''I'm a real animal lover,'' she said.
''I didn't want to hurt anything.''
She is still an animal lover, she says, but the embargo on hunting has been lifted.
Gemma, a 17-year-old Taieri College pupil, cannot quite remember when she did start shooting, but it was a while ago, she said.
''I started practising when I was 14, was it?'' she said, looking at her mother.
Now, she is a clay-target medal holder.
This month, Gemma won two bronze medals at the New Zealand Clay Target Association National Competition.
She was competing against other entry-level shooters - C grade - including, as luck would have it, her father.
Paul Bonney has been shooting since he was his daughter's age, but he also competed as a C-grade shooter because he had taken a break from shooting and did not have an official grade from the association.
He started clay shooting again after his daughter began.
Her dad placed second in one of the shoots where she placed third, and in the other he did not receive a medal, Gemma said with a wry smile.
Since Gemma took up shooting, she and her father have also gone hunting together.
''I still love animals,'' Gemma - proud owner of a cat, dog and rabbit named Spencer - said. But, as her mother put it, she has ''gotten the bug'' for gunmanship, and found something of a purpose in it.
''You [go hunting] for a reason, not just because you want to kill everything. You do it for a reason,'' she said.
- Carla Green
