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Growing Up With Guns...

2K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  great white hunter 
#1 ·
Here's what might be one of my better scribbles, and I share it with the my HPA friends: Growing Up With Guns.

I think all of us who watched the "good guys" enforce the law on 1950s and 1960s television know they had a positive influence on us. It seems undeniable that the violence and carnage kids are exposed to today doesn't have a negative influence. With all the talk -- much of it ignorant about what makes guns dangerous -- I thought I'd add my childhood experience with guns to the mix. Many will identify with what I have to say.

And many will agree that when we were kids we were taught about gun safety, we had a healthy respect for guns, we understood their proper use was in the hands of the good guys, and <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #800000">we were taught a moral code that was the best gun control the nation and the world has ever seen</span></span>. Gun opponents deny that the violence and the carnage kids are exposed to today has any effect on them. they say "Studies are inconclusive." How can kids <span style="text-decoration: underline">not</span> be negatively influenced by the kind of violence and misuse of guns they see today, when so many of us were positively influenced a generation ago by the way we saw guns used then?

Click here: Growing Up With Guns. Unless you're a spring chicken, I'm betting there's something here you can identify with.

Steve.
 
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#2 ·
Steve you have me longing for those days bright and early here on a Sunday morning.

I have not given up on my kids, i don;t want to loose them to this new style of growing up...yes they have cell phones, play video games, etc...but they hunt AND practice conservation, they got a fear of GOD, got a respect for me and the wife and do not want to disappoint us, and yes they are growing up with guns, in fact we got two more yesterday. And once they are out of church school and i am home from the office today (that time of year) we are going to the range and shoot these news guns, cleaning them and locking them away til we can again.

I am not sure anymore if one person can change the world, but i do know two parents who so deeply care can change their kids or maybe it is keep them the same as God created?

Responsible does not come in a box or a download, if i can't scare my kids enough to do right, I know God got my back.

Yesterday at Gander Mountain in Erie while we were waiting on the background check, being at the gun counter with about 25 others was like being at a deer camp ..guys joking around with me and the boys and just starting conversations with us, strangers. Talking about the various selections, etc...my boys loved it.

As we went to other places to round out the trip aka non-outdoor stores and a resturant , John said " GM was cool, notice how everyone there was nice and joking...but here no one even smiles." He was right, everyone caught up in themselves..and the fact he noticed tells me he still recognizes the 'good guys" and still wants to be one, just like you and I did.

It is not an easy job...guess that is why so many fail to want to work it, it is wearing us out..someone once asked me if i was scared having all the guns in the house with the kids, my reply " if my kid and your kid were walking along and found a gun, i hope to God my kid picks it up first".

Good read and God bless you. BTW, I really like the fact that I live in Warren County , although you certainly can see bad here if that is what you want to find (like the news does), the place for the most part is like one big Gander Mtn gun counter, Good people trying to slow the world down, or heck even turn it around some.

Take that as a big
for a great article!
 
#3 ·
Thanks, John. I don't like to post everything I write here. It would be too much like tooting my own horn. But sometimes, I'd like something to circulate as widely as possible, and this was one of those times. I wish every paper in the country would publish this.

It occurs to me that entertainment continually "pushes the envelope," as though the elasticity of the envelope has no limits. Then, when the envelope has torn open, people don't recognize it until it's too late.

God bless you, too.
Steve.
 
#4 ·


My shooting privledges were taken away if I was caught mishandling a toy gun... I had my first BB gun at 5, a 22 at 8 and my first shotgun at 12..I still carry that shotgun today, fifty years later.

I retired from law enforcement and carrying a gun came with that occupation. I was asked to be part of a paint ball team... and declined saying that my grandfather would turn over in his grave if I took part... I was taught never to point a gun, any gun, at a person unless I intended to shoot to kill. The lessons served me well and have no reason to change my way of thinking these days.

A respect for life, respect for others and a respect for law is all that is needed.
 
#5 ·
I told my grandkids , when I wass going to school some days I would take my .410 single barrel shotgun and hunting coat to school and leave them on the schoolbus all day, it was fine with Mr. Gussie Rust, a trusted neighbor and bus driver,I would get off the bus with Costen Schockley wose house we came to before mine and we would get his dads dogs out and rabbit hunt to near dark, come home clean rabbits, then eat "supper" in those days then do homework. I also told them about taking my hunting knife to school and making a leather sheath for it in shop.....They kinda looked at each other" Poppop they would close the school down for all that" was their reply....Yep kinda miss those days, and Costen Shockley was the best rabbit hunter I ever hunted with, he played first base for the Phillies in 1964..
 
#6 ·
One more thought i had...

You know how we are referred to as "bible and gun clutchers"? Well maybe it is those better times we are clutching too?

Ok off to work, so I can get OUT of work.
 
#7 ·
Very good read, thanks for sharing! My son who is going to school and bartending on the side was telling me about a girl who was showing off her new concealed carry .380
As she was showing it the laser shined across his feet, he kinda flipped a little and she said do not worry there is not one in the chamber...he scolded her and said he was never even allowed to point a toy gun at anyone ever.... and maybe a gun safety class would be in order for her,

Made me feel kinda good, I am glad that stuck with him!
 
