We have a buddy with a world class arsenal and unknown tons of ammo. He also has no children. Just a wife and dogs.
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I wish I had, but no. Very typical NE types, did their duty in the war, didn't really view guns as a personal interest. I'm the only one I'm aware of who was into firearms in any real sense. I found a shot gun in the attack after my grandfather died on my mothers side years later.
I have what I consider three "best" friends. Two of them I don't see that often (one of those hardly ever, but we keep in touch) and they each have an adult son. Perhaps the one's son closer to me geographically might, but he's 19yo now and doing 19yo stuff, as well as being in college for engineering. He might be a candidate down the road.
Now the third guy, well I see him just about every day but he only has step-kids. He is also 71yo and I laugh heartily when he says "If something happens to you I want that XXX you have".
My Dad definitely got me in to shooting. By today’s standards he would have been called a “Fudd,” but I don’t think that’s fair because there wasn’t the same kind of access to gun info then as today. He was a firm believer in Magnum revolvers, thought the 9mm was pip squeak round but carried a .32 ACP a lot. He never had an AR, but had good things to say about M16s he used in the military—but I’m also not sure I ever saw one in any of our local gunshops as a kid. He was pretty convinced anything that needed shooting could be dealt with via 12 Gauge or .357 Magnum. He was definitely didn’t have a good practice schedule by modern standards, but from years of hunting together and me asking to go shooting he was always a pretty competent shot. I remember he was pretty good with his revolver out to 50 yards.
I grew up shooting my dad’s Nylon 66. That was the only gun he ever bought his entire life but it started my passion. I still have it and I will be passing it on one day to my daughter.
Both my grandfathers as well as my father were all pretty "meh" about guns. Not against them at all, but just had other passions. I came to guns more or less on my own and since nothing was actively done to discourage it, it took hold. Most of my mentoring in firearms came from the old guy that ran the local FFL. He taught me to reload and let me shoot an ungodly amount of his ammo through his various and sundry machine guns.
As I grew older, I tried to dabble in High Power...There was in informal club at my college that I tried to be a part of, but the guy that ran it was just using the rest of us to finance his daughter's competition shooting activities. He was also an ass and ignored everyone but his kids and he kids were spoiled, entitled, whiny little bitches that were just awful to be around. Eventually I grew tired of being one of the suckers paying the bills and stopped showing up for their practices/events. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've never had a desire to try to participate in any formal shooting competition since. Honestly, it kind of ruined me from shooting with other people in general...
These days, I buy stuff I find interesting, but mostly just shoot my mouth. The range here is dangerous and I just mostly have other things to do than drag my shit across town for the opportunity to get shot in the back by some shithead that's either drunk, high, or both.
I think my first gun was an antique Fox double barrel shotgun my dad gave me which was a companion to his 12 gauge. We had Ruger 10/22s tacticalized and shot those quite a bit too. He was in the service before I was born so was familiar with the AR. He didn’t buy one until my late teens and by then I had lost interest until about the last 15 years. We have been buying, building and shooting ever since.
At this point it looks like my uncles kid is going to get a LOT of guns one day. Some of my students are gonna get a lot of swords and a few guns.
If it looks like I don't have enough candidates, I'll just start volunteering at the local shooting range to help new shooters and see if there are any kids who aren't 100% snot boogers. Might also visit the local vets home and see if there are any kids spending lots of time in the library studying the military histories of one of their relatives.