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Grandaddys gun

Djcala

.30-06
Supporter
Not sure if allowed ?
But this was email thru Primary Arms today I enjoyed and was reminded keep teaching take a friend relative neighbor stranger shooting or hunting.:



Home Brands AR-15 AR-308 AK-47 Red Dots Scopes
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My story is probably a lot like yours. About two-thirds of current American gun owners grew up in a household where guns were present. My dad kept a .410 shotgun locked up in the closet. My Grandpa kept good care of his dad’s Belgian-made Browning Automatic-5. The first gun I was ever given was a single-shot Winchester .22 made in 1967. It, like the heirloom Browning, had belonged to my great-grandfather.
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“My dad, holding my grandfather's Browning Automatic 5”
I would bet a lot of that sounds familiar to you. Many animals have been harvested, many coke bottles have been plinked, and many clay pigeons have been shattered with “granddaddy’s gun”. It’s a common heritage many of us can take a small part in. As Americans, it is thankfully a right we enjoy, enshrined in our founding document. But even with more than a hundred-million gun owners in America today who have lived out that heritage, or something like it, many more Americans have not.
My story is also probably a lot different from yours. You see, even with that long-standing family legacy of gun ownership that I now hold so dearly, I didn’t grow up shooting guns or hunting. Not the way many of you may have…

When I was 10 years old I went to summer camp. One of the activities we enjoyed during that sun-bathed week of summer in Northern Michigan was shooting sports. We were taught Riflery and Archery, and both on the same day no less! What an awesome day at camp, right? This was my first real experience with recreational shooting, and with guns in general. We were instructed in range safety by an older gentleman who reminded me a lot of my grandpa. The rifles we shot looked a lot like that single-shot
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“Hand-engraved ornamentation and “Light Twelve” designation accompany the Browning name and Silhouette.”
Winchester .22 I would be given some number of years later. We lined up to take our turn knocking over bowling pins and pinging small metal silhouettes of squirrels and pigeons, and I can still remember the excitement of being able to shoot a real gun instead of a plastic cap gun revolver.

After returning home and telling my family all about the fun we had, my grandpa resolved to take me out to shoot that old .22 Winchester. We shot it a few times in the weeks and months that followed that time at camp, but I was about to go back to school, and things like sports and friends started to fill up my days. When I was in my teens I had many friends who had grown up hunting Michigan whitetail deer every November since the time they were 5, if not younger. There was a part of me, though small at the time, that wished I had experienced what they had.

It wasn’t until I married my wife and joined her family of avid hunters and outdoorsmen and women that I felt a desire to buy a gun of my own. That was only six years ago. Every fall since then, when November comes around, I can be found out in the woods with my father- and brother-in-law and my Mossberg 500.
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“From L-R, my brother-in-law, me, my father-in-law, and my wife shooting on Christmas Day, 2015"
For me to really experience the fullness of what shooting sports, hunting and outdoor recreation had to offer, I had to be shown. I wasn’t averse to gun ownership – I grew up with them in the house. I had even been taught about guns and how to use them safely, both by that kindly range safety officer at camp and at hunter’s safety, and when I went along with a friend after staying the night at his house. But even with the means and the knowledge to safely enjoy recreational shooting when I was growing up, I still never did. I had to be shown. I had to be taken out into the woods that first time. I had to be invited over to shoot clays at my friend’s shooting club with him and his dad. I had to be shown what the heritage and legacy of recreational shooting and hunting looked like when it was lived out.
Now, as I think about what I have seen, learned, and experienced, I cannot imagine a future where I don’t raise my own kids from a young age to understand and appreciate safe, legal firearms ownership and the heritage that comes with growing up hunting and shooting.




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Torrey is a content writer on the Primary Arms Marketing Team. He’s been an outdoor enthusiast all his life, and an avid hunter for the last 6 years. He grew up in Central Michigan and now lives with his wife in Houston, Texas.




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Some people have a way with words. That was an excellent piece. Thanks for posting Dj.
I thought it was reminder we didnt all arrive at common hobby/lifestyle etc... By the same route. And without some help many will never experience what we enjoy even though they may be open to it. We have to reach out now more than ever.
 
More than ever is absolutely correct. Kids these days are being bombarded with misinformation and downright lies about guns, shooting, and hunting. They are told in school that guns are bad and only bad people have guns. They are taught that only bad, selfish people hunt. The brainwashing never stops.
 
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