#8 ·
Times have changed since we have developed the attitude that big brother must protect us from everything including ourselves. Unfortunately this will not change til we drop back to the days of religion and guns our fearless leader referred to in a less than friendly way. Perhaps those seeking secession are right, we could take all of the country except the east and west coasts and have a strong, responsible nation.
 
#9 ·
That is a great article
.

I was blessed to grow up during those times. I was in study hall in the auditorium of the high school when Mr. Terwilliger came in to break the sad news about President Kennedy being shot.

I too had a firearm in my hands at a very young age.

My Dad would set my .22 in the corner of the kitchen and tell me I wasn't allowed to touch it because I had either done this or that or had not done this or that, I would have rather had a beating than not be allowed to take out my .22. It worked, because what ever I did it was never repeated.

We had a little country store near home. We, the guys I grew up with, would ride our bikes to the store to cash in "pop" bottles. (There was a limestone works where the truck drivers would toss out their bottles so we could gather them up) When we got enough to buy a box of .22 shells it was a big deal. The lady who ran the store would always ask if it was O.K. with our parents, God forbid we would never even think to lie about such an important question. Then I found out in later years she would call up my Mom and tell her what I bought. LOL

I had a beagle/cross that loved to hunt, after school I would grab either my .22 or shotgun (20ga side X side) and a hunting we went.

In the summer we, my friends and I, camped out alot. If it rained we slept on someones porch. Everyone had their .22 with them. We were maybe 10 or 11 years old the first summer we started camping and did it till we turned 16 or 17. Oh our parents knew where we were and if we stayed "out" for a couple days someones Dad would show up to check on us and if everything was "hunky dory" they would usually drop off a few boxes of shells as they knew we would be out.

Man, those were good times

When my Kids came along I never locked up my guns, they were taught, as I was taught, to respect and understand what a firearm could do. I started all my kids at a very young age handling and shooting.

I became an HunterTrapper Ed instuctor many many years ago to help pass on the knowledge, to todays youth, that my Dad passed on to me.

Thanks Dad, for everything.
 
#10 ·
Great read! Thanks for sharing.

This really made me think about the rights of passage for any young man. As I grew up we always had guns laying around the house. I was taught from day one that guns were not toys. I was taught what they were capable of and also that when you pull the trigger there is no way to get that bullet back.

When I was between 3 and 5, I can remember shooting my grandpap's Red Ryder BB gun that was kept by the basement door. Looking back, the BB's would lob into the target so there wasn't much chance of doing much damage to what you would shoot. That meant nothing though as I was taught never to point it at anything I wasn't going to shoot. My dad would also let me shoot his Marlin .22 which had a 2-7x scope on it. I thought this gun was the greatest thing ever made. At age 5 I got my own BB gun and my dad took off the scope from his Marlin and put it on my BB gun. When my cousin who didn't have any experience with guns was around, it was I that became the safety instructor on how to handle the gun and how to shoot. A year or two later, we both had BB guns and there was not tin can safe from us. My grandpap would pay me $1 for every rabbit I brought in from the yard as they would eat his garden.

One I demonstrated proficiency and proper handling of my BB gun at about age 8, the .22 and .22 magnum were not available for my use. The bounty on rabbits was 1$ and and groundhog would bring $5 from the grandpap. Next I was onto using my dad's old Browning recurve bow which I learned to use proficiently.

When I was 10 I started reading the PA Hunting regulations from the little regulation book my dad would get with his license. At 11 I took my hunter education class. When the instructors read the names of those that earned perfect scores on the test, I was not surprised my name was included and would have been very disappointed if I missed one question.

At age 12, every boy in the 7th grade looked forward to shop class where we would get the chance to make our own gun rack. When were were finished, we couldn't wait to show it to our dad's and all of the neighbors. Mine is still on my bedroom wall at my dad's house.

I can't say I have ever had a desire to use a gun for anything other than target shooting or hunting. The fact that we had guns laying all around our house did not concern my dad in the slightest and he is the kind of person that worries about everything. He knew he taught me right about guns and more importantly knew he taught me right from wrong about everything else.


I don't know if anyone has ever read a book entitled "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge but if not, I recommend it. There is lots of discussion about these types of rights of passage in a young man's life. Eldredge claims one of the biggest reasons for so much of the problems with kids and men today is the emasculation of boys and young men. Being wild and adventurous is part of the male gender. It must be released and if it is not though the same sorts of channels that we had to release it, it will come out in other channels which are often not the most respectable channels.
 
#11 ·
Everdayhunter,
Great stuff sir, congrats on a fine article. In my era we did not leave our guns on the bus, there were no busses,
we stored them in the principles office, till after school and hunted on the way home. Guns are a tool, a tool of freedom to be used at great discression and with responsibility. No gun ever killed anyone, only a person using a gun can kill, the same with a knife or a ball bat.
The gun however keeps America free, from tyrants, and evil tyrants have been working to take your freedom tool away for a very long long time.

Hi Ho Silver
Pine Creek/Dave
 
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