barfle wrote:I think I got my 22 when I was 11 or 12, because I know I had it in Michigan, and I turned 13 after we moved to California. I know I was really happy to get a single-shot, bolt-action rifle, but it did put me at a disadvantage at the indoor range when they had timed shoots.
Never had a Daisy, though.

I was fourteen (good guess Selma!) but I had attended the NRA shooting and safeth class when I was 12 and my father let me squirrel hunt with him with a single shot 16 ga. shotgun and my Mother's single shot .22. My .22 was a Remington tube fed bolt action with a 4X scope. It sat in the closet in my parents home for 30 years after I left home. Everytime I visited I could tell that Dad had cleaned it. I think he gave it to the local NRA to be used for training before he died in 2000.
I never pointed it or any other firearm at anyone I didn't intend to shoot; still don't.
Never had a BB gun, Dad didn't like them and thought they were dangerous because they were considered toys and he say that when I was old enough, I'd get a real gun. Heck, it took Mom to intervene before he'd let me have cap guns!!
but I also have a few antique inherited firearms.
The first is a .38 Colt my grandfather used when he was town marshal of Wilmar AR. I still have his badge and the pistol. I've never fired it since it has a slight bend in the barrel; family history alleges that occurred when it was used as a club to subdue an unruly field hand one Saturday night.
The other is a 1911 .45 Colt automatic that my father “liberated” after the war. (Not the 1911A1, but the original 1911). He had started his military service in the Arkansas National Guard and I suspect that was were he got it. It is the very first model of the .45 that was issued to the military and I still have his field guide showing how to fire it from horse back! It has a four-digit serial number and my research indicates it was produced in 1913.
The 1911s were known as the “thumb smasher” because of the long spur on the hammer would hurt the web of the shooter’s hand if his hand wasn’t properly positioned; I know because I still have a faint scar on the web of my right hand. I haven’t fired it since the 70’s but it was a damn accurate piece then.
I also have Dad’s Pacific ribbons and his Bronze Star Medal. He got the medal as an infantry officer in Okinawa. He had initially carried the M1 Carbine when he first got there but during a Banzai attack he emptied an entire magazine into a charging Japanese infantryman and had to draw his .45 and fire it before the soldier was stopped.
He told me that when he went back to report to the Company Commander he threw the carbine on a pile of surplus weapons and picked up the cleanest M1 Garand he could find and used either that or a .12 GA pump shotgun the rest of the time he was in combat.
He said the only criteria he had for a personal weapon was “I
EXPECTED the son of a bitch to STOP the Japanese, not to piss them off more than they already were!”The rest of his life whenever he saw an M1 Carbine on TV or in a movie he always snorted in disgust. I don’t even think he knew he was doing it; it was just his reflex on the reliability of a weapon that let him down, the ultimate insult to an infantryman.