How Does Growing Up With Guns Shape Your Feelings About Them?

As the #NeverAgain movement gathers steam after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, one thing is clear: America and guns are in a toxic relationship, and it's way past time to reassess. So how do our individual relationships with guns start? We talked to people from different parts of the country, all of whom grew up with guns in their homes, about what that was like and how it shaped their current perspective on gun control. Not to spoil anything, but there's more common ground between the elk hunter and the coastal elite than you might think. Here are three of the narratives we found most compelling.

"I'm a hunter who owns three guns. I'm glad to see protests against the gun lobby."

I grew up around firearms. They were in the family for hunting or target practice. My earliest memory is probably of watching my dad clean a shotgun in preparation for going pheasant hunting. They were not worshipped. They were never stored loaded. The thought of playing with them never occurred to me. I'm sure my mother said many things to warn us of the dangers of guns, but she said so much stuff to scare us about all the scary things in the world that it just blends in. Anyhow, the respect was ingrained.

I took a safety course along with my Boy Scout troop in the fifth grade. It was an immersive, three-day course going into great detail on safety and mechanics for all types of hunting weapons. At the end you were issued a hunter safety card for life. I still have it, and it's required for getting my hunting licenses in Colorado. [Editor's Note: Not all states require this.] Today I own three guns: For hunting, my grandfather gave me his Remington 1100 semiauto 12-gauge with a small amount of ceremony. I take it to the range and shoot clays. It's very fun for that. My second gun was my great-grandmother's: a small, five-round US Pistol .32 from the turn of the century. It is the same model of gun that was used to assassinate President McKinley. My third gun is a .50 caliber muzzleloader Hawken rifle. I hunt elk. My wife got me a kit several years ago. It's very pretty, if I do say so.

I have no sympathy for manufacturers of non-sporting arms. They're toys until they are murder weapons. The loss of that product will not hurt society. And I'm glad to see the pushback against the gun lobby in the wake of the latest tragedy. Though we've always seen such waves of desire for change wither eventually, it does seem like there is more speaking up this time. I do worry that there will continue to be shootings no matter what action is taken. How do we classify the weapons to be banned? Fully automatic rifles are outlawed, but these shootings were successfully carried out with semiauto rifles and pistols. A friend of mine suggested that limitations on certain rounds could be a solution — there seems to be a distinction between what is preferable for hunting and what is meant for warfare. —Brian, Colorado

"My dad turned into a conservative. Soon he owned 12 guns."

Up to my teens, my family treated gun ownership like it was completely loathsome. My mom would only let us stay at friends' houses if she knew their hunting rifles—something common in rural New York—were kept locked up and unloaded. My father told me he'd learned how to shoot a rifle as a Boy Scout in the '60s but thought owning a gun was stupid.

That changed abruptly in 1997, when I was 14. One day my father picked me up from high school and said we were going to do something special. We drove to sit in on a handgun care and safety class. After that, my dad and I would occasionally go shooting together. His owning one gun for self-defense turned into around two dozen guns over the next five years: a shotgun called "The Justifier," various handguns including a functioning replica of James Bond's Walther, and even—I shit you not—an illegal Israeli uzi purchased off the back of a friend's truck at a gun show outside of Fort Collins.

The reality was that my father had guns for two reasons. One was a natural collector's impulse; I have it too. But Dad's interest in guns coincided exactly with his wholesale embrace of the neocon wave in 1996. He went from a fairly liberal person to a lunatic. He was a doctor raised in New Jersey but had suddenly taken to wearing cowboy hats, blasting Rush Limbaugh and Mike Drudge on the drive to work, smoking cigars—and buying guns. It's almost comical to connect the dots: Fox News opened for business in October 1996, and we went to that gun safety class in March of the next year. It took less than six months for him to buy all in and start spending tens of thousands of dollars on weapons he was convinced Bill and Hillary Clinton were going to forcibly take away.

I don't own a gun and never will. I find gun ownership idiotic at best. I wouldn't deny someone the right to own a hunting rifle, but there is no reason to own a handgun or assault weapon for any reason other than murder. No gun owner I've met has been able to give me a satisfactory answer as to why they should own a weapon like that. Self-defense holds even less water for me since I know how difficult it is to actually use a handgun with any accuracy. I think this new wave of anti-gun protests are an overwhelmingly positive thing, but the NRA is only a single facet of the larger problem. Convincing Hertz to stop running promotions with the NRA isn't going to stop arms manufacturers from funding political candidates through PACs. I'm grateful that the protests are signaling a change in media sentiment around gun ownership, but clearing up LaPierre-based symptoms won't cure the disease. — John, New York City

"My family hunted for food. But I'll never own a gun."

My dad taught me to handle and shoot a small handgun in a deserted Kansas pasture. He owned a rifle and that small pistol. They were for sport, both hunting and range shooting. He was an avid hunter and our family ate everything he took: pheasant, quail, deer. We were poor, and hunting helped put nutritious food on the table. Even the handgun was used to kill rattlesnakes while fishing. As a kid, I was taught that you used guns to hunt for food, and you handled weapons responsibly. We weren't allowed to even point toy guns at people. My dad enrolled me in hunter's safety in sixth grade.

Now I do not, and will not, own a gun. I don't hunt, and I don't think [guns are] effective for home defense. If a weapon is being stored safely, it is not readily accessible if there's an intruder. There is more chance of someone being accidentally injured, especially if there's a child in the home. To me, the whole "good guy with a gun" is a cinematic myth.

I am 100 percent behind, and a participant in, the current NRA protests. I don't want to get rid of 2A—like that's even possible! I want the NRA to stop influencing common-sense regulations and lobbying against CDC research. They hide behind the Second Amendment, fearmonger, and intimidate to drive gun sales and profits. Responsible gun owners should have no problem with common-sense regulations. — Ann, Kansas City