“Some cool old ads at the link. I remember when Americans could buy anti aircraft guns and antitank guns and ammunition through the mail with no government interference. It was anytime before 1968.”
I remember those days. There were ads for 20MM Solothurns in the magazines and we didn’t lock our doors. A long time gone.
> A boy learned to shoot before the training wheels came off his bike. He could even carry his rifle to school for shooting practice without causing a panic that resulted in a S.W.A.T. team locking down the school.
I remember those days, and taking my Dad’s old single shot, breach loading Remington 22 Long Rifle to class every Thursdays. I attended Buckroe Beach Junior High in Hampton, Virginia at the time. I’d be willing to be that if that school is still around that it’s a “Gun Free Zone” complete with PC police.
This is insanity, idiots like that should be stopped from breeding!
GCA68 is Unconstitutional!
“Guns used to be a normal and acceptable part of American life. Guns were accepted as necessary tools and respectable recreational equipment ... even for children.”
True, this part of American life has eroded...but not everywhere. Carried my “necessary tool” with me into work this morning. All my kids and my 10 year old grandson have been schooled in gun safety...he loves to go shooting with his dad and me.
BTW...this is Alabama.
ROLL TIDE!
BTW, live antitank guns and ammo have been federally taxed and controlled as destructive devices since the National Firearms Act of 1934. What was sold without control before 1968 were deactivated war trophies (DEWATS).
I believe they still are. Those who don't accept it have removed themselves from American life.
I was just talking about this with the younger guys at my job.
I wonder when the Hollywood librats will make a movie about those days, contrasting it with today.
A factual movie, I mean.
This reminds me of an old episode of the Andy Griffith Show. That may seem an odd place to see evidence of the changing times but you can find it there nonetheless.
The Scenario :
The carnival is in Mayberry and Opie wants to win a prize for his father's birthday. He takes the money he has earned to the carnival's shooting gallery to win a fancy electric razor for his father, Andy Taylor.
The Original Story:
The carnival shooting gallery has the rifle sights bent ensuring that neither Opie, nor anyone else using that particular rifle, can win a prize.
The Changing Story :
Going to the carnival and shooting at targets was a common event, one I experienced myself at age ten or eleven. When I saw the original airing of this episode the theme of the story was about the carnival folks trying to cheat the boy and how the boy's father, Mayberry's Sheriff, made things right.
Today, the story has an altogether different theme.
Today the story for me is trying to picture ten year Opie Taylor with a loaded rifle in sight of mothers with children in tow on a crowded midway.
The evidence of the liberal’s foolish quest for something he clearly does not understand is his logic. The liberal’s flawed logic is exposed when the individual’s inherent right protected by the 2nd Amendment to America’s Constitution is the topic.
Whenever a deranged person abuses his right to own a gun and harms another person the liberal’s logic causes an immediate reaction, which is to blame all those who did not do it.
Here is a global example of the flawed liberal logic. We pass laws because we cannot trust the people, but we trust the people to obey the laws we pass.
When you apply that specifically to the 2nd Amendment, you get this liberal position. The people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which the people will abide by, because the people can be trusted.
I can remember as a boy in the early 60’s shopping with my Daddy at the Western Auto for guns. Army surplus stores reeking of cosmoline and selling real Army surplus, crates of M1 rifles, bayonettes, etc.
BFL
I have this type of revolver except it's a S&W, looks identical, has a safety on the back of the grip like a 1911 .45 ACP
I still hve some old magazines with advertisements for army surplus Enfield handguns for sale. $19.95. Drop a check in the mail, and it will be delivered railway express. The shipping cost as much as the pistol!
These adds were in all men’s magazines, outdoor mags, Western mags, Popular mechanical mags.
Then there were those full page adds in the gun mags for just about everything you ever wanted in the way of army surplus, including demilled Thompson and Sterling sub machine guns. Demilled by hitting the feed ramp with a weld. then the government found crimnals were filing off the weld.
And who can forget those 1900 era SEARS catalogs with the origional $2.00 pistols for sale by mail!
I got my first rifle in 1961 when I was 14, It was a Christmas gift bought for me by a felon who had been in prison in 1942. No paperwork required.
In 1968 he could no longer touch a firearm due to the 1968 Gun Control Law.
I bought my own rifle in 1964 when Iwas 17 and had been buying ammo since I was 14. 45 Cents for 50 rounds of .22 shorts. Again no paperwork required.
I used to see guns for sale in gun stores, hardware stores, clothing stores, gas stations, grocery stores.
Anyone who was not around in 1968 should go to the Library and read the newspaper editorials and major magazines of the time and see what pressure gun owners wer under. From the killing of John Kennedy to the killing of Robert Kennedy ther was a major effort by the liberal press to force gun registration and controls on the public.
To me this was the real beginning of the split between conservatives and leftists.