Every Rancher A Rifleman

I remember it was a partially overcast day, my mom and I had just driven up into the yard after the hours drive from town, where I was in first grade, back to the ranch. My father was standing in the yard with a rifle when we drove up and he called me over to him.
The rifle, at the time, looked really big. It was an antique Stevens Model 30 Favorite (now made by Savage Arms, www.savagearms.com ), in .22lr, I would later learn.
He showed me how to work the action, and the sight sights, and then put it in my hands and stood behind me, guiding me at first as I brought it up to my shoulder and tried to hold it steady, and then as I drew a bead on a piece of wood about 20 feet away he stepped back and let me do it on my own. I looked at the sights, hoping I was doing it right, and squeezed the trigger. The little .22 jumped, and a sharp crack broke the silence. The wood splintered and dust rose from it as my first bullet found its mark. You couldnt have taken the smile off my face with a sander.
It was the first time I had fired a gun, and it would leave a lasting impression on me.
Growing up on a ranch I learned about guns early. They were tools, for protection and prevention, preventing predators from preying upon the livestock, and from preying upon our family. I learned early what guns could do when used well or misused. Before I had ever fired an actual gun, I had watched my father come home from deer hunts and finish butchering the meat for our family, I knew what could happen if they were used wrongly, and not to provide food or protect family. I was taught not to fear them, but to respect them and be careful.
My dad started teaching me to shoot with a BB-rifle when I was five or six, about a year before I ever fired an actual gun.
He taught me the basic principles of gun safety, when to shoot and more importantly when not to shoot, how to shoot properly and safely, how to aim and squeeze the trigger. How to transport guns and treat them well while shooting and not shooting.
This has stayed with me all my life.
I have always had access to firearms, at first unloaded with my parents right there, and then one round at a time with my dad coaching me to use the single shot .22 to its best effect, and eventually I was allowed to take the .22 out by myself on short shooting excursions, as long as someone knew where I was. Now, I can take any of the guns I have bought the ammunition for and am willing to clean when I am finished shooting, and practice with them on the family property, and I carry when performing ranch duties. As soon as it is possible for me to obtain a Concealed Carry Permit I plan on doing that so I can carry everywhere allowed by law.
In all those years, well over a decade now, that I have been a shooter I have never done harm, in any fashion, through accident or malicious action. Although I freely admit I practice in part to know how to save life (my own, my families) with use of force, I have never once been influenced to solve disputes with arms, because they were available or for any other reasons.
I am here to tell you, to show you through my example, that what you have been told about guns is wrong. They do not cause people to do harm, they have no influence or power to make decisions for us or over us. At any point I can recall I have had the tools of violence at hand, and have never used them for that... and never will unless put in a position of facing my own death at the hands of another.
You want to know why I have never done harm? Because I have morals, and ethics, and I am a sane, stable man. Take away those qualities, and a rock becomes a tool of murder, but it is not the rock, it is the absence of decency and goodness in the heart and soul.
Because I learned how to shoot, learned the safe operation and use of firearms (and then other types of arms), because I developed the discipline to be a good shot, I have excelled in other things. Although I do not consider myself a hunter, if the need presents I and those I love will never go hungry. If ever faced with danger I will not be a victim, I have both the discipline to be alert to trouble before it starts and then avoid it, and to stop violence if it comes by surprise and there is no hope of avoiding it, only surviving it. But beyond that... these abilities, these responsibilities, have taught me to be a better person to my fellow man, and to myself. They have taught me self reliance beyond survival and protection, I can change a tire, work on an engine, make financial decisions, make life choices, save lives, give orders and take orders, give critique and take it. I was trusted to be a responsible person, I was taught to be a responsible person, with arms, with life, with everything - and thats what I have become.
By taking responsibility for myself I feel much more aware of my environment and impact. I feel the need to have and use knowledge, because there is none of it that is truly impractical when something is actually known. I am an activist for things I see as needing help, or needing support. I am not a party-line follower, I am not a person of blind faith. I think and I question, and in the end I make my own decisions, that are informed and well knowledged about the what, the why and the potential results. And it gives me the freedom and peace of mind to be spontanious at the same time, and to let go of stress and to have fun and truly be free.
And its all because of a single .22 round.
The next time you think of guns in a negative light, I want you to remember what I have said here... and to actually consider it. Being a shooter, being a safe and responsible person with one, arguably great, thing taught me to be a safe and responsible person above and beyond that. Those that say differently, are living within prisons and molds of their own making, rooted in misunderstanding and fear of the world around them and of their own selves... and they have my sympathy, for I can think of nothing sadder.