How did I become a gunner?

Jennifer wants to know.

I don't have a definite point where I wasn't a gunner before but I definitely was after.  It was a nebulous transition period.

When I was a child, being a boy, we played cops and robbers, cowboys and indians and war.  All required some sort of toy gun.  My parents didn't care I was out of the house and those games meant I was exercising.

My circle of friends loved the WW2 films and TV shows that were on syndication on the local UHF channels.  This led us to an interest in military technology and 1/35 scale models of tanks, and 1/48 scale models of planes.

For me the model thing led to ever more detailed research to build better and better (read more accurate) models.  It also led to changing to 1/72 for airplanes because of space considerations.

At some point I found myself in Iowa (visiting relatives; I lived in Bolingbrook, Illinois).  I fired my first round ever from a .22 rifle my uncle owned.  He took my cousin (his son) my sister and me all shooting at some cans.  I had a great time!  Alas, my home appeared to be a gun free zone.  I didn't know about Illinois and guns at the time (being a wee lad of 3-9).

My dad had a 1911 stashed away, illegally, that I had stumbled across at least once as a kid.  But dad never went shooting or took us with if he did.

Then there was the divorce.  Mom took my sister and I to Iowa where her relatives lived.

There I was reintroduced to the idea of guns through a boyfriend of Mom's.  Again, a .22, again FUN!

At some point I acquired a bb gun (gift from dad) and even got in trouble for shooting at a friend's brother's feet.  Got the "you'll put an eye out" lecture and everything.  Problem here is that I had nobody TEACHING me about guns.  I got better about it.

Some place around here I got the idea that we didn't need guns, so banning them would be OK.

I remained interested in guns because of my interests in mil-tech and because I had discovered table-top role playing games.  Champions, Traveller, Twilight 2000 and GURPS more than AD&D.  Characters needed guns and knowing the real stats about them gave you an edge over the GM.

I have more than one musty old character sheet where the character packs a Browning GP35 for no reason other than it held 13 rounds instead of 6 or 7.

For Twilight 2000 and GURPS I delved even more into real stats since those were the first games I played that even came close to dabbling in real numbers.

Some place in here I had my first debate about needing a gun.  I blame this guy.  He is the first person who confronted me about what I was thinking and why.  Introduced me to the idea of critical thinking, he did.

I was still brutally ignorant about firearms laws, I thought there was 100% registration and all sorts of nonsense.

Along in here my Dad admitted to owning some guns, which I was allowed to shoot on rare occasions.  I acquired some friends who had .22's and we went plinking from time to time; but I had only a small interest in actually owning a gun.  That small interest was a Galil.  It was the coolest gun evar!  It's far superior than anything else because it holds 35 rounds not 20 or 30...

But I never got that Galil.

Instead I joined the Army.

I joined in 1987 just short of my 19th birthday.  '87 was a transition year for someone going into tanks.  I was signed as a 19K (Abrams Crew) but we learned the M60A3 as well; just in case the unit we were assigned to had not changed over yet.

Gun geek heaven!  But I was not yet a gun geek.  I had fun shooting and learning all the different guns though.

At some point in here I decided that I would personally own a firearm.  At some undefined future date.

Then my unit had a bit of a hiccup in the supply lines.  We'd turned in our M1911A1's and all the ammo and drawn 9mm in anticipation of being issued new M9's.  Except the M9 was having some sort of production stoppage and there were no pistols to issue us.  We were scheduled to leave for the West German-Czech border any time now to cover a unit there that was going to Graf for training.  We got permission to hit the rod-and-gun club's gun shop and order, "anything that shoots 9mm," and we'd be compensated for the purchase up to some amount I don't recall.  I bought a Glock 17; my first gun!  I chose it because it held 17 rounds, that's more than a Beretta so better!  Someplace in here is where I learned 17+1 too.  I was just barely 20 when I injured myself in a fall from a tank and had to sell the gun before returning home, had to be 21 to bring a handgun back with you from Germany in those days.

My first brush with gun control.

I got my medical discharge, my service connected disability, vocational rehabilitation and a stipend.

I wanted my Glock back.

But this guy wanted to buy "a gun".  Because I was the person he knew who knew the most about guns, he asked what would I recommend.  It came down to a Mini-14.  I've never had a problem with 5.56 as a killer and the Mini seemed like a good gun from what I had available to read.  His worked well enough that I bought my own, and so did a couple more of our friends.  We practically standardized on the Mini.

Then I bought a replacement for  my Glock 17.

At this point I an now a gun owner, but not yet a gunnie.

That moment happens in late 1993.  The Brady Bill and Assault Weapon Bans get passed.  I have a, "what did I do," moment since not a single one of my firearms had ever shot up a school yard.

In response to the AWB I built my first evil black rifle, an L1A1 from a parts kit on an Entrèprise receiver, literally days before the ban took effect.

This marked a dual change.  First I became interested in politics for the first time.  Second I started really looking at how guns work and understanding the differences between the types of actions.  I wanted to touch and feel and taste the differences and variations.  Then I was a gunnie.