My father was not a rifle loony in the sense that I am--in fact he thought I was loony from about the time I turned 12, and started reading a lot about rifles!
But he was a little bit of a gun nut, and hunter. He grew up on a homestead in central Montana during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and everybody in the family hunted for meat. He shot a bunch of small game, and one deer (they were scarce back then).
His father (who was not really a hunter) committed suicide in the mid-30s, but luckily his mother was an avid hunter and great shot, and he learned to shoot very well. But his enthusiasm for hunting wasn't as great as hers (apparently I got her part of the genetics). After working for Boeing during WWII (he was diabetic so couldn't be in the military), he became an English professor.
But he did have a small collection of firearms, including a .22 rimfire Colt Frontier Scout he purchased with the proceeds of the first (of a few) articles he sold on Western history to what were then called "pulp" magazines. He got paid $50, and had always wanted a Colt single-action, so we went down to the Powder Horn in downtown Bozeman, and he bought the Scout. (For those old-time Bozemanites, George Dieruf Sr. did the deal.) I was just tall enough to see over the counter.
Anyway, he did buy an occasional gun, usually just to plink with, but also bought a Western Field (Marlin 336) .30-30 carbine when I started big game hunting, largely so he could go along with me. And he killed a mule deer doe with it, running, at around 50 yards--on opening day of my first season
He died when I was a month shy of my 17th birthday, and while I suspect he may have liked my ending up being a professional writer (many English professors yearn to be full-time writers), he might have been a little puzzled at how much gun writing I do--but might have argued about some of what I write!
