In my 49 years, I’ve never been in a position where I needed a gun. Except for target practice, mine may stay in it’s lock box for the rest of my life. But I’m glad I had a chance to learn to use one, I think I learned some lessons about living up to a serious responsibility. How about you?
ETA: poll removed due to poorly thought out choices.
gun safety is important,as you said it teaches personal responsibility. shooting can be a very zen relaxing experience - it teaches you to control your breathing, and relaxing into the sighting and shooting. It is pleasing to go hunting, outdoors enjoying the woods or plains or swamps - and you decide if something is prey or something to look at as interesting. You should learn that you don’t have to shoot the animal if you dont want to. I also feel safer, being handicapped I have no expectation of escape so if somone breaks into my home I can determine if I need to shoot, and how to shoot safely.
Not really no. Let me get back to you in five years, after the people at the range have their way with me (they keep trying to get me to compete competitively in IDPA type competitions). If eyre to be believed, I have national competition level potential.
As for any impact beyond being a hobby (and wallet lightener)… Nope. It is cathartic, though. Getting a very tight group, improving a skill which is hard to improve (and impossible to master), it’s an inherently pleasing activity.
I’ve needed it despite prayers that I wouldn’t. And I’m glad I had it. And I hope never again. But you are right that a sense of responsibility and obligation is more what I take from my time around guns.
More than that, I like the places where I have been able to go and the people I have met through all kinds of guns but mainly black powder and sport flintlocks. I could go on for 20 pages. I got to meet the last of the “original makers” and see the best of the new breed come along. Shoot at Cannon Hill and Friendship during the “Golden Age”. I’ve slept in the Castle at Old Fort Niagara and in the barracks at Ti. Met everyone from movie stars to gas station pump jockys. It’s been fun and continues to be fun.
I found out that I enjoy target shooting. It’s very cathartic; I’d rather take my stress and problems out on a piece of paper than on the people around me. It’s also something that Airman and I can do together that gets us out of the house for a few hours.
Otherwise, no. 
I got my first BB gun for Christmas when I was 8. I got my first .22 rifle when I was 12. I bought my first shotgun (a single shot 20 guage) when I was 13 so I could go hunting with our Boys Brigade (Christian Service Brigade) group.
I shot a pistol once when I was about 13, then didn’t touch them again until I was about 28 and went to an outdoor range with a co-worker who basically had an arsenal of weapons. Very straight up guy. Had a blast (literally and figuratively) and then went out and bought my first pistol, a Taurus PT-99.
Moved into Minneapolis in 1991. Between then and when I moved out in 2002, as posted here way too many times, I displayed (never pointed, never fired) one of my pistols five separate times to discourage people from breaking into my house, often when they bloody well knew I was there. On a cross-country trip in 1992, I displayed a weapon (never pointed, never fired) to prevent myself from being mugged in a remote wayside rest at 6:30am on a Sunday morning.
For four years, ending about a year and a half ago, I worked Security, two of those years Armed. My comfort and familiarity with my weapons meant that, unlike some people I worked with, I never felt the need to draw a weapon to take care of myself. That being said, I did draw my weapon 3 times, never pointed it, never fired it.
1> Five homeless bums jump on the Armored truck, start jerking the doors and carrying on. I gave them a dirty look and held up my pistol for them to see that this was a Very Bad Idea. They jumped off the truck and walked away laughing and saying “well, it was worth a try!”
2> We serviced a cash based ATM (meaning you don’t exchange cartridges, you actually had to put open cash in it) at a gas station in a very bad neighborhood at 8am every friday, because the bad people were mostly still asleep. Well, these three guys were not, and they started to make like they were ready to take us down. Both my partner and I had our weapons out that day and the bad guys changed their minds.
3> Oh beats the snot out of me. I just remember it was three times.
So even without the Security work, just based on the experiences I had at my former house and on the road, I’d say that I’d probably be dead if I hadn’t been a gun owner.
OTOH; I used to take groups of people shooting who had never done so before. I stopped after the SECOND person tried to hand me back my LOADED, COCKED, .357 magnum pistol by pointing it at my abdomen from a distance of less than a foot, with their fucking finger ON THE TRIGGER. “Here’s your pistol back” Um, that’s when you make no false moves, make no comments that might startle them, but are very very very very careful about how you reach out and take the gun away from them. Then you never let them touch another one.
