Why do you own a gun?

I have a gun for protection. I also have a concealed carry permit but I don’t carry it anywhere.
Just curious @josie, are there kids in your home that could get to your guns?

@chyna
No. Plus they are locked up.
Check the details.
Thanks.

Because I want to and the law says I can. My husband hunts, I’m a target person myself.

I do not own one, but would have no objection to it. If I did, it would be for target practice as a hobby.

That’s why I asked @josie. Mine isn’t locked up, but I’m the only one here.

@chyna
Mine are locked up because where I live it is not impossible for my place to get broken into.
When I first moved here, before the neighborhood got better, I got broken into a couple of times when I was gone.
I had a talk with the the boys in the neighborhood and now they like me, and generally they leave me alone. But there are still a couple of left over weirdos and tweakers who stagger around here and you never know.

So I lock the guns up.

I started when I was a kid. I had BB guns when I was about 8. My parents gave me a .22 for my 12th birthday. (I still have it.) It taught me responsibility and gave me a solid respect for them .And I got a good understanding of how to handle them. We had a rifle team in school and brought our guns to school if we didn’t want to leave them in our lockers. i took mine on the school bus.
As i got older I also learned a lot of physics from them: pressure, acceleration, ballistics. When I learned how to program that was one of the first things i calculated.
After my Dad died I got his.
I have a CCW and occasionally carry if I think the area I will be visiting is dicey. This is a rare occurrence: maybe 2x per year.
I shoot almost every day. I use a target .22 to control squirrels, chipmunks, red squirrels and feed them to the neighborhood fox.

It’s fun to shoot shit with. Like tin cans, rabbits, squirrels, birds, ... And I can shoot people if they threaten me.

I just like to kill PEOPLE with, especially people I don’t like.

So I and my black brothers can eventually overthrow the racist government.

I grew up like @LuckyGuy with a bb gun and then a pellet rifle. As I got older I became proficient target shooting and I especially enjoy older surplus rifles. I own a handgun for self defense and I keep it in a quick access safe. My other firearms are partially disassembled and locked up tight. I also have a CCW permit but rarely carry. When I do it’s when I’m backpacking in the wilderness either solo or with only one or two other people. Sometimes when buying items off Craigslist I’ll have it but usually not. I don’t feel the need 99% of the time, I have it mainly so as not to be hassled if pulled over headed back and forth to the range. I have not been much of a hunter and I don’t even like shooting squirrels, I usually employ non-lethal methods of pesting. I will hunt for meat as I actually love the taste of wild game if prepared right. It’s just not something I have done much of yet.

The handguns I inherited. One from father, several from in-laws, including the Luger. The mini-14 I bought when I was young and stupid. It has not fired a round in twenty years or so. I doubt the one from my dad has had more than six rounds fired through it. I have never shot it.

They are all in a gun safe and totally inaccessible should the need suddenly arise.

However, my tomahawk is between the mattress and box springs with the handle sticking out.

I have my Grandfather’s 22 semiautomatic rifle one box 22 long bullets. Also have a WWII bayonet. They are unlocked in our bedroom. I keep for a connection to the past.

In case a burglar points a gun at me and tells me to open my safe, I have a dummy safe filled with fake valuables such as realistic gold Spanish doubloons, fake Rolex watch and fake gold and diamond jewelry. Also a bundle one hundred one dollar bills. My real safe is well hidden and very strong.

I have guns for a couple reasons. First, I go back and think about what guns I have and how I got them. I have grandpa’s old deer gun. Its an old Springfield rifle that was made in 1914 and shoots a caliber I have a hard time finding so I don’t even have ammo for it. I got it for sentimental reasons. I have not shot it since he was alive and that was 40 years ago. I have .410 shotgun that my neighbor gave me as a thank you present one year. Not good for much except varmints and snakes…but a nice gesture. I have a handgun that I bought because it was a deal too good to pass up. it was a brand new .45 with nine boxes of ammo, an ammo box, a case and a cleaning kit for $300. I bought it for home defense. I take it out every so often for target shooting. The last gun was a carbine I bought for myself because I wanted one. I take it out with the pistol. But along with these I have other items for self defense…knives, a sword, a bat, etc. I don’t currently have a concealed carry permit, but want one because the laws for transporting guns in your car are so vague that you could get arrested for carrying a concealed weapon if you are driving with the gun in a case locked in the trunk. So I own guns for a variety of reasons, I guess.

I was always a hunter and target shooter,I really like the craftsman ship that goes into well made firearm,I like the really neat engraving I like the high gloss finish.
I like that they appreciate in value over the years.
I have a gun I bought new in 1992 for $600 and today is worth close to $4000.
Tell me what RRSP,401-K, or bond that has that kind of return?
All my firearms are kept according to Canadian firearm laws,I have never bought,or needed a firearm for protection.

