I just enjoy shooting....

They are gone because we let things slide. Except for the GTA the bush is still there, the country kids are still interested in hunting/guns. We still have room to shoot and plenty of opportunity to do so if people didn't tend to call the police when they heard shots. We have to ask on this forum if we can take ten yr olds hunting with us, or if we can target shoot on Crown Land. Police take the "safe" route and tell us that we should NOT do certain things because they are unsure of the legality.
We also tend to find toy guns at Can Tire that look just like military stuff so us old farts get excited when we see scruffy kids carrying them.

Boy...does this thread bring back fond memories... I'm in my mid-forties for reference.

As a kid, I spent my summers with a slingshot and fishing rod in my hands almost every day. I graduated to a pellet rifle I found in my late grandfather's closet....hidden among actual firearms wrapped in flannel bed sheets. I used to do chores to earn pellets, dad would drive me to the local Canadian Tire once a week to buy me a tin of 500. Seemed like allot the first time, but they were gone in a single, good day of shooting. Frogs were the quarry, but after zapping lots of them, curiosity got the better of me...and I put a dead frog on a hook and lobbed it into a rocky spot on Georgian Bay in front of our cottage. Turns-out SM Bass like dead frogs! For you younger fellas, this was pre-internet days...and I didn't know books or magazines on fishing even existed. Pure trial and error~how sweet it was.

Firearms came first when I learned our high school had a trap and skeet club, headed-up by a fantastic guy. (my geography teacher) I convinced my grandmother to relinquish the old 12ga. semi still stashed away in her closet, and so it began. Mostly with rimfires (have had every modern caliber offering over the years) but more shotgun...and now centerfire varmint guns in the mix. Funny...nearly 40 years after I started shooting at the family cottage with slinghots..I like nothing more than walking around with a rifle, shooting varmints. I leave the frogs alone, but almost 40 years of practice means the groundhogs are bound to have a bad day when I pull-up on the edge of a hay or soybean field.

Many young folks don't have the opportunity to learn to shoot simply because their parents don't partake.

It is a shame.

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Originally Posted by dutchhunter

we would go down to the rifle range at the high school two days a week and plink with the 22 rimfire target rifles the school had .there was 6 of them .and the shop teacher would be in charge and sell us the ammo .what a way to spend the lunch hour ,Dutch

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Did the same in Kenora, with Mr Paulsen, the math teacher, in charge. He was an avid fisherman, hunter and canoeist, and thought all kids should have these skills.

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Originally Posted by welsh

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Exactly! And if it is safe to shoot a rifle into the side of the hill, and we have been checked out, even if it's to a higher standard than the regular PALs, then I don't see why we are no longer allowed to do so with a handgun, especially one of those super dangerous prohibited S&W 32s from 1938....or little 22 revolver with a 3.5" barrel

I love shooting! And now with my 160 acres just outside of Sudbury, it's a safe place to plink away. No matter the caliber.
In fact, I shot yesterday. Now, I want my Restricted permit for a handgun.

In shop class we made a lead shot machine, at lunch we reloaded shells. Our shop teacher took us out to shoot trap & skeet a couple times. There was a .22 range in the basement of the highschool as well, it's gone now.

Dad started all 3 of us off shooting behind grandpas old barn. My sister was the best shot at the time, I don't know if she remembers but she was about 4. I was 5 and my brother 7 and we would go through pack after pack of 22LR.

We shot lots of pellet guns, grandma had squirrels and chipmunks ripping up her flowers so that took up most of my summers.

Once my brother got a 22 (BSA Supersport Five, I own it now :)) we would shoot in the backyard of grandma and grandpas all day in the summer. We started shooting pop cans but that was too easy at the 25 yard range that we had so I started shooting empty shotgun shells with grandpas old Cooey 82 single shot and irons, when that was too easy I would shoot just the brass off the shells to see them fly. I wish I spent that much time shooting now, I would be a lot better shot, shooting is definitely one of those if you don't use it you lose it type of situations.

Now on my 2 acres I can setup an archery range and pellet gun range. I am not sure that I will setup the rifles there because even though I can we have close neighbours and I don't want the noise to bother them, I don't want to be "that guy" but there is a pit down the road so I should be able to have some fun after work this coming summer.

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Originally Posted by welsh

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Yes. But I have been in a few situations where bears were a very real problem. While inland camping in Algonquin one summer we had one that was such a problem we packed up and left and trust me nobody slept that night and a couple times while moose hunting the only thing that solved the problem was a bear hanging on the game pole. So, it is a real concern even if not common. If legally allowed nobody would even know I had one while camping or fishing remote lakes.
When I used to bowhunt alot and bears specifically many times at sunset walking out in the dark armed with a 60lb compound bow didn't really give me the warm and fuzzies.
A couple winters ago the coyotes followed my dog and I out of the County Forest right to the truck, another scenario where I would have solved that problem if allowed to carry. Again, if allowed to conceal carry none of the tree huggers would know I even had one. My feeling is if one takes the mandated courses and tests and has gone through the vigorous background checks by police that are mandatory then to allow approved people to actually use a pistol seems only logical.