It certainly has had a positive effect on my quail hunting.
Our beloved dachshund was killed by a rattlesnake in our front yard before she was even a year old. Our bull terrier grappled with one in the back yard and got bit in the lip, but the fang went right through so he only had very minor swelling from it (and a new desire to obliterate every snake he sees). I walked out of our back door into our laundry room, which opens to the back yard and has a doggy door in it, and a water moccasin was 12 inches from my foot, fortunately coming out from under something so unable to strike (I had a laundry basket in my arms and at first thought it was the dog’s funny little black feather boa toy…classic double-take–where are the feathers?).
Though, as former peacenik hippie children of the 50’s, we are simply not the gun types, we bought a gun, only to kill these snakes that were threatening us and our dogs. We have since caused the demise of another water moccasin in the back yard. While this was the sole purpose of buying the gun, I have to admit that I feel a tiny bit more secure, living here in the woods in a southern rural community, knowing that gun is here in case some human becomes a threat.
Well, my weapon, as Todderbob commented, is an excellent wallet lightener. At about a buck every time I pull the trigger, it gets pricey.
Getting out to my local gun range has gotten me out of the house and gotten me more active in my community. I’ve met good people and had some good times.
I’ve also met some grade-A whackjobs that remind me a little too much of Dale from King Of The Hill.
Yes.
Not much.
I grew up around guns. Also alcoholics who own guns. Not a good combination.
Hunting: Wish more people would take out the multitude of deer around here. I’m too lazy. I believe that hunters are some of the most enlightened conservationists going.
Self Defence: I’m short, light, and don’t suffer pain well. Long ago, I decided a good survival strategy was to stay clear of larger (or really any) people with anger management problems. I have never been in a situation that my being armed would have improved, partly due to my strategy, partly due to luck. I don’t criticize people who feel they need to be armed to be safe, hope you don’t ever need to shoot anyone. Hope I’m not there when the bullets start flying.
I enjoy target shooting, but not enough to bother with obtaining an appropriate firearm.
Walt
Only when picking blueberries in Alaska. A .12 gauge with slugs gives one a (possibly false) sense of security against grizzlies. I’ve owned guns all my life, but can’t say they’ve made a difference otherwise.
My husband has enjoyed target shooting and found that for some reason it’s good for the tendinitis in his arms. (Physical therapy through shooting things!) He also bonds a lot with guy friends over it.
I enjoy target shooting, and have enjoyed teaching my kids about gun safety. My son and I shoot some clays from time to time. I sleep a little more soundly knowing that if some fool tries to enter my castle uninvited I can blow them away. 
I’ve had rifles and shotguns since about age 14.
I’ve carried a concealed handgun every day since I was 21.
Not counting the 5 years as a cop, and the occasional display - no firing - that **that **entails, I’ve used a gun to protect myself or others about a dozen times in the last 25 years. It’s a certainty that my life and others would be drastically different or over had I not.
I also enjoy taking my wife, son and daughter to the range or shooting clays in some fashion.
A gun certainly improved my life.
I used one to shoot at someone’s ass a couple of times once. The message being sent was “I am tired of your shit, don’t fuck with me anymore, and next time I won’t just be shooting in your general direction (and hoping not to hit you), I’ll actually be TRYING to hit you”.
The message was received and well understood. Things greatly improved after that. Ironically, it was HIS gun that I sent the message with.
No, aside from shooting poisonous snakes. I’m too chicken to use a hoe.
I inherited some guns when my husband died. They mean nothing to me and I’m giving them away.
My firearms are predominantly used for sporting/recreational purposes, punchin’ holes in paper, dusting clay targets and the like, thankfully, I have never had to raise a firearm against another person, and hope to Og I never will
I wish I could also say that I’ve never ended the life of an animal, and that my firearms are all range toys/wallet lighteners, but that wouldn’t strictly be true, I have had to use them to put down a potentially rabid fox, put down a human-habituated coyote that would have eaten our pet cats and dogs, and remove three woodchucks that had been destroying my garden
I HATED doing this, as I’m a live-and-let-live kinda’ guy, but those garden plants are for MY use, the pets are extended family members, and the fox was so sick it was being chased around by horses, what if it bit one of them, or the cats and dogs, or Og forbid, my niece or nephew <shudder>
Thankfully, this season has been “varmint” free so far, and I hope it stays that way, I hope the only lead I expend this season will be on the target range