My late father bought me my first gun, a Crosman pellet rifle, and a couple after that. I was 12 when I got the first one.

The die was cast a lot earlier. At four I used to sit on the couch with my grandfather and watch TV westerns. Grandpa loved them and I was quite impressed myself. Roy Rogers and Sky King were mentioned earlier but there were lots of other, more obscure, westerns on TV in the early 1950s. We watched one after another and I started lobbying for a six shooter at around age six. Fired my first shot from an air pistol at that age and had to wait entirely too long to fire the next one.

Dad was a hunter not a shooter but he didn't object very often when my brother and I wanted the car to go to the range.