Have you ever fired a gun?

I fired a .22 rifle once.

No, and I never will. If there's a war I'm off to Sweden.

what if the war is *with* sweden?

sike

12 gauge
20 gauge
.22
.306
9mm

...thanks grandpa!

walther .38 pistol
my mom's rifle which is a ruger, i think.

a girl once took me on a date to the firing range. we shot a few different kinds of handguns. it was fun

see here's where checkboxes would come in handy

12 gauge shotgun
20 gauge shotgun
.22 rifle
daisy red ryder
pellet gun

All these posts = http://youtube.com/watch?v=H47QlGq3zQ4

the .22 was for a "gun skills" class at SCHOOL!

What's this "consider yrself" bit about, tho?

http://www.arrowgiftshop.com/media/220_1775C_Freedom_Pistol.jpg

what if the war is *with* sweden?

Well, Sweden hasn't been in a war for 200 years or so, so I think there's a good chance it won't happen during my lifetime either.

http://gothamist.com/attachments/arts_jen/2005_07_artswatergun.jpg

http://www.professional-power-tool-guide.com/Pictures/Dewalt%20Nail%20Gun.jpg

Well, Sweden hasn't been in a war for 200 years or so, so I think there's a good chance it won't happen during my lifetime either.

-- Tuomas, Tuesday, September 4, 2007 5:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

oh SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!! PWNED!!!

This is going straight to zing thread! :D Kudos!

nailgun OTM

http://store.wpiinc.com/productimages%5Clabsupplies%5CGlue-Gun.jpg

i fired a L98 Cadet GP and a L86 LSW.

the shade of simo hayha weeps with shame

had to look up the names.

BFG9000

What's this "consider yrself" bit about, tho?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2006-09/25284280.jpg

xpost to nailgun

I wish I had a nailgun like that. All of the ones I've used take a straight strip of nails.

i don't know if I've actually used a nailgun. i've used a staple gun tho!

I was thinking that "consider yrself" might be code for "consider yrself a proper, god-fearing, gun-toting, homo-hating, triple-A American". I guess I was thinkin' wrong.

.410 and 20-gauge shotguns, .22 rifle on occasion (mainly at a gun safety course when I was 12), a couple of handguns. None since my teens.

.22 rifle at summer camp when I was a little kid. In the 20+ years since, nothin'.

Where's the "Have you ever fired a gun at a prostitute?" parody thread?

Do I need a .50BMG upper for an AR-15, y/n?
http://www.bohicaarms.com/

(answer: no)

"bohica" lol

Nailguns are grate for roofing. If only there was a gun to fire the shingle bales up onto the roof somehow.

omg i fucking hate those things---heavy, dense, miserable

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/images/grandtheftauto.jpg

that's what your trebuchet is for dan m

nailguns are great for anything involving nails.

serious answer: yes, I was allowed to use the .22 for rabbits and dillos and such at about the age of 12. I never graduated to the .45-70, and didn't much care to, because shooting rabbits bummed me out. Dillos I could give a shit about. Nasty little fuckers.

I've never actually shot at a living thing. I think killing a squirrel (or other varmint/pest) would actually make me cry.

Yeah, it's really no fun at all. But you've probably never killed an armadillo, either. :)

Does a PEZ gun count?

I had a friend who found a place in Cambodia where you order from a "menu" of various firearms, all the way up to RPGs and so forth. They even offered to throw in a few cows for a nominal surcharge. He declined. (The cows, not the RPGs.)

yeah, who doesn't love role playing games?

I shot a girl in the foot with an Airsoft the other day.

I got shot in the chest by a different girl with a full-auto airsoft over the weekend. The welts are lookin' awesome, thanks.

This is all coincidental and I am not some airsoft fetishist.

Once, at a firing range, it was great.

I shot my brother in the eye with a rubber band once.

How do you consider yourself an American? You either are or you aren't.

I fired a .22 rifle at summer camp. That's enough for me.

