Do you own a firearm? (anonymous poll inside)

I own guns because Texas, but I just sold one of the only guns I’ve owned and also purchased. Basically all the guns but one that I own are inherited or gifts.

I grew up hunting… well, I should say I was taken hunting a lot, I didn’t really enjoy shooting animals. I don’t hunt anymore and I don’t really go to shooting ranges either. I guess the last hunt I went on was early 2020, and like all those sorts of things, they’re more like “taking the boys to the golf course, Texas Edition” than actually hunting.

If I were a hunter I could see the appeal of reloading your custom rifle round and getting it sighted in. I am mildly interested in various .17HMR vs .22mag platforms… very mildly, in that I just sometimes window shop, but nothing else.

I think the thing is that my idea of guns is just a different generation. I see guns with walnut stocks and pretty blued steel sorts of things with expensive Leopold scopes… it never occurs to me to own these new, ugly, AR platforms, just designed to toss a bunch of lead downrange and drop a couple thousand on accessories. The new generation of guns owners (imo) have little interest in hunting and seem to see guns more like a toy / culture war object d’ Blart. Since I don’t really hunt, I don’t buy any guns… but it does sometimes rain guns, being Texas. At this point in my life fly fishing seems way more my groove.

Zero to my name, and very interested in taking all of everyone else’s guns, melting them down, and fashioning the slag into a gargantuan towering statue of AOC holding aloft Trump’s head.

My dad grew up hating guns and being forced to hunt by my super gun-happy grandfather. Then my dad got infected by Fox news, a black man became president, and pawpaw died, so dad inherited a massive collection and bought a bunch more to prepare for the liberal apocalypse.

Two guys I tangentially know locally are ex-military and own some sidearms from that. Otherwise, I go out of my way not to associate with gun-people; they genuinely and deeply unnerve me.

I own a couple (small caliber pistol and rifle) for occasional range shooting that I’ve had forever. They are fun, but I have no illusions about my chances of using them for self-defense. I also have young kids, so they live in my single friend’s gun safe at his house. I would be fine not owning them.

My dad was a cop and taught me a healthy respect for them at an early age. Used to go to the range with him every so often and always enjoyed shooting at targets. Plus, I was in the army for a bit and fortunately for me it was the late 90’s so I never had to shoot at an actual person.

When my dad passed a few years back I had an opportunity to inherit a fair number of guns but I just told my uncle to keep them. I don’t really have easy access to a range and I’m sure as hell not comfortable using one as a defensive weapon. I still think they are cool and enjoy a bit of gun porn from time to time, but I get what I need from games like Escape From Tarkov and such.

Grew up on a farm we had guns all the time. After I left home and got married didnt have any. When my parents passed away I took my old 22 rifle and 12 gauge shotgun. Havent shot them in probably 10 years.

I got an old lever action Winchester from my grandpa when he died. He never used the thing to my knowledge and only owned it, I think, because he was a gigantic fan of every western in existence, filmed or written, although he was not anti-gun (there was also a .25 auto in the house at some point but I don’t know what ever became of it). I have shot it several times. It’s nice, but absent that I would not own one, save maybe a black powder pistol or two for fun reasons, not for “defense”.

I grew up in Europe, going to a DoDDS. I had enough of guns, when September 11th happened and the whole school was fenced off with US military guarding round the clock, fully armed.

Also, I have small kids, so put me in the same boat with @ArmandoPenblade in the whole melting business.

I don’t own a firearm. I’d like to, but it’s not a strong desire. I’d like to have training and some level of comfort with one. I can’t think of a time I would intend to use one, but an unanticipated crisis isn’t the time I’d like to learn how. My wife doesn’t like the idea of having a gun in the house though, and I’m not interested enough to try seriously to persuade her. If I was still single or she was more open to it I’d be more likely to pursue it.

I could accomplish most of what I want with some courses and just renting at a firing range, I assume? I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

My maternal grandmother never forgave my father for not taking her husband’s guns after he died. I don’t think my dad touched a weapon once he left the navy at the end of WWII.

