From the time my Dad was about 12 (late ‘30s) until he joined the Navy he routinely hunted near the Pennypack Creek on the grounds where Jeane’s Hospital now stands in Philadelphia. He’d walk there from his Fox Chase home with his Sears double barrel shotgun in his hands. Nobody thought a thing of it. Passing drivers smiled and waved.
Try doing that today.
I hear you, Lancey.
Back when I went to high school in east Texas, my friends and I would take our shotguns in the trunk so we could go dove hunting after school.
Before that, when I was in elementary school, I can remember my friend Mike bringing his .22 that he got for Christmas to school for show and tell. He demonstrated how the action worked and how to load it, then it was passed around the room where we all got to shoulder it (aimed away from other people, as the teacher incorporated a gun safety lesson).
As far as I know, Mike, nor anyone in that class which, by the way, heard that JFK was killed over the same elementary school intercom has killed anybody with a gun.
Quanah