GearJunkie’s Hunt and Fish Editor Nicole Qualtieri wasn’t always a gun owner.
A gun is a tool. I have come to appreciate these five words in my 6 years of gun ownership.
As a hunter, guns are an indispensable part of my gear kit. My freezer has waxed and waned with meat procured by rifles and shotguns since 2015. And the shots that procured that meat were fired by my own hands (or the hands of friends who gifted me meat from their own hunts).
But suffice to say, the ownership and handling of guns was the biggest barrier to entry I faced coming to hunting in my 30s. As more folks get into hunting in their adult lives, I’m sure I’m not alone in this. And I might argue that the biggest barrier to hunting isn’t a lack of mentors; it’s figuring out guns and how they might fit into a previously firearm-free lifestyle.
From childhood, where guns were protection, to my young adult life, where they were disastrous, guns remained largely off-limits. But now, as they’ve become tools I use regularly, I think my evolving stance on guns is a story worth telling.
But it’s neither a political statement nor a call to action. It merely shows how one person renegotiated what guns can mean over the course of a lifetime.
Growing Up With Guns
![gun ownership gun ownership](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2021/01/870.jpg)
I didn’t shoot a gun until I was 30 years old. But I grew up around guns. In fact, my father was — in the truest sense of the word — a gun nut. Pistols and shotguns were a norm in our house, and my dad actually taught tactical shooting courses at one point during my childhood.
Columbine, Aurora, Personal Loss
The Normalcy of Guns in Montana
![gun ownership, weatherby gun ownership, weatherby](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2021/01/sight.jpg)
And Then, a Hunter
Guns as Gear
![SHOT Show 2020 range day SHOT Show 2020 range day](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2020/10/SHOT-Show-2020-range-day.jpg)