5 times for me.

1: I was 9 or 10 and had really pissed off my dad before I went to bed. Then he got in a fight with my mom and the light flips on. He comes in holding his glock and my mom follows crying and pleading. I'm on the top bunk, and he points it right next to my head yelling at her "is this what you want?" I'm scared shitless and completely freeze up, silent, shutting my eyes. They argue for a minute but it feels like forever, and then dad puts the gun down and says "I love you, son" and the light goes off and they leave.

2: 12 or 13 this time, dad is explaining gun safety to me and my little brother in the living room. He has a new .45 that he's real excited about and takes the clip out to demonstrate the safety switch. He points it at my brother (who's 4 years younger than me) and I told dad pretty protectively not to point it at him, so he points it at me and back at him and back at me. Brother starts whimpering and I reach out to push his hand away. Dad gets pissed at the defiance and points it right between us at the floor and pulls the trigger explaining there's no bullets in it. The gun fires the one that was left in the chamber and there's a resounding silence around the hole in the carpet except for the crash of a glass in the kitchen that my mom dropped. She slowly peeks around the corner and after a few seconds of reflection on everyone's part, my dad chimes up all chipper-like and says "okay so we learned something..."

3: I'm 16, sophomore year, walking home from school with my regular group of friends. We're still in the field in front of the school by the main road. Earlier in the day, someone had spraypainted "Stop6" on the wall, which is a nearby neighborhood with a bad reputation and recently started having beef with some people at our school. There were rumors around the halls about a shooting happening that day but it never happened. So I remember looking up at a contrail from a plane and vaguely recall a black car in my peripheral that never would have stayed with me if they hadn't shot me. I was near the center of my group when all the sudden everyone is staring at me. Slowly I come to realize there's a ring in my ears and that everything doesn't feel normal. One of my best friends says "are you okay??" I feel the drip of blood coming down my nose and I put together that I'd just been shot. I don't want to touch my forehead, or the back of my head. I rub blood off my face and then kinda lose consciousness. According to the people around me I started babbling about not believing in God and that's why this happened. Last thing I remember, I was convinced I was about to die. I apparently took a swing at a buddy (big guy, gentle giant but could have rocked me in any other circumstance), and then marched back to the school. At the doors of the school is where my memory kicked back in, I was banging on the glass while the notoriously bitchy security guard on the other side was yelling at me to "go home and call 911". I hit the glass hard enough that it pushed in the little silicone or whatever it's made of seal and broke my pinky knuckle and another guard showed up to unlock the door. Nurses office, I calm down, mom shows up, then cops. They combed the field and found a casing by the road of a .22. The way they explained it, a .22 is traditionally a hunting weapon designed to penetrate the body and ricochet around doing damage. So luckily I got hit in one of the thickest, hardest bones- cranium, and it deflected. Never made it to my brain. All I got was a concussion and a hairline cranial fracture. I wasn't targeted, just got the lucky random bullet.

4: 25 years old, lifelong alcoholic in the throws of a pity party depression. Girlfriend is fed up with me for every good reason and in a stupor I go to my absent roommate's room and grab his gun from the case beside his bed. I think it was a kimber. I sit there holding it at my face, not really intending to do it, don't even know it was loaded honestly. But sat there for about 10 or 20 minutes, crying. Roommate (incidentally the same kid who asked me years before if I was okay) comes home and comes and takes the gun away telling me "this isn't cool, man". He kept it hidden until we moved out.

5: Next year at the gas station across from my next place, dude robbed me at gunpoint while I was there to buy cigarettes. I just gave him my wallet and phone and canceled my cards when I got home and got a new license.

I'm now 34, happily married with a 3 year old in a comfortable house and rising credit score. I hope to never have another gun pointed at me.