Life before gun control laws.

[Guest PapaB]

Let's hear stories about life before gun control laws began to erode the 2nd Amendment.

 

There was a time in this country when you could mail order a gun from several stores (remember Montgomery Ward?) and the postman would deliver it to your door. Western Auto was another store you could buy a gun from, including guns branded in their name.

 

Let's hear actual stories about what getting a gun was like back then. I think too many of us are focused on slowing down the spread of gun control when we should be fighting to reverse it. Yeah, it'll be a tough fight but, if not us, then who?

[Oh Shoot]

Let's hear stories about life before gun control laws began to erode the 2nd Amendment.

 

There was a time in this country when you could mail order a gun from several stores (remember Montgomery Ward?) and the postman would deliver it to your door. Western Auto was another store you could buy a gun from, including guns branded in their name.

 

Let's hear actual stories about what getting a gun was like back then. I think too many of us are focused on slowing down the spread of gun control when we should be fighting to reverse it. Yeah, it'll be a tough fight but, if not us, then who?

 

Just a few quick random thoughts,

 

You're talking pre 1968 with the mail order stuff, so only us older timers are gonna have input.

 

I'm in the generation where half the pickup trucks in the high school parking lot had a rifle or shotgun in the window rack, and probably most guns were bought at the local hardware store. All the boys had pocket knives and I can remember playing mumblypeg (root the peg) during grammar school recess. Used my own rifle in Boy Scouts to get the Marksmanship merit badge, and two of our scoutmasters would bring along both rifles and handguns on some camp outs for everyone to shoot, etc.

 

Didn't have to be 21 to buy a handgun before '68 either, only 18.

 

If you look back, most all these major gun acts were precipitated by the actions of just a few criminals that shocked the sensibility of the public.

 

Capone and other famous hoods in the '30s, Oswald and Sirhan and Ray in the 60's, Chapman and Hinckley in the 80's, etc.

 

What seems to be new for the most part  is the switch of the impetus stemming from precisely targeted public figure victims to dispassionate random mass killings, Columbine,  VaTech, Ft. Hood, Aurora, Sandy Hook.

 

- OS

Edited February 7, 2013 by Oh Shoot

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I remember pretty much the same, being one of the older members. That hardware store where I had my first job had a fine selection of all

types of guns and I drooled over them when I was a kid. The mail order stopped after the Kennedy assassination. The only reason that I

remember, any way.

 

I had a Montgomery Wards .22lr rifle in my bedroom and took it out often, hunting squirrels, and just having a blast shooting it. Life was so

much more simple back then. I don't remember crime being any different back then, either, just not having the 24/7/365 news reporting

being the difference.

[DWARREN123]

I remember as a kid going down to Western Auto to buy 22lr and a rifle. No questions asked.

[mcurrier]

I remember my Dad ordering guns through catalogs (Cabelas and others) in the mid-60's and the mailman would deliver them (pistols and rifles).  And...we lived in NY (upstate) no less.  My dad would leave a gift wrapped and boxed bottle of JWB in the mailbox at Christmas for the mailman.  Ahhh...the good ol' days.  Times surely have changed.

[vontar]

OS,

 

Not as old but I remember playing  mumblypeg (root the peg) on camping trips.

[Guest capt usa]

Grew up in the country so most of my guns were purchased, loaned or given from friends or family. As pre-teen and into my teens we were a "gang" of boys that spent more summer nights outdoors than in. We frog hunted with .22's and ate them over fires. In high school I carried my deer rifle in the back window during season and hunted ever afternoon. We even had turkey shoots on the football field in the fall (school was in town) and kids that didn't drive brought guns on the bus. We carried knives, chewing tobaccoo and smokes and had a place out front to enjoy our recess time. I wish my boys could enjoy that kind of school, may be why I liked going.

[Rowdy]

My best memory: Western Auto, I can still remember the unique smell in there, it was great. Anyway, apparently Mr. Sanders felt that .22 ammo wasn't "real" ammo, he kept it on the shelf with the BB ammo and supplies. He was always good to us kids, great man. Imagine what would happen now if someone sold .22 ammo to an 11 yr old!

[10-Ring]

Not old enough to experience the pre nanny state.  My first girlfriends dad had an old Western Auto single shot .22 that sat in a corner.  Once I was trusted there I was instructed to use it to shoot all squirrels on site.  I remember that being a very sweet shooting gun and I never remember missing with it.  I've kept my eyes open for one like it every since.

[Guest PapaB]

Although not a 'real' gun, reading some of these stories reminds me of being able to get a BB gun with green stamps (and top value and others).

 

I always enjoyed looking at the guns in the local hardware store and the people there never gave a kid any grief for window shopping by himself.

 

My grandparents lived on the same street as Harrington Richardson in the 50's and 60's. I passed by there many, many times.

[Murgatroy]

To be fair gun control laws started a while before any of us were alive.

 

Tennessee had an Army/Navy Law back in the 1800s, and if I am not mistaken, it was THE FIRST gun control law.

 

Then there was the NFA Act of 1934...

 

But yeah, 1968 was a bad one.

 

So was 1986.

 

The earliest law prohibiting inexpensive handguns was enacted in Tennessee, in the form of the "Army and Navy" law, passed in 1879, shortly after the 14th amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1875; previous laws invalidated by the constitutional amendment had stated that black freedmen could not own or carry any manner of firearm.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Murgatroy

[UncleJak]

I remeber the hardware store in town sold all kinds of pistols.  I was there the day they sold their last gun.