I'll be 32 on the 18th of this month. My 32 year old wife is an avid shooter, and NRA member to boot. I'm a life time NRA member myself, and I've belonged to several shooting clubs. Right now, I belong to one that's only 10 minutes from my home, and it's 400 yards to the far end of the rifle range, so it's a hoot. My dad started taking me hunting when I was 3 years old, and my daughter started going a little younger than that. She's 4 now, almost 5, and she has her own BB gun. In a couple of years, she'll have her first .22LR. My 1 year old son is named Henry, after the first practical lever design, and he's happy to wear kid-sized ear protection while dad makes noise with the guns, so I expect he'll grow up in the shooting tradition, too.
Don't despair, there are a number of us that are trying to secure the future of America's traditions.
Many of us young 'uns don't reveal our age for a very simple reason. Age, rather than intelligence or experience, is sometimes used as a deciding factor in online debates. Some of us choose not to reveal our youth, because our contributions will be dismissed without fair consideration. Most of the guys in gun forums are not guilty of this, but some do make a point of saying, "I've been blowing up S&W revolvers since before your daddy was born, so your opinion about not blowing up revolvers with untested loads means nothing to me." After running into this sort of mentality on several other forums, I just stopped giving my age in my profile.
It's too bad that some folks on the internet mistake age for experience, because most people are very fair. It's much easier to spend time talking at the range, where many of the members are old enough to be retired (which makes them older than my dad). In person, folks are almost always friendlier than on the net, and groups on paper speak for themselves. Casting techniques, lube recipes, and loads are always welcome when the holes are close together, even from a whipper snapper like me.