Considering yourself American is more of a choice, whereas legally you are technically one or the other. Citizen vs. "part of the nation," I suppose. In the same way that many folks in Quebec don't consider themselves part of the Canadian nation/culture.

that should read, "Considering yourself (culturally) American is more of a choice,"

I might have fired a shotgun/rifle when I was a kid but I don't remember. so I said no.

Wow, that sounded so close to haughty condescension. I'm sure it wasn't, but it just sounded close.

I shot a .38 one time, and lemme tell ya, that bicycle leaning against the tree was never the same afterward.

That reminded me of a camping trip with high school buddies that I'd almost forgotten about. One of them is a gun nut and had a new .357 magnum, and we had fun blowing up cans of Cheez Whiz. Pretty intimidating as hand cannons go.

wow that sounded so close to feigned disingenuity, eerie!

hahaha

my dad used to hunt before i was born, so there were firearms around. he didn't know that i knew about the loaded .44 in his sock drawer, though.

a friend of mine is a collector and let me fire a civil war-era pistol once--shitload of smoke and i was nowhere near the target at quite close range (not that i can shoot, but still).

Whoa, Alex, I thought that was in reply to me. "He's shot himself and is now telling the suidical to 'get on with their lives?? wtf?" But I'm 99% sure it's not.

I was merelly responding to the thread question, not your statement, Abbott. I'm not that much of a jackass.

don't own any guns, but my dad and grandad had a bunch, and when i was a teen (the ideal time to take up gunplay, eh?) i'd go target shooting at ranges and then randomly at bottles & cans in old mine pits in manitoba. my list is pretty close to tracer's, actually!

-12 gauge shotgun
-20 gauge shotgun
-.22 rifle (several, including one with a scope!)
-daisy red ryder (you'll shoot your eye out!)
-.303 rifle (aka elephant gun - WOW!)

never fired one in over 20 years, though, and never fired a handgun.

I wouldn't mind having a pellet or BB gun to discourage backyard critters these days.

You know what really discourages them? When you tell lies and are mean.

No can do, I'm from the deep south. I'll be unfailingly gracious and polite right up to the point where I shoot the little squirrel in the head.

Staying w/ my parents this week, looking at their air pistol for making the squirrels run and hide...I think it probably does more to cruelly create maimed squirrels than as an actual deterent. A good stock of little pebbles and a strong arm is more humane and just as effective, if a bit harsher on the lawnmower.

air rifle, proper rifle, shottie. good times!

I can't believe I'm the first...

I shot a man in Reno.

Hmmm that seems pretty weak when written. I can now understand why I was the first...

yeah i have, out the back of my friend's family's cabin in the hills in colorado or new mexico, when i was 18. it was FUN! and i am totally anti-gun...

oh i dunno what kind of gun it was. actually thinking about it, there was another time, we were on some sort of outdoor pursuits cum computer course somewhere near telford. we had a morning shooting guns there but that was indoors. am i making that up?? memory seems real...

HEY GUN, GUESS WHAT?

http://i13.tinypic.com/53t8etd.jpg

.22 rifle at school

as i just mistakenly posted on the "ever been shot?" thread, thinking it was this one: other than air rifles, i've fired a crappy cadet rifle thing on a shooting range: that was when i was at school. i can't remember the details, but we obviously weren't using live ammo.

i am a shit shot. i actually fired at the next dude's target for a while; we worked this out when it transpired he had an impossible number of hits.

Hmm I guess I wasn't using live ammo at school either then? Is there a type of ammo in between blanks and live ammo? I have no idea. I mean, we were shooting at targets. Rubber bullets?

I'm all Tuomas about guns.

I was supposed to attend a civil defence course at school where we'd learn to shoot, but i bunked classes.

