I was eight years old when I got my first REAL GUN, a WWI 9mm German Luger. I was in the 4th grade, it happened because I attended a friends birthday party and he had his grandfathers Luger and showed it off to the kids in the class who came to his party. Made enough of an impression on me that I wouldn't shut up about it so my father bought me one for Christmas that year.
The following year I would get my second handgun, a Ruger Security Six .357 magnum. I was 10 years old before I actually got my first BB gun, and the only reason I got that was so I could practice shooting in the yard.
But as a 8 and 9 year old kid I had both handguns in my possession, in my room along with ammo all under my control. I spent a lot of time around adult shooters and they kept a close eye on me and wouldn't hesitate to stop me or correct me if I was about to do something wrong or potentially dangerous with respect to gun safety.
I am so thankful I grew up when I did and how I did. When I was a kid you could deliberately take a spent .22 casing to school for "show and tell" and explain to everyone what it was and how you went shooting with your grandfather the weekend before. I remember taking some interesting things to 8th grade history class when we got to WWII including a Japanese sword (which I brought to school on the bus), a "training" pineapple grenade which was probably more 1970s vintage than WWII vintage and some similar items. This was at the request of my teacher when I told him "Hey, I've got a bunch of WWII stuff."
His only caveats were "no guns" since he knew I owned a few and I had to leave everything with him during the day. He even asked my permission to show the items to his other classes if he promised to make sure nobody was allowed to pick things up and I said no problem, they could even handle anything except the sword.
I'm kind of glad I don't have kids, just because I would constantly be telling teachers, schools and child protective services to F off and keep their bullshit away from my kid.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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