knew why I had told her to lean into it when firing. After that I got out the one she had expressed the most interest in at home, the Mossberg 500A home defender. With a pistol grip and a 20" cylinder bore in 12 ga. even the light loads we used had a potent punch and she shook her wrist after firing it twice. After that we took some cans of the cheapest soda I could find at Wally World and set them up with a few unbroken clays we found. She went back to the .410 and hit five cans in a row, breaking the clays and making the soda fizz and foam as the cans were ripped apart. I think that was the best part for her.

By then we were running out of daylight so we just skipped the rifle range and packed things in. All in all it was a really good day for both of us. I stressed safe gun handling and didn't worry about if she hit or missed the targets. I wanted to make it fun for her but made sure she realized that safety was the first and foremost priority. I told her that while it may "look cool" in the movies, that these were real guns and that any mistake had the potential to be fatal.

I would like to thank everyone for their input and suggestions. I will be looking into something like an Appleseed or defensive pistol course that we can both take together. I'll also be looking at what the next step is, more handguns most likely. I'll have to see if I can find some .44 Specials to ease her into the .44 Magnum wheel guns. We'll have to see about which rifles she wants to try out, too.

Now I get to teach her about "the rest of the story", how to clean firearms after a range outing....
 
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