Also a guy offered to sell me a pen gun (tiny gun that fits in your palm - illegal) when I was a teenager, I thought it was cool but since I could never hide anything from my folks in those days, I decided against buying it (good decision in retrospective)

kv_nol why'd you shoot that guy, details please.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QoLx8RsHN0A

he cheated at scrabble (xp)

my favourite gun story:

with my georgia family, suited up in camo and in a caravan of station wagons, headed towards "the camp" for a day of shooting at dove, quail, what have you, someone sees a gray fox. the whole caravan stops. no one speaks. there are actually two of them, gambolling about. it's rare to see them up close like this. great-uncles are pointing at them to little kids, telling softly about how they can climb trees, and taught red foxes how to do it, etc. - then, very loudly, my cousin park shouts from the rear of the caravan - "gray foxes! daddy, get the shotgun!"

from near the start of the thread - wtf, why would someone shoot a BAT? it's just a bat, ffs.

because they are tasty?

ILX in surprisingly gun-friendly shockah

Growing up in rural North Carolina, everyone in my 8th grade class was required to take a hunter safety course. We used shotguns in it to shoot skeets. Fun, but I've never actually been hunting.

I've also shot rifles and BB guns.

It's not really a surprise. Guns are pretty awesome (in the literal sense of the word) and since most of us are unlikely to actually want to kill people with them, we can discuss them in the abstract with interest and enthusiasm?

I used to do .22 rifle shooting at school, to a competitive level. This comes in very handy for winning cheap large stuffed toys at fairgrounds - I once had a crowd of impressed schoolkids formed round me applauding on the beachfront in Largs.

My brother used to be a gamekeeper and has offered me the opportunity to go out shooting game with him, but I've always declined.

have never fired a gun other than an air-pistol/bb gun (though that def could inflict pain)

have been around when someone's been holding a gun; was kind of freaky. even cops standing around with guns is freaky.

wld go to a shooting range though. might as well learn these things.

I think we've covered this before (in the gun control clusterfuck thread), but I shot competetively for several years, so yes.

from near the start of the thread - wtf, why would someone shoot a BAT? it's just a bat, ffs.

Because there was a goddamn bat in the house. My crazy grandpa wanted it out. He wasn't a real catch-and-release kind of guy.

Bats could have rabies.

I've shot a wide variety of rifles, shotguns, pistols, paintball guns, bb guns, water guns, spud(/grapefruit/frozen chicken wings/wads of socks) guns, nail guns, cap guns and glue guns, but I've yet to ever fire a
http://www.belvedereplantation.com/gfx/DSCN4585%20web.jpg
Pumpkin Gun!

various handguns
M16
M60

I'm not a gun nut who lives in Montana - I used to be in the military. I grew up around guns, and for a long time didn't consider them a big deal. It has been several years since I've been around one, and I think they might make me nervous now. I'm leaning more toward gun control in my older age, but I have to admit that they can be fun.

I didn't answer the poll question, because the answers were dumb.

Why is that?

yeah, i mean i don't consider myself american, because i was born elsewhere and never lived there... no need to read into that bit!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

That's 66% of Americans and 49% of non-Americans.

I'm frankly surprised that so many Americans have fired guns, but maybe I shouldn't be.

Dang, I gotta fire a gun. I'm feeling the peer-group pressure.

Do any ilxors have advice on the best way to get handgun/rifle trading, presuming that your old man didn't take you out to the dump to shoot at cans?

See if you have a local range listed in the phone book - they should either have some basic training or info on an NRA beginner's course in your area. If possible, the NRA course is the best - they teach you how handguns work, how to load/clean/etc., the safety rules, all that good stuff.

http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/find.asp

Listing of authorized training classes by area, but it leaves out some people. You might be better off searching "NRA Basic Pistol" and whatever city you're closest to.

Why is that?

It just seems loaded. You either are or you aren't an American. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the word 'considered'... I happen to be an embarrassed American.

You might want to read the other seven responses to that same issue, then.

The results are closer than I expected, and higher all around. How far would they drop if it were only handguns, I wonder?