I was entranced the first time I looked down a gun-sight with a finger on the trigger. It seemed to me the most private, the most intense moment of conversation with oneself, so to speak, with that split-second of right decision coming and going all the time, almost answering the movements of one’s mind. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I feel that the religious excitement that is supposed to come to people who meditate on the flame of a single candle in an otherwise dark room was not greater than the pleasure I felt when I looked down a gun-sight and became very close to my own mind and consciousness. In a second the scale of things could alter and I could be lost in something like a private universe. 

From “Half a Life” by V.S.  Naipaul

People’s reactions to guns are as diverse as their personalities might be. Some are seduced by the idea of shooting a gun and others hate it. As for me, I don’t even remember how I felt the first time I pressed a trigger. It happened when I was in the military. I was probably preoccupied how far off the target my bullet would hit and whether I would be able to stay on my feet or fall on my butt.