Gun handlin' education

[Bob Wright]

Recent post here regarding fun handling education, here's my experience:

I grew up during World War II and singin' cowboys, so naturally I wanted a gun from my days in the crib. I played soldier and cowboys, with realistic looking toy guns. And, as I grew oldedr, wanted a gun. From childhood, I wanted a "Colt .45." I bought my first gun book, the "Daisy Red Ryder Handbook." My mother was dead set aginst my having a gun, but my Dad was a mite more lenient. With Dad's intercession, I finally got my Daisy Red Ryder 1000 shot BB gun. I learned gun safety right off. I knew one mistake would have my Mom over riding my Dad's decision. I was oh so careful and fkinally convinced my Dad and before long I was the owner of a Marlin 39A lever action. I read every book I could get my hands on, and shot every firearm offered to me. I learned to clear every type of firearm, which has stood me in good stead on several occassions when I was handed a loaded firearm thought to be cleared. So I can say that for abought seventy five years of shooting/gun handling, I've never had a negligent discharge.

This I attribute to sensible and responsibe parenting on the part of Mom and Dad.

Bob Wright

 

[sfhogman]

When I was little I wanted a Daisy BB gun so bad I could taste it. My Dad, a WWll vet, would have nothing to do with the idea. I could, however, see that the gears were turning...
One day a new Crosman gas gun showed up! Real wood stock, blued and machined receiver and a rifled barrel. He explained that the .177 lead pellets wouldn't ricohet so much since they weren't steel but lead, and that they were more accurate because they were coming out of a rifled barrel....a rifled barrel! Wow!
The three of us- my Dad and I and the little Crosman- spent many happy summer evenings on the back porch together...
The Crosman now lives in my gunsafe, to be passed on to my grandson...
That pretty little rifle now lives in my safe, along with my 10/22, the last gun my Dad ever shot.

 

[kmoore]

My dad owned many firearms, his father was a gunsmith in the maybe 40s but for sure 50s.
At a young age I wanted a BB gun but dad said there not a toy. But treated like one and no way could I have one. Other kids were shooting up the neighborhood with theirs including each other. Dad cut down a single shot bolt action .22 and I started about age 6 using it at the range. I never owned a pellet or BB gun. I did want to shoot 10 meter air rifle competition but was already putting away nearly every dollar on smallbore and highpower competition rifles and gear. At one point I had a dealer offer to me an Olympic grade LH pellet rifle to use for free, I just didn't have the time.

 

[Don Lovel]

Each of my grandkids has a Red Ryder and a home made target hanger bb stop so they can shoot indoors in bad weather.
Their mom rewards with bbs for good grades, chores done and good attitudes.

 

[blume357]

I'm the other end of the spectrum to a degree... my father taught me how to shoot a revolver.... but it was the combat way with the actual point of impact hidden by the front sight. Did not learn about putting the target on top of the sight or safe gun handling until I took an NRA course at about age 45 and I had growed up in the south out in the country and new all about guns......

 

[bigbillyboy]

My dad owned many firearms, his father was a gunsmith in the maybe 40s but for sure 50s.
At a young age I wanted a BB gun but dad said there not a toy. But treated like one and no way could I have one. Other kids were shooting up the neighborhood with theirs including each other. Dad cut down a single shot bolt action .22 and I started about age 6 using it at the range. I never owned a pellet or BB gun. I did want to shoot 10 meter air rifle competition but was already putting away nearly every dollar on smallbore and highpower competition rifles and gear. At one point I had a dealer offer to me an Olympic grade LH pellet rifle to use for free, I just didn't have the time.

My father was of the same thinking . I never owned a bb gun . I was shooting 22 rifles under his or my uncle's supervision at about age
7 or 8 as I recall. At age 12 I acquired a "deer rifle "" for Christmas . Only gun my parents ever bought me . I was allowed to hunt or shoot on my own at 13 . But I was taught gun safety from day one in my shooting career.

 

[Goldstar225]

Ours was a hunting family. Started going hunting with my dad when I was about four and shot my first firearm when I was about six. Received my own shotgun (20 gauge stevens) when I was nine. Had a BB gun before that.

 

[375hh1973]

I never owned a pellet rifle until I was 32.

Grew up on a Marlin 60 with a cheap 2x scope. Dad used (still uses) it to shoot squirrels and targets.

Got into the skeet game about age 14. Started with my pump 20ga but quickly decided to go with a semi auto. Saved my pennies and got a used Beretta 303.

Gun safety was hammered into my head early on whether it was with the Marlin 60 or out on the skeet field.

 

[blume357]

I used to pick pigeons off the peak of the barn roof with my grandfathers Marlin until one day my father caught me and pointed out that the nearby town, about a mile away was in line with my shots.

 

[jmca]

I grew up in a hunting for food family. Shotguns for birds and buck was the state law. 22's were for squirrels and woodchucks or shooting raccoons out of a tree

 

[contender]

Many of us were introduced to firearms,, AND gun safety at a young age if we were being raised in a rural area. And quite often,, it progressed into a form of subsistence hunting to help the family.
Safety was paramount for most of us. And if we'll be honest, as a kid there were times we bent the rules a bit. I recall using a BB gun to shoot out a few windows in an older house. Took a while to be able to sit down after I was caught.

 

[Watertender]

I can still remember when my Dad took a full can of Blue Boy brand pop in the old steel can that required a church key opener and shot it with his .22 rifle. I was 5 and that blown apart can impressed me more than anything I could ever think of. He set it on a fence post and used his Winchester Model 62A .22 pump rifle to shoot it.

Some things stick with you and that is one lesson I will never forget. The rifle grew feet after my Dad died. Somewhere out there is a 1951 vintage Winchester Model 62A hammer .22 pump rifle with Caterpillar yellow paint ground into the stock from years of being carried on construction. Dad used it to shoot critters that crawled in the pipes they were laying. I would love to find it....

 

[Mobuck]

'When I was little I wanted a Daisy BB gun so bad I could taste it. My Dad, a WWll vet, would have nothing to do with the idea.'
'My father was of the same thinking . I never owned a bb gun . '
Both of the above. Dad had no use for BB guns and would not allow them--said it promoted poor 'gun handling'. When I was 10-11 years old, we acquired one of the early (pre serial number) Remington Nylon 66 rifles and I began to learn how to shoot with it. Oddly enough this rifle had been used in a suicide by a neighbor and this fact was proof of the capability of even a 22.
I didn't allow 'BB' guns at home but did provide single shot pellet rifles for the kids to learn to shoot with.

 

[Terry G]

My home was a gun free zone. My Mother would probably rather have a Timber Wolf in the house than a gun. I ordered a 6.5 MM Italian Carbine and 100 rounds of ammunition on the sly and shipped to a Friends home. That was my only firearm until I went into the Army. I bought a 7.65 MM Walter PPK from a guy who needed money to go on leave. I still have that Carbine. The PPK was traded in on my Colt Series 70 .45. When I was discharged from the Army I lived with my Parents for four months until I got my own place. Neither said a word about all the hardware I acquired.

 

[Fox Mike]

I grew up in the country and guns were tools for harvesting squirrels, rabbits, geese, ducks. I was taught very early on that first off, every gun was loaded till you made sure yourself that it wasn't, you don't point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot, to remember what was beyond what you were shooting at. By the time I as about ten I had my own bolt action 410 shotgun (still have it). There was never any 'formal' training, just as they say in the military OJT (on job training). I remember when I entered basic training and we were hand receipted our M-1 that that was the first time many had ever held a gun of any kind.