Your background with firearms

[Torie]

I have an intense personal dislike of them. I don't even like to see them actually. I don't like hearing shots in the forest, and intensely dislike hunting.

[morgieb]

Option 5 (standard urban non-American answer)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I have an intense personal dislike of them. I don't even like to see them actually. I don't like hearing shots in the forest, and intensely dislike hunting.

Personal dislike is all well and good, but I'm growing increasingly impatient with moral rhetoric against hunting in recent years, since (at least in the case of large prey animals like deer) human hunters are just filling the ecological niche that their natural predators did before we mostly extirpated them from the Eastern US. The alternative would be reintroducing wolves en masse even in suburban areas, which would be cool but is probably a nonstarter.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Don't like guns and don't want anything to do with them. I don't have anything against hunting, though. It's the people who own guns for """self-defense""" who are a scourge on society.

[If my soul was made of stone]

I have an intense personal dislike of them. I don't even like to see them actually. I don't like hearing shots in the forest, and intensely dislike hunting.

Personal dislike is all well and good, but I'm growing increasingly impatient with moral rhetoric against hunting in recent years, since (at least in the case of large prey animals like deer) human hunters are just filling the ecological niche that their natural predators did before we mostly extirpated them from the Eastern US. The alternative would be reintroducing wolves en masse even in suburban areas, which would be cool but is probably a nonstarter.

It's cool because of the reasons it's a nonstarter. People with decadent suburban lifestyles are exactly the sort of folk who ought to be reminded of the power of other predators and learn to both love and fear Diana. I have a vague complex of millenarian beliefs related to this idea in the context of civilizational collapse, but knowing the forces at play it's unfortunately most likely that any such event would take out our closest rival species rather than increasing their power relative to us.

I'm strongly interested in learning to hunt myself, but I'd rather do it with bows and arrows or other such implements in keeping with my general aspirations to achieve a synthesis of my current means of existence with a Mesolithic air. There's something very impersonal about firearms to me that's perhaps suitable for intimidation but feels out of place when engaging in an act so primal.

[Ferguson97]

I have been to a shooting range a couple of times. Fun stuff.

[Torie]

I have an intense personal dislike of them. I don't even like to see them actually. I don't like hearing shots in the forest, and intensely dislike hunting.

Personal dislike is all well and good, but I'm growing increasingly impatient with moral rhetoric against hunting in recent years, since (at least in the case of large prey animals like deer) human hunters are just filling the ecological niche that their natural predators did before we mostly extirpated them from the Eastern US. The alternative would be reintroducing wolves en masse even in suburban areas, which would be cool but is probably a nonstarter.

On this matter, my preferences are not meant to be policy prescriptions, and and certainly are not meant to define the line between good and evil.

[afleitch]

I have an intense personal dislike of them. I don't even like to see them actually. I don't like hearing shots in the forest, and intensely dislike hunting.

Personal dislike is all well and good, but I'm growing increasingly impatient with moral rhetoric against hunting in recent years, since (at least in the case of large prey animals like deer) human hunters are just filling the ecological niche that their natural predators did before we mostly extirpated them from the Eastern US. The alternative would be reintroducing wolves en masse even in suburban areas, which would be cool but is probably a nonstarter.

On this matter, my preferences are not meant to be policy prescriptions, and and certainly are not meant to define the line between good and evil.

I agree with you.

I dislike hunting for sport or mass clearance too. It is not our place to 'replace' predators we hunted. It's our responsibility to reintroduce predators and certainly here in Scotland the backlash to reintroducing them comes from landowners, farmers and those who profit from hunting.

I think hunting with guns is one sided. I appreciate and understand tracking and stalking. I respect traditional hunting with skill and weaponry where you can lose as well as win. But rifling game like fish in a barrel after lunch but before drinks just sits unwell with me.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Sadly, none.

Apart from Station owners, I don't know anyone who owns a gun.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Own several guns

[Big Abraham]

I have been to a shooting range a couple of times. Fun stuff.

Wtf based Ferguson97??

[DavidB.]

#3. Shot several types of guns at several occasions, but never lived with one or owned one.

Am surprised by the number of people who never shot one or even saw one given how American this forum is.

[dead0man]

3, will be a 1 someday

[Aurelius]

Shot guns many times, including machine guns at Knob Creek in Kentucky. Roommate owns several guns. Will own one myself in a year or two.

[vitoNova]

I had to strap an M9 or an M4 (sometimes both) for close to 4 years overseas and had to qual annually on them, along with other weapons, so I kinda outgrew by gun fetish when I was like 21.

Fun factoid of the day:  the Germans pulled my drivers license for 30 days for speeding (lol), so for about 2 weeks I worked a detail in a NATO armory, where I handled Glocks, Brownings, and those weird British bullpups...but unfortunately never got to take any of them out to the range. 

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

#2, and I grew up in a rural part of Oregon with family members who all pretty much own guns, ranging from pistols to semi-automatics.

Let me take this chance to say; repeal & replace the second amendment!

[Badger]

Only gun I've ever fired said Daisy on the side. Briefly handled my law partners automatic rifle, But did not fire.

Own a crossbow and am a decent shot when in practice.

[S019]

#4 given I have seen a police officer and been to museums. Fortunately, I've never seen one actually be used.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I technically own a gun a relative(don't remember exactly who at the moment) gave to me. I've gone out to shoot improvised targets with my dad a few times, but I'm a bit too scatterbrained/ADHD to feel comfortable and confident I won't violate gun safety rules when I zone out and/or aren't paying attention.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

They weren't my guns but my dad and brother have a small armory's worth of guns in the vault in the garage. We would go shooting every now and then as a teenager. I always thought of handguns as cool but firing the rifles was more fun

[DaleCooper]

I've fired a few guns over the years. Do antique guns count even if they likely don't function anymore? If so then I used to live with those in the house.

[RINO Tom]

Option 3.  So fun, and I was actually a bit better than I thought I’d be!

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Option three. I want to buy a gun, but I have a ton of other things on my plate these days.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I may or may not own 16. My favorite is my (hypothetical) AK47. I lovez muh gunz.

[_.]

Option 2, have lived in a place with a gun but never shot one

Don't like guns and don't want anything to do with them. I don't have anything against hunting, though. It's the people who own guns for """self-defense""" who are a scourge on society.

In many places this is a very real worry and has saved people I know personally's lives.
It's probably the most legitimate reason to own a gun.