The only gun I have is a BB gun and it’s in a box somewhere.

I did not grow up with guns. As a kid I don’t remember any gun talk at all. The first time I heard someone talking about owning a gun I was around 16 years old, because my friend’s new step dad liked to go hunting. That was one conversation and bit of exposure, until my second time when I was a junior in college, I slept over a friend’s parents’ house, and woke up to gun fire. They were practicing in their property.

I guess I missed mentioning I learned about the second amendment in Jr. High. When I learned about it I didn’t relate to current life in the US, I thought of it more as history and a part of the constitution.

Fast forward I’m living in TN, and this bird really annoys my husband in the middle of the night part of the year. Then, our 6th year living there, a raccoon is coming out in the late afternoon and I’m afraid to walk outside. My husband decides to buy the BB gun to scare off these various critters. I was not happy about it. I think he fired it 3 times. I think he never would have thought to buy the BB gun if we were still living in FL, because even though FL is a big time gun state with easy laws, our peers and friends here have never been gun talk people.

I’m pretty sure BB guns were illegal where I grew up? I’m not sure. Westchester County, NY and Montgomery County, MD. Or, maybe there was discussion of changing laws around BB guns. I just wasn’t very plugged in to that topic.

Lastly, here where I live you can practice for free with air guns as part of our activities included in our maintenance fee. They have the guns and ammo and everything.

Female, 55 years old, and living in the USA. The only one I have ever owned is a water gun.

I grew up with a father and older brother that bird-hunted, so there were shot guns in the house. Dad taught me how to load shot gun shells, and we spent many evenings at a rifle club; he shooting at clay pigeons and me collecting tadpoles in the nearby creek. Dad always had a Brittany Spaniel or two, which we taught to fetch.

All of Dad’s guns were given to his only son when he died, including the Lueger, which was probably brought back from his time fighting in WW2. Dad was a rifleman during the war.

The oldest sister married a man, and they bought an old farmhouse on 17 acres of land. Her husband was also a gun-owner, and he would take his nephews and me out for target practice. This is when I learned to shoot a rifle, in my early teens.

My brother’s son grew up going out on bird-hunting adventures with his father. I don’t know if he owns a gun now that he is grown up and on his own. A sister’s two sons both own hand guns. One son was a student at Va. Tech when the shooting massacre occurred. He bought one after that. Both sons keep them in a lock box at their parents’ house, far away from where both live.

The SO, a gentle British bloke, bought a pellet rifle a few years ago. He uses it to shoot rats that get near our garden. So far, he has hit ~200. Before then, he had an absolute fear of the rats. That has subsided since he bought the gun.

The only reason I would buy a real gun is if we moved to the country and had varmints to deal with. Other than that I have no reason to own a gun.
Like @JLeslie, I have a BB gun around here somewhere. It takes some sort of gas cartridges and it’s unloaded.

I have an archery set that I use for target practice.

https://i.imgur.com/x4NGkTM.jpg

I love that^^^^^^^ GREAT ANSWER!!!!!

LOL!

We went primitive camping the other day, with my son and his wife and 4 kids. They choose a state fishing lake. The thing about that was that there were only people there during the day, launching their boats to fish. There were other places to camp, but no one else did, so there was no one else there at night. We had that whole thing to ourselves….and I did not like that, Sam I Am. I did not like that one bit.
In fact, that first night, after dark, we were sitting around the fire when some car comes winding down from the hill. It stops by us. Some guy gets out. He may have been drunk. He was demanding to know if everyone in our group was accounted for.
My son said, “Yep. It’s just us and the kids, who are sleeping in the camper.”
I about freaked out! “OH MY GOD DON’T TELL HIM WE’RE ALONE! TELL HIM THERE ARE 4 OTHER GREAT BIG GUYS OUT ON A BOAT, NIGHT FISHING AND THEY’LL BE ALONG SOON!!” It as a female reaction. The men were secure in their ability to fight it out, though.
Then he launched into some convoluted story about his wife putting their 10 month old son to bed in the tent and someone came along and ripped a tear in their tent. He didn’t SEE anyone, though.
Then he started ranting about how he has a gun and he shoots to kill!

Wow… that sounds appalling!

Did he mean that had happened that night, and so he was supposedly going trying to figure out who it was by himself?

He meant it in it just then had happened. I think his wife and child were in the car and he was running around looking for who done it….IDK. There was NO ONE else there. It was one of the most insane things I’ve been through. I was afraid he was going to leave and go do more drugs or whatever, and get himself convinced that it really WAS one of us…..I really wanted to leave!

Yeah, I bet. It does sound like drug delerium.