Former Editor Richard Venola was Guns & Ammo's 12th

Richard was born in Glendale, California, in 1958. His father was a service rifle competitor and a veteran of the military, so Richard gets his love of firearms and the outdoors naturally.

A journalism major at the University of Montana in Missoula, Venola served in the Marine Corps from 1978 to 1996, first as enlisted before becoming an officer. After being honorably discharged, he then began freelancing as a gun writer before accepting a position as associate editor of RifleShooter magazine in 2004. In 2007, he was promoted to the position of Guns & Ammo's 12th editor.

Richard was certainly one of the more colorful of the G&A helmsters, he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to firearms. His vision of the magazine was that it should be fun as well as informative. Richard's philosophy of not writing down to the readership resulted in some of the more interesting articles to appear in G&A's pages.

He was succeeded by Guns & Ammo's current and 13th editor, Jim Bequette.