I took my father in law to some medical appointments as he was failing. I did this because he needed a translator from hillbilly to English and the leave policy of my job at the time was very generous as opposed to my self employed wife who had trouble doing such things. For this act of service and as a gesture of acceptance he gave me a pump action shotgun. For men of his time and station this was a big deal and signaled an acceptance of me that his wife was never able to offer. I’ve never fired the darned thing. I don’t have any ammo in the house, but I will likely keep that gun till I die because of the symbolism of what the gift meant.

Later I did have occasion to accompany my daughters to a shooting range so I have fired a couple weapons. Some of those folks at the shooting range were really into the whole culture. For the most part they were accepting of our ignorance and trained us in basic safety enough for the morning.

Quite comfortable with guns, but have no need for one in my household and don’t have the time or inclination to go out to a range, so I’m a no.

I lived in South Africa growing up and in the 90s crime was really getting bad there, so my father bought a pistol to protect us. However when his company then faced big financial problems he shot himself with it when I was 21.

That really just reinforced the notion that these guns people bring into their homes are just timebombs of misery that people just end up hurting themselves with.

(Living in Europe now I also don’t know a single person who owns a weapon, so it would be foreign to me to even consider getting one, even without my personal history/aversion.)

I grew up with them, my family was and still is hunters, but have none, and no inclination to get one.

In straight cost benefit analysis, as a non hunter or sport shooter, the net risk vs potential benefit is so skewed it is absolutely not worth it. Stories of toddlers accidentally shooting siblings or parents alone are reason not to own.

I have never even seen a real firearm, that wasn’t in the hands of military or law enforcement personel.

Is the poll for US citizens only? I ask because I don’t want to skew it.

Yes, and even better, you should convince your wife to attend the class.

There’s no point in bothering at the moment with the ammo shortage. I’ve completely ignored the hobby for years now, although I’m probably going to get back into sporting clays soon. I just learned this week that shotgun ammo is only up a few bucks per box, so that’s not too bad.

You’ve been on fire lately. Always worth a chuckle!

I’m Portuguese, I could get a hunting rifle? fairly easily, anything else is work. I don’t really want to hunt though, and owning a firearm is just weird to me.

Does this project have a Kickstarter?

I’ve been shooting a number of times, though it’s been a while. I was fine with the long guns, but the pistols bothered the hell out of me. Purely psychological. Something about having both hands on the thing.

I wouldn’t say no if someone were to invite me to go bird-hunting, but shooting a deer (any mammal, really—again, psychological) would bother me. Ironically, they’re locally out of balance and well on the way to “pest” status.*

I don’t own one. No real desire or need, so for for me it would just amount to another responsibility.

Same, though I think my former co-worker stopped at three or four of them, and she doesn’t make her own ammo. She’s not a collector; they’re just a part of her life.

* I remember when the deer first started coming into town in large numbers. My dad, who spent a large chunk of his time in retirement growing roses, woke up one morning and found they’d methodically eaten his entire garden, leaving nothing but sad little stalks.

The roses were a remembrance of my late mother, and my dad was furious, muttering darkly about getting a gun and standing guard on the front porch. I laughed it off—he was a bookish academic, after all—until I remembered that, having served five years in the army during WWII, he’d had plenty of experience with firearms, and there was nothing stopping him from toddling down to the mall and picking up a rifle and a box of cartridges. He never did, though.

A little penicillin will clear that right up!

Never bought one personally, but I have inherited a large stack of them and the wife has even more from her father I have to deal with.

I don’t allow any of them in the house, but only because I don’t currently own a gun safe. Certainly never felt the need for them, though my wife felt threatened enough before I met her that she had a concealed carry permit.

Eventually I will have to solve for all of this, and I have been meaning to get my son enrolled in a gun safety class and take him to the range so he learns his way around them. I won’t be taking him hunting like I grew up doing because I doubt he could stomach shooting an animal and I am just fine with that.

I do miss having easy access to deer, quail, and pheasant ever since my dad died - especially the summer sausage they made. I tried out various brands of store bought summer sausage and it was inedible. But that’s it, otherwise my gun collection is mostly an annoying problem I have to solve.