I know absolutely nothing about guns other than what I've picked up in movies. I've never even held a gun in Australia. And that's a good thing.

A friend of mine has some guns, and he took me out to a sand pile one day to try and shoot them. I know the following about guns (1) they can kill people (2) they're heavy (3) they're expensive and ammo is expensive. The guns I shot were a pistol and a hunting rifle, I think.

My parents have never owned guns, else I might know more.

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Air gun/air rifle/air pistol. More specifically pellet guns. We call those rounds "pellets" as opposed to the round BBs.

Education depends on the state.
If your under 18, you might need hunters safety before getting a hunting license
If your over 18, you might need it too.
If your under 18, you might not be able to get a license at all. If you are 15+ in MA you need a license. If you are 12-15, you can hunt with a licensed adult. If you are >12, you can't hunt.

In someplace like Michigan, anyone over 18 can buy a rifle.
In MA, you need a permit to buy anything. To get a permit, you need classroom (only) education

Personally, I went to the range and had some education first year of Boy Scouts at summer camp, which would be 11 years old. I've only been to the range once this century ;) . Later, I went through some classroom instruction at my local PD and got the top license Mass give out. Have had it for 5 years but still haven't bought anything.

Shooting with gramps as a kid. First bb guns, then .22s. Then Shotguns with mom shooting clays. Hunter safety class was taught for a week on two in (i think) 7th grade. This was public school in texas in the late 80s.

Really none of that is as good as the military.

And Mom still outshoots me :)

There is a massive amount of firearms training available in the USA. Not a lot is mandatory, a few classes if you want to get a concealed carry permit. Hopefully the person choosing that awesome responsibility also takes an equally awesome number of training classes. There is training for the other disciplines too.

My son had some instruction from Scouts. They start with a B.B. or pellet gun and work their way up to a .22. He recently expressed an interest in shooting more sonwe both took a handgun safety class, but it’s something we did for ourselves at my expense. I had taken one years ago but still learned a few things and it was a good bonding experience with my son. I think a lot of it will depend on your family’s attitudes towards guns growing up, at least in the States

Earliest education was from my father and oldest brother. They started me out with a .22 single shot rifle, stressing all the basic firearms safety rules.

Had to take a hunter safety course before I could get a deer hunting license as a minor. Course was a handful of 1 hour classes, a simple exam, don't recall any actual range time required.

Was carrying a deer rifle by age 13. Saw the damage a .30-30 round could inflict on a large mammal and it really drove home the rule that you don't point a weapon at anything you're not willing to destroy.

Rifle and shotgun merit badges in Boy Scouts.

Had to do another round of safety course in order to have guns in the state I now live in. 8 hours of classwork and training with a simulator, then a live fire test at the local police range.

<<In MA, you need a permit to buy anything. To get a permit, you need classroom (only) education >>


Where are you in MA? I needed to do range time for my permit, which I first got in "never saw a gun we didn't want to ban" Cambridge, but maybe that range requirement was just for the CC, not for the initial permit (?). Can't remember now.

Worcester about 5.5 years ago.
But Cambridge is probably the worst city ;)

Must have been a city-specific requirement then. I tried to get a permit that allowed CC when I lived in Cambridge, after they only gave me one with the "hunting/sporting" restriction. Twice Cambridge PD "lost" my application to remove that restriction. Only got the CC once I moved to City of Boston. [I don't carry, but like to avoid the risk of having law enforcement pop me if I'm stopped and not strictly en route to/from the range or a hunting trip.]

I learned the early stuff from family & friends. But I also took safety classes for my CHP. When my son was 16 and wanted to hunt with me, we took the Hunter Safety Course together.

Canada. Never shot a gun. Never ever held a loaded gun. A few friends hunt, other than that nobody I know owns a gun.

Somehow we’re surviving.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I had a BB gun as a kid, one of my friends had a rifle pellet gun. My dad basically told me not to be an idiot with it, don't point it at anyone ever, that's about what I remember.

Other than that, I've only shot whatever kind of gun they use in Biathlon when our local club had a race in the summer (run / shoot and the guns never left the range). I have no desire to do anything beyond that but I would do the Biathlon thing again, that was fun.

That was really interesting, thanks for posting.
I grew up in rural OR/WA logging towns. I bought a BB gun in 4th grade. My buddies and I kinda lost interest in BB guns/pellet guns by the end of 9th grade, but there was never an ounce of supervision in any of that. We were shooting things up with the BB and pellet guns constantly. Was great fun.

My father showed me how to shoot rifles and pistols. After many trips out in the woods, I earned the privileged of "no more supervision" in 9th grade. Did some hunting, but mostly my buddies and I wandered around in the woods with .22 pistols and shot everything that moved.

I remember when high schools and colleges had shooting ranges in their basements to support their shooting teams. Imagine that, in this day and age, students bringing firearms and ammunition to school because they were practicing for the school's shooting team, a couple days/wk.

The little towns had shooting clubs and competitions. OR had a mandatory hunter's training course that I took when I was 13.

The bottom line tho, was that in rural towns, every father taught firearms safety to every son, and also every daughter that was interested. It was remarked upon no more than your father teaching you to ride a bike a few years prior.

1/2 the pickup trucks in town had rifle racks in the back window. Prob a higher percentage of fireplace mantles had rifle racks over them. None of this was locked up, and ammo was usually nearby.

Softrun. What really got my attention was the military overtones of your introduction to firearms. OR/WA are pretty distant from American military culture, unlike the South where I live now. Safe and idyllic compared to the strife that probably characterized your region during it's bad decades. Our focus on weapons was, probably as traditional, as anything else. And if asked to justify the tradition, we'd probably have pointed to hunting, protection when out in the woods (Bigfoot?), and "sport".

If you ask "why do kids learn to ride bikes?" I'd think to myself "all kids learn how to ride bikes" as if the answer was self evident. It would take me a moment to actually reach for justification re. why kids learn to ride bikes. The same sort of thing is at work. In rural towns in the 70's, fathers taught their 10-14yr old sons firearm safety because that was a traditional thing for fathers to do.

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