I may not have been born with a gun in my hand, but I'm pretty sure I came equipped with one in my heart.

Certain life experiences provide us with benchmarks in time, and even when our memories begin to fail us, they still stand as guideposts. Mine tells me clearly that I was interested in guns almost before I could read.

At an age when most pre-schoolers were fixated on comic books, my eyes sought out guns wherever I could find them, and back in those days one of the best places was the Sears & Roebuck Catalog.

(With Honorable Mention going to J.C. Penney and, of course, Monkey Ward's)

Since no one in my family had the slightest interest in firearms, my predilection for them produced more than a little parental consternation, but I suppose I was also born stubborn, so one Christmas, 'Santa Claus' finally caved in.

My First Daisy is long gone, but I remember it was a lever action that only shot air (no projectile). The targets were images of animals printed on thin plastic sheets that were vertically sliced into ribbons about an inch wide. When the puff of air from the Daisy impacted the sheet, you could see where it hit, then try again.

I'd say it was a 'blast' − and I'm sure it was − but the truth is, I already had bigger things in my sights.

--

My older brother shot me in the ass with a BB pistol. That's what piqued my interest in firearms.

Joe

I can recount a similar story, no family interest in firearms but no opposition either, in about 1952 my first Daisy was LA but it was a BB gun. Wore it out and then got a pump and wore it out. Both long gone now but I have a Daisy Red Ryder 70th annv. setting in the cornor.

It was essentially a Daisy lever-action BB gun without the BB-handling bits . . . just a big ol' open muzzle.

When "fired" it produced a pretty substantial "POP". If you added a few drops of oil down the barrel, it also produced a respectable cloud of smoke with each of the next few shots. In fact, as I now recall, it was called the Daisy Smoker.

If you stuck the muzzle into the mud before firing it would propell the plug of mud a goodly distance.

It was the gun on which I learned that cocking the gun and then firing it with the lever hanging down will result in a much-unexpected rapid closing of the lever with the very-much-expected painful smashing of any fingers in the way. Oh, OUCH!

They must have been somewhat under-marketed as I never saw another one.

Ah, memories . . .

My other favorite was seeing how many caps I could stuff in a cap gun before I blew the hammer off.

--